| Now that I have my sunglasses on...
I believe the Vatican recently revised their perspective on this. My grandmother (as an example) had a baby who was stillborn. My stillborn uncle was buried outside of the "sanctified" portion of the cemetary, because at that time, unbaptised babies could not be buried in the regular section. It caused my grandmother *enormous* emotional anguish (on top of the "regular anguish" that goes along with losing a child) to think that her child was not going to heaven, all for the lack of a little sprinkling of holy water on the brow.
I recall that about the time that our own daughter was stillborn, which would have been ~~~50 years later, that it was mentioned on a support group forum that the Catholic church no longer forbade unbaptised babies from being buried in the regular section of the cemetary. I don't really know what that means from the perspective of what supposedly happens to their souls, but I thought it was a strange and rather random decision. |