Soul Music And The Limbo Rot

Sun Herald

Sunday December 11, 2005

TERRY SMYTH

MOSES couldn't believe his eyes. Plato was skipping down the hallowed halls of Limbo. Not only was he skipping, he was grinning, giggling and high-fiving everyone he passed: Abraham, Socrates, Aristotle - even Horace, although those two had never really hit it off.

Plato, despite being a great sage, was a dour bugger at the best of times, so Moses knew his Greek philosopher mate must be the bearer of very good news indeed. And so he was. "Moses, old patriarch, old pal," he chirped, thrusting a memo under Moses's nose, "You're not going to believe this!"

"Shush!" said Moses, raising a calming hand, "You'll wake the babies."

But Plato was far too excited to calm down. "Who cares?" he roared, "At last we're outa here! It's official!"

And so it was. Limbo was to close forthwith. After 700 years, the day they thought might never come was here.

It had been a long time coming. In the 13th century, church fathers gathered to figure out what to do with the souls of babies who died before they had been baptised. In Catholic tradition, all people were born with "original sin", that being the sin of Adam and Eve - which, said Biblical scholars, could have been anything from eating forbidden fruit to playing hide the sausage or even jaywalking.

Unbaptised babies tainted with original sin could not enter Heaven and, since they'd done nothing wrong, could hardly be condemned to Hell or Purgatory - a sort of temporary Hell for minor offences such as eating a pie on Friday.

So the church fathers, in their wisdom, opened Limbo as a sort of celestial transit lounge not only for unbaptised babies but also for pre-Christian sages respected by the church, such as Plato, Moses and company.

Centuries later Pope John Paul II, noting the Limbo franchise's increasingly poor return to shareholders, asked his advisory body, the International Theological Commission, to consider the pros and cons of scrapping it. Now, with the backing of the new Pope, Benedict XVI, the commission had made a momentous decision - Limbo was in the hands of the receivers and its occupants were to be relocated.

But to where? The sages didn't have long to wonder. Within days, billions of unbaptised children were gone, fast-tracked to Heaven on special visas. "It's amazing what a change of administration can do," said Moses, shaking his head. "All those eons we've been burping babies and changing nappies. Now it's see you later, surrogates."

As for the sages' fates, that became clear when the heavies arrived - St Peter, as mouthpiece for upstairs, and the Archangel Gabriel, providing the muscle. "Cases will be assessed on individual merits," Peter assured them, although he hinted very strongly that the interviews would be a mere formality.

One by one the sages filed into the saintly presence, and one by one they returned with smiles on their dials and a "Paradise Pass" stamped on their hands.

Then came Plato's turn. Slicking his hair and straightening his toga, he entered the interview room naturally nervous but nonetheless confident, only to be confronted by a scowling saint and an archangel avoiding eye contact. Plato, thinking on his feet, reminded them that they would not be having this conversation were it not for his concept of the soul - the very bedrock of the Christian religion.

"True," Peter said at last, "but the trouble is you're gay, openly gay, and we have strict new rules about that sort of thing."

Which is why Limbo has stayed open, unofficially. And if, for its lone occupant, each day now seems an eternity, that's because it is.