The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went.
In a long-awaited document, the Church's International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation", according to the US-based Catholic News Service, which obtained a copy on Friday.
The thumbs-down verdict on limbo had been expected for years and the document, called "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised," was seen as most likely to be final since limbo was never formally part of Church doctrine.
Pope Benedict authorised the publication of the document. According to the CNS report, the 41-page document says the theologians advising the Pope concluded that since God is merciful he "wants all human beings to be saved".
It says grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for children, CNS, which is owned by the US Catholic Bishops Conference, quoted the document as saying.
Limbo, which comes from the Latin word meaning "border" or "edge", was considered by medieval theologians to be a state or place reserved for the unbaptised dead, including good people who lived before the coming of Christ.
"Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptised infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision (of God)," the document said, according to CNS which is part of the US Catholic Bishops Conference.
The Church teaches that baptism removes original sin which stained all souls since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. The commission has been working on the document for some time and members have said in the past that it would recommend that the concept of limbo be scrapped.
In writings before his election as Pope in 2005, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made it clear he believed the concept of limbo should be abandoned because it was "only a theological hypothesis" and "never a defined truth of faith" The Catholic Church's official catechism, issued in 1992 after decades of work, dropped the mention of limbo. In his Divine Comedy, Dante placed virtuous pagans and great classical philosophers, including Plato and Socrates, in limbo.