I must need more coffee.  I cannot tell what idea this is actually condemning.

I probably should have left out the bold.

It's condemning the view that it is error to hold that unbaptized infants do not go into the fire.

Quote from: gladius_veritatis

I must need more coffee.  I cannot tell what idea this is actually condemning.

It's condemning the view that it is error to hold that unbaptized infants do not go into the fire.

Um... I think I need some coffee too.

There are about 4 negatives in there -- I can't figure it out this early in the day either.

condemning (bad) that it's bad to hold that UN-baptized DO NOT go into hell.

Why can't it be made simpler?

It's condemning the idea that Limbo is a Pelagian fable.

I would say though, it can't just be condemning the idea that it is Pelagian in particular.  It's condemning the assertion that defenders of limbo are in error.

I imagine Catholic Martyr has an idea of it similar to that used to justify Dignitatis Humanae - that the previous condemnations of religious liberty do not condemn the principle, just the excess.

Attempting to reduce these condemnations to formal logic often results in a distortion of the meaning.

That's why we see misinterpretation of the Council of Florence.

And it is by contorting the real meaning of this that they try to say Dignitatis Humanae does not violate it:

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,"2 viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;"3 and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."4

Someone who dies in original sin cannot be in the Church.

However, the proposition condemned by Auctorem Fidei does not only say belief in limbo is not a Pelagian fable.  It means that one cannot use the argument that there is no middle place between heaven and hell to deny limbo.  It means that it is rash, false, and injurious to Catholic schools to condemn the opinion that unbaptized infants do not go into the fire.

Break it down as you see it, CM.

Break it down as you see it, CM.

I already did above.  The addition of the words "just as if by this very fact," are the words by which his entire statement is qualified.  Read over my explanation again.  Believe me, I spent a lot of time mulling this one over because of the apparent contradiction between this and Florence.

Don, the theological opinion of limbo without fire is contrary to the dogmas of Florence, unless one makes one of the following assertions (by which one would fall into heresy anyway):

1) Unbaptized infants are inside the Church.
2) Those dogmas do not have to be understood as they were declared, but only in historical context.

The first is contrary to all kinds of dogmas, and the second denies that these dogmas are infallible, irreformable truths which haven fallen from heaven.

Just because a proposition which is contrary to a dogma has not been formally condemned by name doesn't mean that we can hold to it, or that it is not heretical.  A dogma is a Divine and absolute truth.  To contradict it in any way is to be heretical.