The city council condemned their position, ordered them to desist from their meetings, and ordered all unbaptized babies to be baptized within eight days.

That is why, according to traditional theology, unbaptized babies have to languish in limbo for all eternity.

The Vatican accepted the view that unbaptized babies did not, as at first believed, go straight to Hell but to a special area of limbo, "limbus infantium".

Christians relegated the souls of unbaptized babies to limbo; the Japanese made room and welcomed all.

I remembered when Grandmere Catherine had been called to his home one night to drive away a couchemal, an evil spirit that lurks about when an unbaptized baby dies.

He carefully poured a line of white powder, made from equal parts salt, sand, and the crushed bones of unbaptized babies, across the threshold.

Limbo, the place where unbaptized babies went, seems to have disappeared.

I remember once going with Grandmere Catherine to drive away a couchemal," she said, "an evil spirit that lurks about when an unbaptized baby dies.

There is a corner of the churchyard where the grass grows long, and where the suicides, drunks, unbaptized babies and other supposed criminals are laid.

It makes you wonder about God up there on His throne with no mercy for the little unbaptized babies.