A new blog: Philosophia Perennis

The origin of same-sex attraction

For some, not for all?

I am familiar with some of the stuff that has been published online and through Ignatius Press.
There are organizations like NARTH and Courage.

It's been a while since I've read the models presented in those books--I was thinking about the lack of affection from a father and the lack of security in one's self-image, coupled with the flexibility of human desire (in the will), and when it is subverted by emotional needs. Add to this a feedback loop (the use of pleasure)--self-abuse with pornography--would it not be possible to reinforce certain desires as a result? And if one is not clear on the distinction between love and affection and sex, could not one project a same-sex attraction back into memories of childhood? A desire for affection from others as a part of friendship is rather normal--it isn't the same as a desire for sex, though some think that the use of sex as a sign of affection justifies any sort of sex.
So one's own psychological need for affection, coupled with sexual appetite--could this not lead to same-sex attraction and temptations?

Because of the feedback loop, isn't it possible that anything can turn human beings on, with the right sort of stimulus-pleasure-reinforcement loop? What then of the promptings ab malo?

Is there a similar genesis in some women? New fact sheet.

I have read that babies who are not touched will become depressed and may even die. Human beings need to be touched as a part of their normal psychological development--and it seems to me that the sense of touch really is the most basic in communicating affection and perceiving it. The senses are tied to the development of psychic life and emotional well-being, and we should not be surprised that as animals, things can go haywire during emotional development, subverting reason, as it were, later in life.

In many cultures where the ideal for males is not to express themselves through their body may still be able to compensate through fathers who communicate affection through their words. But it is only one step away from the father who does not communicate his affection at all.


Dr. Joseph Nicolosi on Catholic Answers, August 25, 2008--mp3, Real.
I caught the last 10 minutes on Monday; Dr. Nicolosi talked about displaced affection.

B16: On the Pope's Mission

On the Pope's Mission

"To Make Present Among Men the Peace of God"

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today before reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

This Sunday's liturgy addresses the twofold question that Jesus one day posed to his disciples, to us Christians, and to every man and woman. First he asks them: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They told him that for some he was John the Baptist come back to life, for others, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then the Lord directly asked the disciples: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter speaks decisively and with enthusiasm on behalf of all: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." A solemn proclamation of faith that the Church has continued to repeat ever since.

We too today desire to proclaim with deep conviction: Yes, Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God! We do this knowing that Christ is the true "treasure" for which it is worth sacrificing everything; he is the friend who never abandons us, because he knows the most intimate longings of our heart. Jesus is the "Son of the living God," the promised Messiah, who has come to earth to offer salvation and to satisfy the thirst for life and love that inhabits every human being. How much humanity would gain by welcoming this proclamation that brings joy and peace with it!

"You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." In response to this inspired profession of faith from Peter, Jesus says: "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven."

This is the first time that Jesus speaks of the Church, whose mission is the actuation of the great design of God to gather the whole of humanity into one family in Christ. The mission of Peter, and of his successors, is precisely to serve this unity of the one Church of God made up of pagans and Jews; his indispensable ministry is to make sure that the Church never identifies herself with any particular nation or culture, but that she be the Church of all peoples, to make present among men -- who are marked by countless divisions and contrasts -- the peace of God, the unity of those who have become brothers and sisters in Christ: This is the unique mission of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter.

Before the enormous responsibility of this task, I feel more and more the obligation and importance of the service to the Church and the world that has been entrusted to me. Because of this I ask you dear brothers and sisters to support me with your prayer, so that, faithful to Christ, together we can announce and bear witness to his presence in our time. May Mary, whom we confidently invoke as Mother of the Church and Star of Evangelization, obtain this grace for us.

[Following the Angelus, the Pope said the following:]

The growing tensions around the world in recent weeks is cause for lively concern. We must note, with bitterness, the threat of a progressive deterioration in the climate of confidence and cooperation that should characterize relations between nations. In the present circumstances, how can we not measure the difficulty with which humanity strives to form that common awareness of being the "family of nations" that John Paul II indicated as the ideal to the general assembly of the United Nations? We must deepen the awareness of being united by a common destiny, that, in the final analysis, is a transcendent destiny (Cf. "Message for the World Day of Peace," Jan. 1, 2006, No. 6), to avert the return to nationalistic conflicts that in other historical periods have had such tragic consequences.

The recent events have weakened the confidence in many that such experiences had been consigned to the past. But we must not give in to pessimism! We must instead actively commit ourselves to reject the temptation to confront new situations with old systems. Violence must be repudiated! The moral force of law, equitable and transparent negotiations to settle controversies, beginning with those linked to the territorial integrity and self-determination of peoples, fidelity to the word given, pursuit of the common good: These are some of the principal routes to take, with tenacity and creativity, to build fruitful and sincere relations and to guarantee to present and future generations times of concord and moral and civil progress!

Let us transform these thoughts and these desires into prayer, so that all the members of the international community and those, in particular, who have been given great responsibility, will work with generosity to re-establish the superior motivations of justice and peace. Mary, Queen of peace, intercede for us!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

[Then the Holy Father greeted the people in several languages. In English, he said:]

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus prayer. Today's Liturgy reminds us that as Christians we profess with Simon Peter that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. As members of the Church may we always find the courage to live faithfully and bear witness in word and deed to Christ our Lord and Saviour. I wish you all a pleasant stay in Castel Gandolfo and Rome, and a blessed Sunday!

© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Michael Liccione on the nature/grace question: Backward Christian soldiers

Pertinacious Papist has an interesting excerpt from a book written by Joseph Ratzinger in the mid-60s: Revisiting Pope Benedict on Ecumenism & Ecclesiology

Umberto Eco's homepage
Umberto Eco: Porta Ludovica - Author Homepage

Google Books: A Theory of Semiotics, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, more

AFP: Japanese create stem cells from wisdom teeth (via Drudge)

First skin, now wisdom teeth... what else will turn out to be a source of stem cells?

Scientists Use Skin To Create Stem Cells
Making Skin Cells Into Stem Cells Minus the Cancer | Wired Science
Human Skin Cells Reprogrammed Into Embryonic Stem Cells
Scientists Reach Stem Cell Milestone - TIME

From 2005: Stem Cell Breakthrough: No More Need to Destroy Embryos?

Avery Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For

Google Books

Within the formal object some Scholastic theologians, seeking additional precision, distinguished the objectum formale quod (the formal object which is attained, and by reason of which the material object is attained) from the objectum formale quo (that by virtue of which the formal object is attained). They hold that the formal object “which” (quod) is attained in faith is God himself, the Creator and Lord, and that the formal object “by which” (quo) God’s authority becomes accessible is God’s action in revealing. Thus the formal object, completely stated, is the “authority of the revealing God.”

St. Thomas and others who emphasize the intellectual aspect of faith frequently characterize the formal object as the First Truth (prima veritas). Thomists frequently express the formal object “by which” (objectum formale quo) as “the authority of the First Truth in revealing” or “the truthfulness of God in speaking.” (188)

From the current issue of Humanitas: Phillip W. Gray, Political Theology and the Theology of Politics: Carl Schmitt and Medieval Political Thought

Michael Nielsen's project: Book: "The Future of Science"
Six Rules for Rewriting

Translations of Logica--Niggardly Phil's blog, Analytics Free for All

CDF, Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation

Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation
Replies to Certain Questions of the Day

Cassiodorus

James J. O'Donnell's biography of Cassiodorus is available online. His Cassiodorus page.


Iirc, I've read reviews critical of his biography of St. Augustine, so I don't know if his biography of Cassiodorus is worth reading. But there do not seem to be many books about him.

James J. O'Donnell: Augustine of Hippo

UPenn site for Dr. O'Donnell. FM Interviews.

Other links:
CE
The Letters of Cassiodorus by Senator Cassiodorus - Project Gutenberg
Google Books: Cassiodorus: Explanation of the Psalms
Variae
Societas internationalis pro Vivario
Latin Library

Benedict XVI: ZENIT - On Boethius and Cassiodorus

David Gordon, Going off Rawls

Going off Rawls

He offers an ingenious substitute for utilitarianism. Instead of directly advancing a theory of his own, Rawls asks what we can do when faced with the fact that people do not agree on a common conception of the good. He answers that even if people do not agree on the good, they can accept a fair procedure for settling what the principles of justice should be. This is key to Rawls’s theory: whatever arises from a fair procedure is just.

But what is a fair procedure? Rawls again has an ingenious approach, his famous veil of ignorance. Suppose five children have to divide a cake among themselves. One child cuts the cake, but he does not know who will get the shares. He is likely to divide the cake into equal shares, an arrangement that the children, no doubt grudgingly, will admit to be fair. By denying the child information that would bias the result, a fair outcome can be achieved.

Rawls’s veil of ignorance generalizes the point of this example. He asks that we imagine a situation, which he calls the original position, in which people do not know their own abilities, tastes, and conceptions of the good. Under this limit, individuals motivated by self-interest endeavor to arrive at principles of justice. People behind the veil of ignorance are self-interested but in crucial respects ignorant.

Rawls thinks that everyone, regardless of his plan of life or conception of the good, will want certain “primary goods.” These include rights and liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth, and self-respect. Without these primary goods, no one can accomplish his goals, whatever they may be. Hence, individuals in the original position will agree that everyone should get at least a minimum amount of these primary goods. This is an inherently redistributionist idea, since the primary goods are not natural properties of human beings. If someone lacks these primary goods, they must be provided for him, if necessary at the expense of others.

Concretely, Rawls thinks that people will agree to two principles of justice. The first calls for the greatest liberty for each person, consistent with equal liberty for all. Surely, he suggests, even if you lack information about your actual goals, as the veil prescribes, you will want to be free to pursue whatever these goals turn out to be. Not only will people want liberty, Rawls thinks, they will give this principle priority over the other one, the principle of difference, which in part deals with distribution of economic goods. The two principles cannot be “traded off” against each other: economic equality, for example, cannot be achieved at the expense of liberty

A puzzle regarding Faith and authority

Aquinas on unbelief:

Unbelief may be taken in two ways: first, by way of pure negation, so that a man be called an unbeliever, merely because he has not the faith. Secondly, unbelief may be taken by way of opposition to the faith; in which sense a man refuses to hear the faith, or despises it, according to Isaiah 53:1: "Who hath believed our report?" It is this that completes the notion of unbelief, and it is in this sense that unbelief is a sin. (ST II II 10, 1)

and

Unbelief, in so far as it is a sin, arises from pride, through which man is unwilling to subject his intellect to the rules of faith, and to the sound interpretation of the Fathers. Hence Gregory says (Moral. xxxi, 45) that "presumptuous innovations arise from vainglory." (ST II II 10, 1 ad 3)

The puzzle that I would like to work on: What is the exact relationship between authority and Tradition and the supernatural virtue of Faith? If the content of the Faith is communicated through Sacred Tradition, can one reject the divinely-given authority of the Church and still have the true theological virtue of faith? And is it possible to accept that there is a divinely-instituted authority while misidentifying who holds that authority? In other words, is that error compatible with the virtue of faith? Can someone who truly believes in sola scriptura have the virtue of faith?

Aquinas on the hatred of God:

As shown above (I-II, 29, 1), hatred is a movement of the appetitive power, which power is not set in motion save by something apprehended. Now God can be apprehended by man in two ways; first, in Himself, as when He is seen in His Essence; secondly, in His effects, when, to wit, "the invisible things" of God . . . "are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Romans 1:20). Now God in His Essence is goodness itself, which no man can hate--for it is natural to good to be loved. Hence it is impossible for one who sees God in His Essence, to hate Him.

Moreover some of His effects are such that they can nowise be contrary to the human will, since "to be, to live, to understand," which are effects of God, are desirable and lovable to all. Wherefore again God cannot be an object of hatred if we consider Him as the Author of such like effects. Some of God's effects, however, are contrary to an inordinate will, such as the infliction of punishment, and the prohibition of sin by the Divine Law. Such like effects are repugnant to a will debased by sin, and as regards the consideration of them, God may be an object of hatred to some, in so far as they look upon Him as forbidding sin, and inflicting punishment. (ST II II 34, 1)

Now if someone knows that a commandment is divinely revealed, and refuses to follow it (and the matter is grave, etc.), that is a mortal sin. Perhaps it is possible to be in invincible ignorance even concerning some of the 10 commandments (broadly understood). However, if one knows that a precept is taught by the Church, and denies the validity of that precept by denying the authority of the one teaching it, is that a sin? Can a Catholic have 'legitimate' doubts about the authority of the Church and still have Faith? Would God move such a doubter through grace towards remedying his error?

Faith is not infused knowledge--it seems that God first move someone to believe in Him (this is easier if he has been baptized and received the infused virtue of Faith). And then, in order for him to receive what God has revealed to us, he must be moved to accept that there is an authority to impart this.

The Bible certainly teaches us certain truths--but is it enough? And does it claim to be the ultimate authority given to us here in this life? Someone who is ignorant of the Magisterium may be moved to accept various truths taught in the Bible through Faith. But certain misunderstandings or even errors may nonetheless remain, and cannot be purged until he is confronted with doubts or arguments against what he accepts on human faith.

Is the Bible so transparent that it can be understood apart from the Rule of Faith? It seems not...
The eunuch was looking for someone to explain the scriptures to him, recognizing (through grace?) that he needed a teacher. By what authority do bible teachers, scripture scholars or commenators teach the meaning of Sacred Scripture?How can their explanations be accepted on anything but human faith?

I was skimming through Cardinal Ratzinger's God's Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office. I should read through it when I have some time...

Energeia

ἐνέργεια

Western theology could appropriate ἐνέργεια-talk in reference to the acts of the 'new man' and say that they are 'divine'; the question is what is the primary analogate? God Himself? Or something other than God, the Divine Energies?

Brother André Marie’s Theology Weblog

hmm

Sandro Magister: The Pope Theologian Says: The Proof of God Is Beauty

The beauty of art and of music. The wonders of sanctity. The splendor of creation. This is how Benedict XVI defends the truth of Christianity, in a question-and-answer session with the priests of Brixen

A question regarding the theological virtue of faith

I remember writing a paper on the question of theological faith for a class at the seminary; in it I believe I wrote that it is possible for a non-Catholic to possess the virtue of theological faith and yet also hold to certain errors (on the basis of his own will and not through faith). I don't remember the details of that essay. I was reading through the Summa tonight on faith, and came across II II 5, 3. But is it not the case that a sincere Protestant believes that his church is the One True Church of Christ, and assents to the teachings of his church accordingly? A Protestant who does not knowingly and culpably reject the Catholic Church as the true Church, and is unaware that it is the Catholic Church which teaches the truths of the faith.

Through imperfect faith, he can believe in the more important truths (as embodied, for example in the Nicene Creed), which can sustain charity and a Christian spiritual life, and at the same time be ignorant that other 'less important' truths, which he rejects as being 'non-Christian,' actually have been revealed by God?

Faith is not the same as infused knowledge, but is mediated through human beings who have the divinely-given authority to teach. One must believe in God and that He has given authority to His Church to hand on what He has revealed... the error is not in his believing that there is such an authority, but in his identification with a particular person or group of people?

But perhaps the conclusion of this speculation is wrong. I will have to think of some objections when I have time.

What has caused the crisis?

At this thread over at NLM, Pontifical High Mass, Merton College, Oxford, "anonymous" has cited Geoffrey Hull's The Banished Heart in defense of his assertion that the Counter-Reformation was bad for the Church: "The direct chain of causation between the corrosive aspects of the counter-reformation and the current disaster are well-documented: The Banished Heart, G. Hull."

He goes on to write later:

the counter-reformation was merely the latest episode in the runnning battle those manichean/neo-platonist forces in the church (including, unfortunately, many of the church fathers - which does not mean that absolutely everything St Jerome wrote, for instance, was corrupted by these errors), usually but not exclusively comprising members of religious orders, have been waging against the secular clergy for centuries. It is important to note that the flashpoint is usually related to the fact that we are humans rather than angels (i.e., sex), and specifically the issue of clerical marriage amongst the diocesan clerics. The counter-reformation was merely by far, courtesy of the seminary system, the most successful attack by these forces.

Dr Hull notes in The Banished Heart how this radical change in spirituality in the latin church - which I would argue is essentially an attempt to monasticise the entire latin church to the extent possible - helped lead to the apostasy of complete nations - the latin countries of Europe. Then, we in the English-speaking world had to put up with Jansenism imported from Ireland. The net result of this was that by the 1950's, the church was ready to explode.

THe abuses in religious houses and seminaries that the corrupt spirituality of the c-r precipitated are well documented in many accounts of life in those institutions. In Australia, one can refer to "Cassocks in the Wilderness" and "The Priest Factory" by Christopher Geraghty, or with regard to England, "Seminary Boy" by John Cornwell. These two authors might well be lapsed catholics, but their accounts of pre-conciliar seminary life rang chillingly true when compared with my own (and others')largely appalling experiences in a post-concilliar traditionalist seminary, where I was refused medical treatment, and was rushed to hospital only at my insistence, when it was almost too late. I suppose, I was meant to "offer it up", and "exercise heroic virtue" or some similar nonsense.

The attempt to meld orthodoxy with heteropraxis which was the c-r was foredoomed to fail. Grace builds on nature, it doesn't destroy it. This is a reality that church of the c-r forgot, with the direst consequences.


Some forther reference works for those interested:

Married Priests and the Reforming Papacy: The Eleventh-Century Debates by Anne Llewellyn Barstow

(Good for the purposes of bibliography, and primary sources. Her attempts to seem to argue for a changing dogmatic theology in relation to the priesthood at the time of the Gregorian reforms are flawed. One thing that reading the primary sources should do is convince people that even saints - here St Gregory VII and St Peter Damian - are capable of making mistakes, and quite disastrous ones, too. But that's NOT in relation to the question of the emperor v. the pope).

Celibacy: Gift or Law? Heinz-Jurgen Vogels.

The theological and legal underpinning of the case for clerical marriage. The by-product is the undermining of the spirituality of the c-r. Very Thomistic in approach, without even citing St Thomas Aquinas.


A comprehensive study on this question, even exploring the connexion between the mediaeval heretics such as the Cathars, and the spirituality of the c-r is waiting to be writing by some student attempting a doctorate in theology.

The above is only the most rudimentary scratching of the surface. I haven't even dealt with the role of the Jesuits both for good and bad, and particularly with regard to the latter, the exaggerated and abusive notions of obedience propagated by them (also a significant cause of the current crisis).

A provocative narrative, but where is the evidence? How do we explain the Church's discipline on clerical celibacy, which goes back to the first millenium? And what is the "spirituality of the Counter-Reformation"? As for what happened to the Catholic countries of Europe--should we not focus instead on the conflict between the Church and the state and other forces opposed to the Church?

RORATE CÆLI: Authority and Recognition
Traditional Anglican Chaplaincy in France

International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy

International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy

Abstracts for the 2nd annual conference. I hope Michael Baur's paper will be published somewhere. Information on the third international conference. (Whoa! Dr. MacIntyre is turning 80!?! Wiki confirms it--he looks very good for his age!)

The special issue of Analyse & Kritik with the revised papers for this conference, Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, has been published.

Google Books: Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre (Polity)

Fr. Lev Gillet, “The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church”--Parts 3 and 4

Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?

A commentary on the address of Pope John Paul II to the XVIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society

By Bishop Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz, Bishop Robert F. Vasa, Walt F. Weaver, Paul A. Byrne, Richard G. Nilges, and Josef Seifert


Thanks to Sarge for bringing this to my attention.

Ordination of deaconesses

From EWTN, author unknown: Women Priests?
A Brief History of the Permanent Diaconate

Then there are these developments:
Church of Greece votes on female diaconate
Female Diaconate restored by Greek Holy Synod
Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Theological Consultation
Introduction to Liturgical Theology
Women in Orthodoxy, Past & Present: A Conference - The Byzantine Forum
A Chronology of the Diaconate
OrthodoxNews: Women
St. Nina Quarterly: "Orthodox Women and Pastoral Praxis"
The Historical Orthodox Deaconess
Orthodox Women's Network

see Canon 15 of the Council of Chalcedon: The Council of Chalcedon - 451 A.D.

So there's a claim that women were actually ordained at the altar, with the imposition of hands, and so on. (Or there are texts with such rituals.) But can there be an ordination without sacramental orders? (What is the word used in Latin and Greek to refer to the Sacrament of Order in the early Chruch? Do the Latins speak of Ordo?)

From Miriam-Webster:
ordain
1: to invest officially (as by the laying on of hands) with ministerial or priestly authority

So one can ordain in the sense of giving someone the authority to act in a certain ministerial capacity. But are deacons just ministers, or do they participate in the priesthood of Christ? (There is also a claim that the diaconate is regarded by [some of?] the Eastern churches as being a ministry only, and not a sacramental order. Trent on the Sacrament of Order.) Speaking of women's ordination can be misleading--what we should be focusing on is the Sacrament of Holy Orders instead. (Even if those women who are attempting to become priests and failing understand them to be linked.)

Female diaconate in the early church - Monachos.net Discussion

And some reaction from the Orthodox Information Center:
Women in the Orthodox Church
Deaconnesses

We also hear the claims that deaconesses carried the Sacrament of Holy Communion to many outside of the temple. Let us also remember that, in the early Church, all of the people took the Body and Blood of our Lord to their homes to commune during the week. The fact that records show deaconesses having a type of "ordination" was specifically to enable them to carry Holy Communion to women who were "shut-ins". Since, as we have made clear, it was forbidden for a male to go into a single womans home, there was an obvious need for this holy service to be done by a woman, hence, the deaconess. The ordination, or blessing, was to allow her to carry Holy Communion to those women who could not attend the Liturgy.

Hmm... Christian Dress and Grooming