Do we lay the blame on Dignitatis Humanae?

Insight Scoop: "Religious liberty is also prior to the state itself. ..."

Testimony of Most Reverend William E. Lori, Bishop of Bridgeport, On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives (pdf - alt)

Another bishop affirming the "absolute" religious liberty. Are certain traditionalists right to point to a rupture in Vatican II? Or is this just a statement approved by a group of bishops that nonetheless does not have support within Sacred Tradition? At least DH concedes that religious liberty may be curbed for the sake of public order; have Catholic bishops going further in their adoption of rights language?

Bishops’ Religious Liberty Chair Urges Congress to Defend Religious Liberty at House Judiciary Committee Hearing

A Friar Comments on the New Document From the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

Fr. Christian explained that there is a “a hierarchy of documents,” and also a hierarchy of bodies within the Roman Curia. Inside of the Curia, “congregations” are more significant than “pontifical councils,” which means that “in terms of pastoral authority the Secretariat of State is top and in terms of doctrinal authority the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is top.”

Another factor, he said, to take into consideration when assessing the significance of a “Vatican document” is whether it has been “reviewed by the Holy Father himself,” and also the number of Vatican departments involved in its creation.

He lamented that “unfortunately, the Church herself hasn’t actually explained that hierarchy very well.” Thus, he believes, it can be confusing for Catholics to understand what significance to give to different publications emanating from bodies within the Vatican.

As for this week’s document from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Fr. Christian has only read some of it but his initial analysis is that while it is appropriate for Vatican departments to speak out as part of the Church’s “social mission” they also have to be wary of straying beyond the limits of their competence.

“Is it the Church’s place to decry systems that seem to infringe on the dignity of peoples or to applaud those areas which seem to promote human dignity? Yes,” he said firmly.

“But is it the Church’s role to hypothesis concrete solutions to these things? Normally we would say ‘no.’ That’s what makes me a little nervous about a document which it seems may be promoting something rather more concrete than usual.”

Jay Bradner: Open-source cancer research

Insight Scoop: The U.S Bishops' Committee responds again to Elizabeth Johnson...

Insight Scoop: Who was Rev. Louis Bouyer?

No repeat?

But will it yield any fruit? That those who are invited attend does that mean the Holy Spirit is at work? (Especially if they know that Pope Benedict intends to leave no ambiguity to the event this time?)

The Commandment of Assisi: "Purify your own faith" (via Insight Scoop)

Zenit: Pope's Homily at Vigil in Preparation for Assisi

Also from Sandro Magister: The Truth about Assisi. Never-Before-Seen Words from Benedict XVI

Assisi Gives an Encore. But Revised and Corrected

Tomás Luis de Victoria - Laetatus sum

O quam gloriosum est regnum - Tomas Luis de Victoria

Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy

Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy
Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity
Adam A. J. DeVille

America review

Dominicana: Pulling an All-Nighter: The Example of St. Dominic

Public Discourse: Human Development and Human Flourishing: Creating Capabilities Isn’t Enough
Ryan T. Anderson, October 26, 2011
Private Property and Human Flourishing
Adam J. MacLeod, October 25, 2011

MoJ: Koritansky's "Thomas Aquinas and the Philosophy of Punishment"

Insight Scoop: New: "The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit" by Fr. Louis Bouyer

DSPT:  "Work as Sacramental: The Mysterious Dynamics of Personal Vocation" (more info)

Brian Davies

Over at Thomistica.net, a post on a new book by Brian Davies: Is God a Moral Agent?
One argument given by Davies that God is not a moral agent is that moral agents are under obligation to a moral law; he attributes this understanding to Aquinas. Is this a proper representation of Aquinas's definition of a moral agent? Could Davies's argument be restated, with Kantian terms thus: is God not a moral agent because he is autonomous while angels and humans are heteronomous, and only heteronomous beings are moral agents? Is this a case of equivocation causing misunderstandings? (It wouldn't be the first time with analytic philosophers.)

How does St. Thomas (or a traditional Thomist) define moral agency? We would look at the different sorts of agency present in creatures, starting with the distinction between voluntary and involuntary/natural. The question is whether by moral agency Aquinas adds anything to his notion of "perfect voluntary" agency. What texts does Davies cite to develop a definition of moral agency?

It is clear that human beings and angels are not God. Is good used analogically of God and creatures? Or equivocally? But if God is not a moral agent, can we say that He is morally good at all? It would seem from the short blurb given at Thomistica.net that Davies does take his reasoning in this direction in order to establish a different Christian theodicy. It seems erroneous to me. If God cannot be said to be good, or is not essentially good, then what reason would He have to save us, rather than desiring our destruction or misery? Why should we not imitate His example, rather than submitting to a moral law?

I get the impression that Davies has missed the order of learning and is relying too much on premises taken from his reading of the text (foundationalism?), and then formulating arguments without being confirmed that his understanding of reality is correct.

Thoughts on religious and the common good

How are they no longer in the world? By no longer participating in the temporal common good, but wholly serving the supernatural common good in itself. Religious are no longer are bound by duties to family or their native political communities, etc. Their ties to family and community are severed. This does not mean that they do not have relations with a political community -- they may maintain economic relations. For example, even a self-sustaining monastery may exchange goods with members of the local community. The mendicants and members of younger religious orders created during and after the Catholic Reformation are primarily dependent upon the surplus wealth of the lay faithful. In that respect, only a few have been privileged to depend on God alone for their survival.

Would the apostolic works of the mendicants and active religious be considered a part of the temporal common good, or only a part of the supernatural common good? It seems that it would be the latter, if we understand the temporal common good to be obtainable by our power alone. If the temporal common good were identified with the complete perfection of the community, then one would have to take grace and supernatural perfection into account, but this is not something which man holding temporal authority (and nothing more) can provide, only God through His Church.

Is a temporal authority, then, concerned with natural perfection alone? Is there anything here that would preclude the hierarchy of the Church from wielding temporal authority in a Christian polity? Temporal authority is subject to the supernatural authority of the Church, but can the latter not hold both, just as charity is a general virtue which commands the other virtues? (Would it be the case then that temporal authority can be permitted to be separate, or that it can be delegated by the Church to others?)

Before Christ, temporal authority was limited in what it could bring about. With the Incarnation, has it been superceded by the authority of the Church with respect to Christian polities (or absolutely, with respect to all polities)?

A bottom-to-top approach in understanding the political community might lead one to think that a temporal authority must be separate from the supernatural authority of the Church, which, as the superior power, is placed over the temporal authority or recognized by the temporal authority as such.

To answer these questions we might have to reconsider what the end of living in common is: to provide for the perfection of all members through work and mutual exchange but also to live with others for its own sake... De Regno discusses why political authority is necessary -- because the common good is not identical to the private good of its members.

The supernatural common good is God; the hierarchy of the Church does legislate as to how charity is to be exercised. (To a limited extent? The bishops are more guides, pastors, than rulers of the Church?)

Is the political common good subsumed or incorporated into the supernatural common good, or is it kept separate but subordinate? Is it necessary to keep the political common good separate because in a polity there are sinners living with the just, and the laws of a polity must be proportioned to its members accordingly? (Humans are competent to judge only sensible actions. Hence this is one reason why the Church's authority with regard to the supernatural common good is limited?)

Social life does not require as much as living in union with God, and so laws which maintain external peace between the members of a community and command acts of justice can be imposed on both sinners and the just. The laws for a political community are therefore distinct from those for the supernatural community, the Church. But this does not necessitate that a bishop may not hold temporal authority. (Although it may be prudent for him not to, since his function is to take care of the Church and concern for temporal affairs may take away too much time, etc. from his pastoral work.) One could also argue that there should be a division of power in order to prevent an abuse of power.

MoJ: The Retributivist Tradition and Its Future -- November 4 at St. John's Law School
The new Journal of Catholic Legal Studies (here)

A New Generation of Theologians by Ryan N.S. Topping (via Pertinacious Papist)

New Master in Sacred Theology

James Chastek responds to Lee Faber: Petrus and St. Thomas on univocity made by the mode of conceiving

The Public Discourse: The Scientific Revolution and Contemporary Ethics
William Carroll, October 18, 2011
Modern science does not require us to abandon notions of nature and human nature upon which so much of traditional ethics depends.

Justin Hall-Tipping: Freeing energy from the grid

TED


How much energy inputs would be required to relocalize energy capture/production in this way?

Feser replies to Tollefsen

At his blog.

I do have things to say on the last post from each of the gentlemen, but I do not know if I will have the time to actually post them.

Lee Faber, Harmonization of Thomas and Scotus on Univocity

Sandro Magister: Council Under Construction. But Some Are Folding Their Arms
Cardinal Cottier, the jurist Ceccanti, the theologian Cantoni are defending the innovations of Vatican II. But the Lefebvrists are not giving in, and the traditionalists are stepping up their criticisms. The latest developments in a fiery dispute

Tollefsen Responds to Feser

Punishment: Political, Not Metaphysical

Ignatius Press - Fall 2011 releases

The complete list here.

Some titles of interest to me - Ronald Knox, A Retreat for Lay People
Waugh & Heenan, A Bitter Trial
Another reprint: The Song at the Scaffold by Gertrud von le Fort
Sigrid Undset, Ida Elisabeth
Ratzinger, Dogma And Preaching (2nd Ed)
Louis Bouyer, Newman: His Life and Spirituality (I had already mentioned The Church of God.)

Adam DeVille, Augustine of Hippo and Orthodoxy

More from Edward Feser on capital punishment

“Punishment, Proportionality, and the Death Penalty”; his blog entry.

Met. John Zizioulas on primacy

OrthodoxChristianity.net: Petrine Ministry and the Unity of the Church edited by James Puglisi

30 Days, from 2003: “When we speak of the primacy...

... we are referring to the primacy of the Church of Rome, that is exercised by the pope in that he is bishop of that See". An interview with Joannis Zizioulas, Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamum

by Gianni Valente

An interview from 2005.

Papal Primacy and Conciliarity; John Zizioulas - Ecclesiological presuppositions of the holy Eucharist

Something from GOARCH: Papal Primacy by Rev. Emmanuel Clapsis

Dominicana: Evelyn Waugh and Despair

Insight Scoop: Now available: "Methodical Realism" by Étienne Gilson

I think the book was published by Christendom Press for a while, but I suppose it has gone out of print?

Michael Sullivan, Christian Philosophy

Thomistica.net: Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen Brown

Reprint of Grenier

Lulu (via James Chastek)

Tomás Luis de Victoria - Vadam et circuibo

Travelling to New York for a friend's wedding. Maybe some original posts when I get back.

Insight Scoop: Timeless spiritual classic "Abandonment to Divine Providence" released ... along with the author’s practical letters of advice

Byzantine, Texas: Noted author, Fr. Gabriel Bunge tonsured to Great Schema

Zenit: 3 Jesuit Heroes
Canada Hails 400 Years of Service

The third Jesuit profiled? Bernard Lonergan. Interesting how many centers devoted to the study of his writings there are: Lonergan Institute, Lonergan Centre, BC, Sydney, Loyola Marymount, Seton Hall.

Links and more links.

Lonergan Philosophical Society

One Day in a Monastery

I had copied the url for this trailer somewhere, but came across the trailer again today through Byzantine, Texas.

Two from Mirror of Justice

1. Celebrating John Finnis at Villanova

What's new in the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights?

"Adds a substantial postscript by the author developing and refining the theory in response to thirty years of discussion, criticism, and further work in the field"

2. Robert George, The Question of Judicial Supremacy

Reflections of a Questioner: The Palmetto Freedom Forum Revisited
by Robert P. George

Dominicana: Church, Family and Civil Society

Andrew Cusack: New Cathedral in Russia
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Magadan, Siberia

Op-StJoseph: Whether Faith Needs Philosophy
An Article in First Things by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP

Alas, you need to subscribe to read the full article.

Thomas Bushlack, Is There a Christian Response to the Debt Ceiling Debates? (via MoJ)

See this comment at MoJ:

However, I find this quote a little too cute:

"This principle...would remind us that the time to cut programs and spending is not during an economic downturn, but rather once the economy has rebounded enough to pick up the slack currently left by the high unemployment rate."

Maybe, but is this just a foregone conclusion concerning the common good? Fiscal responsibility, the courage to make difficult choices concerning entitlement programs etc... also ought to be factors in working for the common good.

I question whether this is just another example of someone, instead of being informed by what "common good" means, merely superimposing his own preconceived notions of reality upon the term.

Yes, what of the role of civic prudence, which must take into account whether such spending is sustainable? What are the potential negative consequences for continued deficit spending if such deficits can never be made up? There are many other questions as well -- what is being purchased with this money? Should it be the Federal Government's responsibility to do this? (Is it Constitutional?)

A response by Edward Feser to Christopher Tollefsen at Public Discourse: In Defense of Capital Punishment. Related posts at his blog: In defense of capital punishment and On rehabilitation and execution.