Liturgical Colors

Good Advice?

Co-Redemptrix?

Sandro Magister: The Revolution of Francis Doesn’t Even Spare Our Lady. Here’s What He Would Make of Her

Mary as Co-Redemptrix: God’s Foolishness by Christopher Malloy

St. Peter in Rome

The Point of a Fast

Sure to Scandalize Some

Andrei Rublev

Interview with Peter Bouteneff

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

The Genealogy of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Changing or Updating the Roman Canon?

The unilateral decision by the bishop of Rome for all of his patriarchate, without consultation with the bishops of his patriarchate, an the endorsement of the development in Latin piety towards St. Joseph. Did St. John the Baptist ever hold second place to the Theotokos in the Roman tradition?

From 2013: “With Blessed Joseph, Her Spouse”

Archpriest Sergy Baranov on Prayer

“When Christ Comes, Questions Disappear.” Part 1
A talk on acquiring a taste for prayer

Part 2

Reading the Old Testament

Music of the Mozarabic Rite

NLM

Theophanes the Greek

More Drama in Rome?

Sandro Magister: The Pope's Latest Speech To the Cardinals Has a Backstory. That Was Supposed To Stay Secret

A Latin Essay, Through and Through

From content to its sources of authority. But still worth a read.

Fatima to Vatican II: Mary, ‘Mother of the Church’ and Our Loving Mother by Matthew Tsakanikas, STD
Called to be the God-bearer, Mother to the Head of the Church, Mary was commissioned and called implicitly to be mother of every member born of the virginal womb of the Church in baptism.

The Gift of God

The Gift of God: Preparing for the Nativity of the Lord from God With Us Online on Vimeo.

Byzantine Advent

Language as a Proof for God's Existence

The O Antiphons

Joseph Ratzinger on the Meaning of Christmas

The undefeated light: Joseph Ratzinger on the true meaning of Christmas

The Gift of God

Questionable Biblical Anthropology?

Rorate Caeli: On Pontifical Biblical Commission document and homosexuality, better not to rush to judgment

Some Posts from NLM

Charle Marge

David Clayton on One of Feingold's Books

The Septuagint

Holy Barbara

Theotokos of the Sign

Don't Be an Accidental Iconoclast

Byzantine chant (Cyprus)

The Book of Psalms

Ratzinger on the ITC

Sandro Magister: From Ratzinger’s Diary, Deeds and Misdeeds of the International Theological Commission

Eastern Christian Publications: Updated: Nicholas Denysenko on His Superb New and now Award-Winning Book

Eastern Christian Publications: Updated: Nicholas Denysenko on His Superb New and now Award-Winning Book

Not Getting It

Latin traditionalists still failing to grasp that the problem is not Vatican I or Vatican II or even the Council of Florence; it is Latin ecclesiology concerning the primacy of the bishop of Rome, as Latin pretensions concerning the primacy of the bishop of Rome arguably go back to the first millenium. Did any other Apostolic Church accept them? Would it have even made sense for them to, in an age of limited communication and an already multiethnic and multicultural Church? Perhaps the claim could have been sustained when the whole Church still understood and spoke Greek, including the bishop of Rome, but once that linguistic unity passed? How could the bishop of Rome possibly be competent to teach Christianity in any other language except his own? No man can be fluent in every single human language, and there is no special divine gift or charism that makes the bishop of Rome such a panglot.

What sort of rationalist apologetics for such an exaggerated notion of primacy can Latins pull out of their hats now?

1P5: The Second Vatican Council Is Now Far Spent by Peter Kwasniewski

What Is the End of Political Life?

CWR: Thomism and Political Liberalism, Part 3 by Joseph G. Trabbic
St. Thomas says that “the whole of political life seems to be ordered to contemplative happiness.” What would a life ordered to divine contemplation look like? And how would politics support it?

A take on this comment.

Is Thomism too rationalist in its conception of eudaimonia? More and more I think that it is unsatisfying, as it is usually presented, and perhaps Pinckaers' modification may not be sufficient. A political life should have sufficient members and organized in such a way that it makes a local ecclesia possible, including the selection of men to become presbyters/episkopos to minister the Holy Mysteries. Through the Holy Mysteries and the Christian life is the ultimate end attained, the encounter of God and man in love, and this Christian life includes prayer and "contemplation." While the
he political community is ordered to human happiness, which according to Christianity is supernatural, a Divine gift of friendship with God, its immediate end is political friendship, and it is on this point primarily that liberalism, which serves the state and statism, differs from Aristotelianism and arguably Thomistic political theology. It is also a first principles that is obscured in Roman Catholic social teaching, written mostly or wholly by men who have no experience living in an authentic political community. It is because of this that RC social doctrine is easily exploited to serve the purposes of the state, and I expect more to be written about obedience to the secular authority in the future.

50 Years of the Pauline Reform

NLM

[Active] Participation

NLM

What is done in the liturgy is done by Christ, not by us. For the liturgy is the worship offered by Christ in His Church through the power of the Holy Spirit to God the Father. It is not something primarily that we do. We certainly, by right of our baptism, are able to participate in that offering. Indeed, it is our baptismal duty to do so to the best of our ability and according to our particular vocation. But the liturgy is first and foremost Christ acting in the world today through the rites of His Church. Because of this, through this, we are able to share in His saving acts—the Redemption He wrought for our sins on the cross, and the hope of eternal life made manifest in His glorious resurrection. In short, the sacred liturgy is Christ’s saving action in our world today. ...

The understanding that the liturgy is an action, not a text, and indeed that it is first and foremost the action of Christ Himself, is crucial if I am to participate in any liturgical rite, if I am truly to engage consciously and actually in that action, if I am in fact to pray the sacred liturgy. Otherwise I shall be a mere spectator, possibly a bored one, or maybe even a well-entertained one. But the liturgy is not a spectacle or entertainment to be watched. It is an action in which I must be engaged. It is worship. And it is prayer. ...

Therefore praying the liturgy, which is simply true or actual (sometimes called ‘active’) participation in the liturgy, is not so much saying the right words, ‘making the responses’ or ‘joining in the singing’ (these are means, not ends) as it is immersing myself in, losing myself in, allowing myself to be caught up in, the action of the liturgy.”

What is it to immerse one's self or to be caught up in the action of the liturgy if there is no act on my part? Is it simply comprehension and the proper will act? On the other hand, does this not undermine the traditionalist case against the reform if the main or essential acts of participation are to be found in the intellect and will? So long as these are present, what difference does it make if one says the "right words" or "makes the responses" or uses the EF? And who is to say that the subjective experience of the typical participant in the OF, in the vernacular and with contemporary worship music, cannot be ordered by these essential of participation? If those fundamental acts are present and sustained, then what difference do the means make? Would Reid argue that the some means are more proportioned to the end?

More importantly, what are these fundamental acts, if not the Son's knowledge and love of the Father, in which we participate thanks to Baptism and Confirmation/Chrismation? And is worship to be identified with these acts? A Thomist might respond that worship or prayer are acts of religio, not acts of the theological virtues but acts ordered by the theological virtues. I wouldn't disagree with that, though I would emphasize that Christian worship, our participation in the Son's praise of and thanksgiving to the Father, are secondary acts motivated by filial knowledge and love of the Father, and so Reid is incorrect on this point. However, if he does argue that the texts, singing, etc. are important in so far as they serve these secondary and some forms are more better suited than others (and at this point I don't have any reason to think that this is not his position, though I would disagree with him as to which forms are better suited, at least some of them), I think that part can be retained.

Miracles of Elder Porphyrios

Eternal Memory!

Magnificat

We are children of God in Christ, sharers in the eternal filiation of the Only-begotten Son of God the Father!

Opus Dei: "The freedom and trust of being God's children"
Homily of Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz for the liturgical memorial of Saint Josemaria, given in the basilica of Saint Eugene in Rome on 26 June 2018.

Holy Nicholas, Pray for Us!

Hans Boersma on Supersessionism

First Things

Another Conundrum

Are Latin traditionalists in communion with the bishop of Rome or not? And if they are, then who has the proper authority to authorize such modifications to the Extraordinary Form, if not the pope, according to their ecclesiology and canons?

Breaking News: Optional commemoration of seven new Saints addded to "Extraordinary Form" Calendar?

St. Sabbas

Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition

CWR: The ancient roots of deification in the Latin tradition by Carl E. Olson

Dr. Jared Ortiz is Associate Professor of Religion at Hope College, author of You Made Us for Yourself: Creation in St Augustine’s Confessions (Fortress Press, 2016), founder and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute, [...]

ἱερεύς v. πρεσβύτερος

Ordinations at Clear Creek Abbey

Rorate Caeli: Video of Ordinations at Clear Creek Abbey (a Fontgombault foundation)

"Apostolic Tradition"

Sandro Magister: A Missionary Writes After the Synod For the Amazon. Married Priests Perhaps, But In Perfect Continence

Lay Leadership?

Church Life Journal: Taking the Role of All the Baptized in Church Leadership Seriously by John Cavadini

Does the proposal or will the conference properly address the clericalist structure of the institutional church and the limits to the authority of the bishop? It doesn't seem likely.

Louis Tofari: Mediator Dei and the Liturgical Movement

No reform, not even a reset, just a return to 1951 before the reform of Holy Week rites or 1911, before Pius X reformed the Roman office?

Elder Sophrony and Elder Ieronymos of Simenopetra Canonized

OrthoChristian: Elder Sophrony officially canonized together with Elder Ieronymos of Simenopetra

Plus: The Theology and Memory of Elder Sophrony (Sakharov)

Message of Benedict XVI to the ITC

text

CWR Dispatch: Benedict XVI reflects on 50 years of the International Theological Commission
Joseph Ratzinger served as president of the International Theological Commission from 1982-2005 as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith under St. John Paul II.


Related:

Gratitude

OrthoChristian: On Gratitude and Human Happiness by Sergei Khudiev

King Doesn't Quite Capture It

From 2014: Not Just in Our Hearts: The True Social Kingship of Christ by Steve Skojec
Christ the King and Original Sin by Timothy Flanders

Pius XI, Quas Primas

Pantocrator sounds much better to my ears. Chris is the Ruler of All because he is the rule, God's Law, the word, Divine Wisdom. Rulers do not rule in his place but in Him, participating in Him. If we accept the development of the three-fold office of the laity as a legitimate theological development, then all are kings even if not all share in political governance. They participate in the Divine Law who is Christ, even those who are subject or subordinate to others.

Some nuances are needed to correct exaggerations of the sacred status of authority in pieces such as this: First Things: Sacral Presidency by Peter J. Leithart

Fake Synodality, You Mean?

CNA/CWR: Pope Francis: Synodality is what the Lord expects of the Church

ITC: “Synodality in Life and Mission of the Church”

Definitely a Latin View of the Kingdom of Heaven

NCReg: Four Exorcists Urge Day of Fasting, Prayer and Reparation Dec. 6
The priests suggest the Rosary and prayers to the Sacred Heart, as well as “some form of penance, such as fasting, abstinence and other forms of mortification”

Orthodox "Traditionalists"

Fr. Peter Heers and Jay Dyer - An Orthodox Response to Ecumenism and Modernism (Video)

Unto Thee, O God, Do We Give Thanks

Eastern Christian Books: Christiaan Kappes on the Epiclesis Debate at Florence

Eastern Christian Books: Christiaan Kappes on the Epiclesis Debate at Florence

Weigel Wades Into the Debate on the Roman Rite

The Reformed Liturgy, 50 Years Later by George Weigel

While the Pauline reform of the Roman rite itself had some major problems (though not all of the problems listed by Latin traditionalists are as serious as they think -- Bouyer's judgment would probably more reliable in this respect), in the larger historical context the reform was just another consequence of a more serious problem, the centralization of the patriarchate of Rome and an over-reliance on that centralization for solutions to pastoral problems, whether it be the theological formation of its clergy or the lack of a proper liturgical piety among the people. A conception of Rome as the head of a Christendom which was the replacement for the Roman Empire, unified by Latin and a supranational identity may have had a part to play in this, combined with the private opinion of certain popes in the first millenium on the role of the bishop of Rome with respect to the Church Universal.

Rule of Faith Journal

Patrick Henry Reardon on the Reading of the Hebrew Scriptures

What's Going on in the Vatican?

Sandro Magister: Money Wars At the Vatican. With the Pope Among the Belligerents

Liturgy

The Third Hour Troparion Interpolation

Link

Pope Francis in Japan

Is an organ really necessary for such public Masses? And has no one attempted to develop a Japanese form of sacred singing, one that is not Western in inspiration? What happened to inculturation? I see a lot of women in the choir for the Mass in Nagasaki (the heart of Catholic Japan) - how many Japanese male Catholics participate in Latin liturgical life in Japan? Even in Nagasaki, they had to feature multilingual readings...

That's St. Paul VI to You Latins

Paul VI’s Contempt for Catholics Who Did Not Welcome the Liturgical Reform

How does the liturgical reform of the Roman rite and Paul VI's commentary contradict the documents of Vatican I and Vatican II on the authority of the pope? When is a Latin traditionalist going to honestly deal with this question?

Rod Dreher: What About The Protestant Catholics?

This Week!

The Fruits of... Vatican II? Assissi?

LSN: Abp Viganò decries Pope-approved plan to build ‘Abrahamic’ religious site with Muslims, Jews

Fr. Christiaan Kappes Introduces His Latest Book

Eclectic Orthodoxy: The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

UND Press

Traditional Dancers Perform for Pope Francis in Bangkok

Fake Synodality and Agendas

CWR: The Final Report of the Amazon Synod and the “conversion” of the Church by Thomas R. Ascik
A limited number of bishops from a limited locale of the Church has promulgated the agenda for the “synodal conversion” of the worldwide Church.

A Call to Action

Remnant: The Catholic Obligation to Resist by Roberto de Mattei

The Presentation of the Theotokos

NLM

A Romanesque Crucifix

NLM

TLM Conferences in Houston

The Seventh Ecumenical Council

To What End?

Will Watch the Video

CNA/CWR: Alasdair MacIntyre: True friendships are rare, but possible

Overstating the Case?

Transubstantiation is not, then, one disconnected and esoteric doctrine that a Catholic can take or leave. It is an articulation of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist seeking understanding in the theological context of a deep appreciation of the relationship between God and creation. To affirm it is to affirm something foundational to the whole Christian worldview. Not to put too fine a point on it: it affirms that God is God and creation is creation.

Transubstantiation is more than the doctrine of the Real Presence. It is a theological explanation of the latter.


Church Life: Transubstantiation Isn't a Disconnected Doctrine by Brett Salkeld

Cappella Romana

Fr. Gabriel Rochelle on the Meaning of Church

Interview with Cardinal Sarah

Square Notes Podcast


(Part 1 here)

Permissive Will, Again

But is this what Francis meant?

CWR: Which God’s Will? by Dr. Randall B. Smith
On permissive and positive will, the multiplicity of religions, salvation, and the mystery of evil.

Cardinal Ruini Breaks His Silence

Sandro Magister: Cardinal Ruini’s Return to the Field. On the Amazon, Married Priests, Risk of Schism, Alienation from God

Unpublished Anecdotes About St. Joseph the Hesychast

OrthoChristian: Unpublished Anecdotes About St. Joseph the Hesychast by Hieromonk Ephraim

Cars, Coffee, Theology (1:5) Matthew Levering

Anglicanorum Coetibus Society 2019 Conference

Why the NYT?

AmCon: The Trial Of Conservative Catholicism by Rod Dreher

Dreher links to Douthat's analysis and interview of Cardinal Burke. Why is the NYT publishing this? Why did it hire Douthat in the first place? To demoralize its enemies?

Elder Joseph

OrthoChristian: The Story Behind “My Elder Joseph the Hesychast” by Hieromonk Ephraim, St. Nilus Skete, Alaska

Distributism

1P5: Distributism and the Purpose of Private Property by Thomas Storck

Eastern Christian Books: The Florentine Fate of the Epiclesis (Updated)

Eastern Christian Books: The Florentine Fate of the Epiclesis (Updated)

"Bring Us, O Lord God"

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the Amazon Synod

LSN: Abp Viganò: ‘The abomination of idolatrous rites has entered the sanctuary of God’ (Exclusive)

Neo-Coptic Icon of the Pantocrator

10-Year Anniversary Jubilee

NCReg: Ordinariates Mark 10 Years of Anglican Traditions and Catholic Communion by Peter Jesserer Smith
The Catholic Church is marking the tenth anniversary of Benedict XVI’s historic apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

True Light Podcast: Episode 07 Evangelization

Reprints of Books by Joseph C. Fenton

Missed this in 2018.

First Things: Fenton Returns by Patrick Carey

Fenton told readers of his “The Ecumenical Council and Christian Union” (1959) that the council’s ecumenical work would amount to nothing more than the Church’s previous emphasis on a “return of dissident Christians to the one true fold of Jesus Christ.”

He probably included the Orthodox as dissident Christians.

Related:
Cardinal Ottaviani and the Council by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton

1966 Letter Reveals Cardinal Ottaviani’s Post-Conciliar Concerns

More on the Development of Doctrine

CWR: The Spirit versus the letter: Responding to a false view of doctrinal development by Eduardo Echeverria

Sergio Centofanti’s recent essay for Vatican News claims that the Church teaches, “It is necessary to follow the Spirit, rather than the strict letter.” This opposition could not be further from the truth.

I am not of course suggesting that there is not development. But there is development without change even when there is reversal in Church teaching. Centofanti completely overlooks the distinctions between development, continuity, change, and reversal. He focuses on examples of reversals (unbaptized babies, the exegesis of 1 Timothy 11-12 regarding the place of woman in the Church, and religious liberty) but never refers to the theological notes that qualify certain teachings as infallible such that they possess the highest degree of certainty. This means that he fails to account for development, clarifications, reformulations, while nevertheless maintaining the stable continuity of fundamental meaning and truth of authoritative dogmas/doctrines. I will return to this point below.

But does Echeverria make enough distinctions between theological opinion (even if it is of the bishop of Rome) and dogma? Let us look at the two examples of reversals: religious liberty and ecumenism. Was religious liberty (or anything pertaining to the political community and the laws that it may or may not issue) part of Divine Revelation? No -- religious liberty, like contemporary Roman Catholic Social Teaching, pertains to moral theology, and so papal theological opinion on this point isn't "reversed" as if it were dogmatic (even if some Latins think it is) but contradicted.

As for ecumenism -- precepts concerning whom to admit to worship, or with whom one can pray is more a human determination that is (ecclesiastical) positive law than a precept of Divine Law, something taking into consideration goods secondary to God Himself. And so in so far as we are dealing with ecclesiastical positive law, that can be changed. As for human judgments as to who is a heretic or schismatic, those judgments can be erroneous and are not protected by an Latin notion of infallibility.

In order for theories of doctrinal development to be taken seriously, we must talk about doctrine, what constitutes doctrines, whether there are levels of doctrine, and if historically what has been understood to be doctrine was mistaken.

(MAJOR VATICAN EVENT: Schneider, Burke Speak During Amazon Synod)

CHRISTUS VINCIT: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age

DEFEND & RESIST: Michael Matt Interviews Bishop Schneider

Interview with Fr. Edward Henderson

OrthoChristian: On Holy Relics, Primacy in the Church, and the Pastoral Life in the Bay Area - An Interview with Fr. Edward Henderson by Jesse Dominick, Fr. Edward Henderson

See also “The Way We Serve is Our Means of Communicating With God” - On the Old Believer Church of the Nativity of Christ in Erie, PA by Tatiana Veselkina, Archpriest Pimen Simon

And what does it mean for him?

Augsburg, 31 October 1999: "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" signed by the Catholic Church's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation. I was there pic.twitter.com/348UKBpBIX

— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) October 31, 2019

A return to a first-millenium proclamation of the kerygma, something more patristic?

VOCES8: Pie Jesu by Gabriel Fauré

The Abbey of St. Columbanus

NLM

Arvo Pärt: Passio / St. John Passion / Johannespassionen

Whose Latin Christianity? Which Hermeneutic?

Another essay on... Vatican II.

Reading the Signs of the Times by Douglas Farrow

The Church,” says Gaudium et spes, “has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.” A few paragraphs later, that duty is parsed in a positive way. The Church, we are told, “labors to decipher authentic signs of God's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age” (emphasis added). 

What happened to the Church being the sign of God's presence and purpose to the world?

The Idolatry of Human Niceness Masquerading as Mercy

First Things: Why Biden Was Denied Communion by Edward Peters

CNA/CWR: Cardinal Dolan on Biden communion denial: ‘I wouldn’t do it’
“If only saints could receive Holy Communion, we wouldn’t have anybody at Mass, including myself, alright?” Dolan said.

Fake Synodality

This is Faggioli pushing for fake synodality, that has no resemblance to what was or may have been practiced in the early Church.

my latest in La Croix International
Does a council have a future in a Church that has more than 5,000 bishops, almost twice the number of those at Vatican II?
If Francis' re-turn towards synodality succeeds, it could be the beginning of a new chapter in Church governance. https://t.co/XRJ6oMFls1

— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) October 31, 2019

Dealing with Death

CWR Dispatch: November and remembering our beloved dead by Adam A. J. DeVille
The vacuous talk used today in addressing death is becoming common, but it is the disappearance of practices around death that is infinitely worse.

I need to reread what St. Augustine recounts is St. Ambrose's objection to the following practice:

Edifying in an even more physically basic fashion is to have a picnic in a cemetery, which may seem the height of weirdness to some, but it was a wonderfully jovial and human thing to do. After the prescribed panachyda was prayed (a short memorial office in the Byzantine tradition) we relaxed by sharing drinks and food while recounting stories of those whose graves became makeshift tables for our libations. Our solemn prayers and tears were mingled with laughter and shots of vodka as we feasted in anticipation of the wedding feast of the Lamb, where there will one day be neither mourning nor dying, but all of us reunited around the table of eternity.

Latin Claims Concerning Clerical Continence

"Apostolic" in origin.

Sandro Magister: Married Priests? Yes, But in Perfect Continence. The Lesson of the Church’s First Centuries

Tracey Rowland Reviews A Poetic Christ: Thomist Reflections on Scripture, Language and Reality

CWR Dispatch: New book by French Dominican skillfully defends Gospels, uniqueness of Christ by Tracey Rowland
A review of Olivier-Thomas Venard’s A Poetic Christ: Thomist Reflections on Scripture, Language and Reality

Prof. Candace Vogler, "Ultimate Fulfillment & Human Perfection"

A Response to a Latin Polemicist on Clerical Celibacy

A comment found here:

The Council of Trullo, to which Father referred, was a synod held in the palace of the Byzantine Empire, in 692. Its members included bishops of the Church of Constantinople and other Eastern churches in communion with it. (It is also well to remember that this was when Constantinople was in communion with Rome.) The council enacted a number of disciplinary decrees that are, to this day, observed among both the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. This included recognition of the already long-established custom wherein married men could submit themselves for all degrees of Holy Orders, save the episcopate—and who could likewise continue to licitly exercise their conjugal rights. Like the familiar modern discipline of the “permanent” diaconate in the West, Trullo also provided that only already-married men could be ordained; if widowed, they could not remarry. Also, like the Latin Church in general, single men were prohibited to marry with ordination to the diaconate.

While the provisions of the Trullan council were not enacted in the Latin West, their canons are regarded by Rome as absolutely normative and legitimate in the Christian East. This includes a married (non-monastic) priesthood, with all that would imply for Christian men.

The institution of continence among married clergy, while certainly widely practiced in the early Medieval period, was by no means the only legitimate discipline among the married clergy (as Fr. Stravinskas seems to imply). It perhaps was regarded as an “ideal,” but this practice was by no means general or universal. While existing in both East and West for a time, it by no means invalidates the exercise of intimacy among married clerics. In fact, it affirms the truth that marriage may rightly be lived in all its aspects among the clergy. It is, and has been for most of the history of the Church, a righteous way of life—just as it is, in a different fashion, also a righteous observance among the clergy who have renounced their marital rights while remaining together. (In fact, some clergy and their wives have voluntarily observed such abstinence into the modern period.)

History is instructive on this point. Between the end of the Middle Ages and the late seventeenth-century, nearly all of the current Eastern Catholic Churches reestablished ecclesial communion with Rome. In no case did the Holy See require, in any fashion, the abrogation of Trullo’s provisions among the Byzantine churches. The imposition of diaconal or priestly celibacy (as observed in the Latin Church) as a general condition before or after reunion was never required or even sought. (It was only in the twentieth century that the American Roman Catholic hierarchy tragically pressured the Holy See to impose Latin-style celibacy upon Eastern Catholic secular priests in the US. This was eventually extended worldwide, outside of Europe and Asia. Thankfully, the Holy See reversed this injustice in 2014.)

While celibacy is a counsel of the Lord, its imposition by the Church upon clergy was and has always been a purely ecclesiastical (i.e. in this instance, man-made) requirement. It has existed in various forms—all of which are legitimate, when so recognized by the Church. While the exercise of marital continence is always meant to anticipate the coming Kingdom of God, “where men will neither marry or give-into marriage” (cf. Mt 22:30), it by no means makes clergy who are legitimately married and fully enjoy a Christian marital life any “less” than those who, for the sake of the Kingdom, do not. How could it when permitted and recognized by the Church (even if not in the Latin West) for at least two-thirds of the Christian era?

Like the Church’s disciplines, the grace of God also comes in a variety of forms. While it may be argued by some that, in one sense, the “sign value” of a celibate clergy might be “higher” than one which is not, divine grace can be fully and richly operative in both ways of life. The lives of the saints and the general experience of the Holy Church have proven it so.

A Different Take on Vatican 2

The Vitality of Vatican Council II
A presentation by Massimo Faggioli of the University of St. Thomas, followed by a conversation.

VOCES8, "Ubi Caritas"

Dr. Mark Spencer on Reforming Thomism and Integrating Palamism

Letters from the Amazon Synod Part 9

I didn't post the last 2 installments as they were primarily Weigel's ruminations on Weigel's favorite topics.

First Things: LETTERS FROM THE SYNOD-2019: #9

First something on liberation theology:

The fact that “the project” is a northern European export has long been clear, although digging deeply into the history of ideas in modern Catholicism is necessary to grasp the point. For over forty years now, the world media’s presentation of liberation theology as an indigenous, populist phenomenon native to Latin America—a bit of fake news amplified by Catholic enthusiasts for “the project”—has done a good job of obscuring who-taught-what-to-whom. The fact of the matter, however, is that virtually nothing in the various Latin American liberation theologies criticized by St. John Paul II at the 1979 Puebla conference of the Latin American episcopate, or rejected in the 1984 Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was native to Latin America. The reading of history, the ecclesiology, the concept of the sacraments and the ministry that shaped most liberation theologies was exported to Latin America from Belgian, French, and German theological faculties through which Hegelian and Marxist winds had blown with considerable force in the late 1960s. Those radical reconsiderations of the nature of the Church, its mission, and its relationship to both the unconverted and to politics—some of it the work of very intelligent but deeply wrongheaded men—was carried home by romantic and passionate young Latin American priests who had studied in those faculties, and who would become bishops in the latter part of the twentieth century. These currents of thought were highly influential in the Brazilian bishops conference in particular.

And he raises a good question, but it may be too late for such an untangling to resort, at least not without drastic changes in the practices of the "institutional" Church.

In several major cities of Latin America, especially the old viceroyal capitals,  the visitor cannot help but notice the proximity of the viceregal palace to the cathedral, usually in a great plaza. Has that historic linkage between Church and state power—whatever its historic accomplishments—become an obstacle to realizing the evangelizing mission of the Church in the twenty-first century, especially when the alliance today is with failed socialist regimes? That certainly ought to have been a topic of discussion in a synod dedicated to “new paths for the Church.” Was it? If so, its echoes outside the Synod Hall were faint.

As usual with regards to the Amazon synod, he overestimates the problem because he cannot see that the patriarchate of Rome is not identical to the Church Universal, but he is probably correct in identifying the difficulties posed by the synod and the current pontificate of Francis, which serve not to undermine the Church but actually Latin claims about the office of the bishop of Rome with respect to the Church Universal.

See also Rod Dreher, The Pachamama Synod Ends and Marco Tosatti

Edit.
Weigel's essay was also republished at EPPC.

50th Anniversary of?

Catholics who do not give themselves trustingly to the 2,000-year tradition of the Church will not be in contact with the whole doctrine and morality of Catholicism. This is hard to hear, but so is much of the teaching of Our Lord: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16, 24). The same is true, in a way, of tradition: we have to deny our modern prejudices, take up the blessed burden of our tradition, and follow it, in order to be integrally Catholic.

Let us be more precise:

Roman Catholics Latins who do not give themselves trustingly to the ecclesial tradition of the patriarchate of Rome...

Battling Over Latin Christianity

Latin traditionalists and "conservatives."

1P5: Bishop Barron and the ‘Unhappy’ Renewal of the ‘Trad’ Movement by Timothy Flanders

Pope Benedict would later write concerning his formative years before the Council about his “anti-Roman resentment … imparted to us by our studies” [1] and that “we all had a certain contempt for the nineteenth century; it was fashionable then, somewhat kitsch piety and over-sentimentality — we wanted to overcome all that. We wanted a new era of piety” [2].
He recalls that when he saw the original document on revelation at Vatican II (on behalf of which Ottaviani had pleaded), he wished to circumvent the Magisterium in order to impose his own interpretation of Tradition upon it [3]. He “wanted out of classical Thomism[.] … Thomas’s writings were textbooks, by and large, and impersonal somehow[.] … I didn’t want to operate only in a stagnant and closed philosophy, but in a philosophy understood as a question — what is man, really? — and particularly to enter into the new, contemporary philosophy” [4].
Such castigation of the fathers of the immediate past and the imposition instead of their own interpretation of Tradition seems to be the defining characteristic of the Nouvelle Théologie party. This was the party that, in Barron’s words, “won the day at Vatican II.” This attitude on display by these men appears to run contrary to piety, opening up questions about the continuity that is claimed.

Is the reference to piety here when talking about Tradition and its expressions misplaced? Is a particular linguistic and theological expression of Tradition more important than the Person of Christ?

But at Vatican II, the conservatives switched sides and allied themselves with the liberals in order to overcome the prior Magisterium. They successfully convinced enough bishops to throw out all the original documents (save one, written by Bugnini). They suppressed all the warnings from Ottaviani and others, who stated that their dreams of a springtime were naïve. But after the Council was done, Barron notes, the liberals and conservatives immediately broke into two warring parties, represented in the journals Concilium and Communio.

 But was reconciling the Church with modernity or the modern world the only goal of these "conservatives" or these reformers aligned with or following Ressourcement?

This crisis will be overcome when conservatives renounce forever their alliance with the liberal heretics and unite themselves in charity to the traditionalists they once shunned. They must renew their filial piety toward the pontificates of Bl. Pius IX and St. Pius X.

This is to be stuck in an ecclesiological and theological rut, and of course merely re-confirms the Latin belief that Magisterium of the Church is to be centered in the person of the bishop of Rome.

St. Demetrios

NLM

More on the Pachamama Cover-Up

CWR Dispatch: Analysis: Why ‘Pachamama’ took a dip by JD Flynn

Eduardo Echeverria on Latin Moral Teaching

CWR: No, @JamesMartinSJ, the analogy between slavery and homosexuality does not hold by Eduardo Echeverria
The moral laws, whose core is the Ten Commandments, retain their direct and unchanging validity, on the grounds of the objective moral law.

Can We Say "Rigged" Yet?

CNA: Amazon synod document calls for married priests and increased role for women
In his remarks in the synod hall on Saturday, Francis said that he hoped to issue an exhortation before the end of the year, time permitting.

(CWR)

Concert Madrid 2013 ΑΓΑΠΗΣΩ ΣΕ (εκτέλεσις Στανίτσα) KABARNOS

World Over - 2019-10-24 - Cardinal Gerhard Müller with Raymond Arroyo

full episode

CWR Interview with Keith Lemna on Louis Bouyer

CWR: Recovering the Cosmos: The theological and spiritual vision of Fr. Louis Bouyer by Carl E. Olson

A conversation with Dr. Keith Lemna, the author of The Apocalypse of Wisdom: Louis Bouyer’s Theological Recovery of the Cosmos, about “one of the most comprehensive theologians of the twentieth century.”

"Synodality"

Sandro Magister: The Conclusions of the Synod For the Amazon Were Already In the Pope’s Mind Five Years Ago

"The Deer's Cry"

Bridal Mysticism in the East?

Part 2 Better Have More Substance

1P5 Marco Tosatti: A Refresher on Liberation Theology

Weigel's Narrative

First Things: The Ideological Hijacking of Pope St. John XXIII by George Weigel

And as those excerpts from Gaudet Mater Ecclesia in the Divine Office make clear, John XXIII knew that that evangelical mission would only meet the needs of the day if it were anchored in the ancient, abiding truths bequeathed to the Church by divine revelation: truths manifested in the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus himself, and developed through the Church’s doctrinal reflection as guided by the Holy Spirit.

To be sure, John XXIII understood that evangelization was not an exercise in logic-chopping; most modern men and women were unlikely to be converted by the proclamation of syllogistic proofs. So the Church needed a contemporary way of expressing ancient truths. But as Pope John insisted in Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, those truths must be expressed “with the same meaning and the same judgment” (in some translations, “with the same meaning and import”). That was a direct quote from St. Vincent of Lerins, a 5th-century monk who wrote an important treatise on what we know as the “development of doctrine.” And it stands in sharp contrast to, and critique of, the bogus image of John XXIII as a pope unconcerned with doctrinal solidity and continuity.

The Patriarchate of Rome (not the "Church") has its structural issues which have come to light with the sex abuse scandal -- clericalism is still alive and bishops are unable to deal with the challenges confronting the "institutional Church." No council or synod will be able to fix this, as it requires leadership but also collaboration with the laity, and very few Latin bishops have what is required for either. John XXIII, nor have his successors, did not realize that the Church lost to the modern nation-state, and attempts at greater centralization and the fake alternative of fake "synodality" (which is still attempting a top-down solution) will fail. There can be no sustained and effective effort at evangelization until the local Church is revitalized, and this includes a reform of liturgical praxis. No matter how many times Mr. Weigel attempts to turn this failure into a triumphalistic narrative he cannot tell us our "lying eyes" are wrong.

Manifesto of Faith

website

NCReg: Cardinal Müller Discusses His Cinematic ‘Manifesto’ by Bree A. Dail
Arcadia Films released a documentary of the cardinal’s ‘Manifesto of Faith’ Oct. 1.

Christ the Bridegroom Monastery

Trolled

CNA: Amazon synod’s controversial carved figures thrown into Tiber River

What's Really Happening in the Amazon?

“Dis-evangelized” Amazon. The Numbers of a Catholic Church Reduced By Half
At the Synod, a Climate Expert Speaks. Sure Predictions: Married Priests and a Female Ministry

Playing with Parallage 1

Concert musica Bizantina - ΑΝΟΙΞΑΝΤΑΡΙΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΚΟΥΚΟΥΖΕΛΗ Kabarnos

Letters from the Amazon Synod Part 6

First Things: Letters From the Synod-2019: #6 by Xavier Rynne II

The conversation at Synod-2019 drinks more deeply from the wells of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Margaret Mead than from the living waters of biblical revelation.

What Future for (Latin) Seminaries?

CWR: Seminaries and formation: One priest’s perspective and suggestion by Fr. John Chalny, STD
Carrying out the formation of priests in a monastic setting might seem counterintuitive. However, it is less so than it seems.

It is old news, I think, that our current seminary system is often inadequate and lacking. The seminaries designed after the Council of Trent served their purpose, but society and the Church’s self-understanding about its relationship with society are quite different today. This difference was already visible in many churchmen writing during the mid-twentieth century, and became macroscopically obvious during and following the Second Vatican Council. Liturgical and educational experiments ensued, often with disastrous results. Today, the pendulum has swung back toward more traditional proposals in many places, while in other places a reaction to the reactionaries has kept things more “liberal” and “open”, fluffy and formless. To this observer, both options seem ill-equipped to guide the flock without harming and dispersing it, either through excessive action or through paralyzed inaction.

The proposals given in the essay make sense in so far as the priesthood remains reserved to celibate men in the patriarchate of Rome. But the masculinity crisis needs to be addressed first.
The description given in the essay may fit older, especially Boomer, priests:

Many parishes and communities approve of their priest because he is “one of the guys”. So, in some locales, priests aim to become enthusiastic about football and hunting and beer. In other company, they might also take up golfing and learn about the finer points of coffee preparation.

But among the younger priests, even those who are more conservative/traditional often there is something missing to their masculinity. I have seen some exceptions to this and perhaps not unsurprisingly many of those candidates for the priesthood have served in the military or had a job that helped them develop masculine virtue. Perhaps "priestly" gravitas should just reflect being a mature man, rather than an affectation for the sake of preserving status and a formal distance from the laity.

Jesuits in the World of Orthodox Christians, Paul Shore

PhD in Liturgical Studies?

The Best of Silver Age Scholasticism?

Church Life Journal

An African Missionary's Perspective on the Amazon

Sandro Magister: A Missionary Called By the Pope To the Synod On the Amazon Explains What the Church Gets Wrong

A Lightning Rod for Latin Traditionalists

Rorate Caeli: Christus Vincit: Bishop Schneider’s Powerful and Luminous New Book — And Its Presentation in Rome

Peter Kwasniewski

Edward Krasevac, OP on Nature and Grace

Amateur Hour at the Vatican

Vatican spin on the Amazon synod statue. Who represents life? Christ. We are alive only insofar as we live in him. The Theotokos is the "Mother of all the living," those who live in Christ. So why not an icon of our Lord or the Theotokos?

Does anyone there think like a Christian? Instead we get people who think like the world with respect to interior decorating for meetings.



Related:

Reception by the Faithful and All That

CWR Dispatch: John Henry Newman in Full by Bishop Robert Barron
Buffeting from both sides made almost the whole of Newman’s life difficult, and it is not hard to see why he saw much of his career as a Sisyphean exercise in futility.

Newman was not of the "left" or "liberal" -- he merely sought to reclaim the Latin churches from clericalism, a problem which still infects the patriarchate of Rome now. That some did not understand this and could only put it in political terms of the age shows how blind they were to the problem and their slavish adherence to their notion of hierarchy.

Thomas Aquinas as Mystical Theologian

Letters from the Amazon Synod Part 5

First Things: Letters From the Synod–2019: #5 Edited by Xavier Rynne II
Reports and Commentary, from Rome and Elsewhere, on the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region: “New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology”

The First Ecumenical Council

Fetomaternal Microchimerism

Church Life Journal

Too Early to Say: "Latin Synodality"?

Fr. Z on Weinandy's Article on Schism

Fr. Z: PODCAzT 178: Fr. Weinandy and the possible “Internal Papal Schism” - mp3

Dr. Stephane Rene Has a Blog

Coptic Iconography

Essence and Existence

Much Ado About...

Latin traditionalists may bemoan the fact that Pope Francis has done away with the reform by Benedict XVI of the rite canonization, using a simpler formula and omitting the petitions before the formula. (See, for example, Fr. Hunwicke.)

Some remarks:
1. Regarding the pope's response to the third petition in the Benedictine reform: "Let us, then, invoke the Holy Spirit, the Giver of life, that he may enlighten our minds and that Christ the Lord may not permit his Church to err in a matter of such importance."

One can invoke God's help, but if the act exceeds the authority given by God, is there any point?

The second petition itself was rather presumptuous:
"Most Holy Father, Holy Church, trusting in the Lord's promise to send upon her the Spirit of Truth, who in every age keeps the Supreme Magisterium free from error, most earnestly beseeches Your Holiness to enroll these, her elect, among the saints."

The Church Universal? No. A few members and representatives of the patriarchate of Rome and maybe representatives of those non-Latin particular Churches which have been Latinized to one degree or another and are still under the captive sway of Rome in their mindset.


2. It is inferred that the papal decree of canonization is an infallible act because it is supposedly an act regarding the Church Universal, and not the way around (e.g. the act must be proper to the pope because it is or needs to be infallible, and only the pope, representing the whole Church is infallible.)

But if it is not properly an act regarding the whole Church, despite what the decrees may say, but regarding only his patriarchate, the urgency of determining whether such an act is infallible is mitigated.

3. Even if the Benedictine reform is "better" at emphasizing certain aspects of the Latin conception of the authority of the bishop of Rome than the simpler formula now being used by Francis, the simpler formula nonetheless in its essence still reflects that same Latin conception, maximalist as it is.

See the document of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints, "NEW PROCEDURES IN THE RITE OF BEATIFICATION":

In the 11th century, the principle that as universal Pastor of the Church the Roman Pontiff alone has the authority to prescribe a public devotion began to gain ground, both in the particular Churches and the universal Church. With a Letter to the King and Bishops of Sweden, Alexander III asserted the Pope's authority to confer the title of Saint and the relevant public cult. This norm became a universal law with Gregory IX in 1234. 

Historical evidence that non-Latin particular Churches were agitating for this? And just because a pope decrees it doesn't make it a universal law.

Canonization is the supreme glorification by the Church of a Servant of God raised to the honours of the altar with a decree declared definitive and preceptive for the whole Church, involving the solemn Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff. 

 And there it is.

Holy Fear

Cyril O'Regan

Is There Any Party That Would Not Claim Newman for Their Own?

Letters from the Amazon Synod Part 4

First Things: Letters From the Synod–2019: #4 by Xavier Rynne II

We honor the memory of John Henry Newman, this newest of God’s saints, by imitating his courage, and the conviction that underwrote it.

Perhaps It Is Too Late to Implement

CWR: St. Newman’s Idea of a Catholic University: An Alma Mater, not a foundry, mint, or treadmill by Tracey Rowland

As we celebrate the canonization of John Henry Newman this week and re-read his publications on this subject, the gulf between his vision of Catholic education and what we currently have is stark.

Today's Canonizations in Rome

I bet María Teresa Chiramel Mankidiyan was not canonized separately by the Syro-Malabar hiearchy, who will not act to have a liturgical memorial for her now that Rome has issued its decree. More evidence of Latinization here:

Fr. Ian Ker Joins the Bandwagon

Not unexpected.

Traditional Ambrosian Chants

More on Newman

Erich Przywara


Christopher M. Wojtulewicz


Cyril O'Regan

Actually, for now just to the patriarchate of Rome.

But you can bet the decree of canonization will maintain Roman pretensions.

Too Soon?

After Week One of the Amazon Synod