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