SJWs Won't Rest Until They've Achieved Moral Purity

in everyone else.

Rod Dreher: The John Finnis Line In The Sand
One of world’s leading Christian scholars faces call for expulsion from classroom because of orthodox views on homosexuality

Shut Theology Deparments Down...

Church Life: The Crisis of Catholic Moral Theology by Charles C. Camosy

Pope Francis's Message to the Procurator-General of the Congregation of the Oratory

Pope Francis has sent a Message to the Procurator-General of the Congregation of the Oratory, Fr. Mario Alberto Avilés,...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Pope Sends Message on 5th Centenary of St. Philip Neri's BirthCalls on Members of Oratory to Follow Example of the 'Apostle of Rome'

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Defning the Juridical Status of Episcopal Conferences

Disapproval Ratings. The Ambassador and the Cardinal by Sandro Magister

The first, designated by France, is rejected by the Vatican because he is homosexual. The second, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, is opposed by the fans of Pope Francis. Who does not always make himself clear

Adam DeVille Interviews Fr. John P. Manoussakis

Philosophy, Theology, and the Search for Unity: An Interview with John P. Manoussakis

AD: I was of course especially interested in your chapter on Petrine Primacy, and I genuinely appreciated your direct but courteous disagreement (fn. 26, p.31) with my proposal (in Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity) for a permanent ecumenical synod, which I was modeling more on the "synodos endemousa" of Constantinople than the idea of a permanent ecumenical council which, following Zizioulas (with whom I agree) is indeed an event rather than an institution. Is there value for a permanent or standing synod around the one who exercises the Petrine primacy so that it does not become unilateral or unbalanced--that the papal "monarchism" of the past does not rear its head again?

That’s a good question. I think that the confusion here might be due to a certain equivocity. There are to different bodies that bear the designation of a synod: the synod of one particular Church, assembled around its primus or prōtos, and the ecumenical synod or council. The latter is indeed an event and not an institution and therefore it cannot be a permanent body. The former, however, is an institution and it is characterized by permanence. The difference is the following: the synod of a Church is comprised by hierarchs of that Church alone: a bishop who does not belong to that local Church cannot participate in it. While the ecumenical synod aspires to the maximum representation of all hierarchs of all local Churches (it is for this reason that no synod in the Orthodox Church has been designated as ecumenical after the separation from Rome). One needs to respect the difference of these two bodies, even though they both are synods of bishops. To create a hybrid third synod that would borrow the regularity of the local synod but also be comprised by hierarchs of other local churches, as in the case of an ecumenical council, is, in my view, problematic. Nevertheless, there is a point of cardinal importance implied in your suggestion which is the need to inscribe primacy within synodality (that is, the primus, even “the universal primus,” is always in reference to a synod) and, conversely, every synod (even the ecumenical synod) is headed by a primus. This principle, however, does not necessitate that the synod of the primus on the universal level be also a permanent synod: for whoever this primus is, he is also the primate who presides over the synod of his local church, and that is a permanent body of ecclesial governance. The risk of monarchism would be accentuated were we to grant to one primate the presiding role of two permanent synods at the same time, one of his local Church, the other of the universal Church.

Is the local or particular Church the national Church? Or the church of a "city," over which one bishop presides? Is it a mistake to think of the national Church as the "local" Church? I think so... especially when it comes to properly understanding the office of the primate (or patriarch) and the limits of his office.

A Russian Perspective on Things...

Post by Orthodoxy and the World.

Waiting for Her to Retire

That will probably happen before the archbishop of Boston cleans up Boston College.

Post by The Cardinal Newman Society.

William Oddie Responds to Eamon Duffy

William Oddie: Eamon Duffy talks of ‘the Sovietisation of Catholic intellectual life’ and quotes Newman in defence of Tina Beattie: Newman would disagree

Related:
Another example of liberal panic
On Being a Catholic Academic
Prof. Tina Beattie’s US lectures cancelled because of her public dissent from Church’s moral teaching