Dr. Fleming's latest: Afghan Justice:

Here in the enlightened West, we know that the purpose of a criminal justice system is two-fold: to rehabilitate the criminal and protect the public. It was not always so. The ancients believed that a criminal act--murder, assault, robbery, rape--put the universe out of joint. The purpose of punishment was to put it right again. Killers are killed, robbers robbed, beaters beaten.

It was not always so simple as "an eye for an eye," and Roman and Christian law made allowances for motives, circumstances, and appropriateness of punishment, but they never forgot the primary purpose of punishment was retribution or, to use a simpler word, vengeance.

Leftist Christians will howl in protest, citing, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," little understanding that the same Lord, according to St. Paul, delegates the power to punish evil to the rulers of the world. Not in vain, Paul declared in an authoritative chapter of Romans, does the ruler hold the sword, nor is it a terror to the good but only to the wicked. It follows that a ruler who casts away the sword on a humanitarian whim is no longer a legitimate ruler. The Church always begged for mercy in specific cases, but never disputed the right and duty of kings and parliaments to execute criminals.

Even Imanuel Kant, who got most things wrong, saw through the lies of all the liberal theories of punishment:

"Judicial punishment can never be used solely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for society, but instead must in all cases be imposed on a person solely on the ground that he has committed a crime....woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it....Even if civil society were to dissolve itself by common agreement of all its members...the last murderer remaining in prison must be executed, so that everyone will duly receive what his actions are worth and so that the bloodguilt thereof will not be fixed on the people because they failed to insist on carrying out the punishment; for if they fail to do so, they may be regarded as accomplices in this public violation of legal justice.”

Chiara Luce Badano Movie Trailer


From 2010: Chiara Luce Badano to be Beatified Just 19 Years After Her Death
Beatification of Chiara Luce
Chiara Luce - The Wave
Focolare

Rob Vischer reviews Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality by Richard Thompson Ford (via Mirror of Justice)

Thomistica.net: The Salmanticenses Enter the Digital Age

Wau: The Most Amazing, Ancient, and Singular Number

Heroes Not Zombies: The Science Delusion. Rupert Sheldrake

Ancient Faith Radio podcasts

Doctrine Matters - Part 1 (mp3)
Fr. Andrew points out there are 3 disciplines of Orthodoxy - Doctrine, Piety, and Morality. However he is concerned that the first - Doctrine - occupies a back seat in many Orthodox circles.


St. Ephraim's Prayer

Thomistica.net: New Document from the International Theological Commission

The document: “Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles, and Criteria” (also at Zenit)

Via Insight Scoop: Tough Questions, Timeless Moral Truths
An interview with Fr. Brian Mullady about same-sex marriage, contraception, the death penalty, and other pressing moral issues

NLM: Book Notice: The Voice of the Church at Prayer, Fr. Uwe Michael Lang

Carthage: The Lost Mediterranean Civilisation

The Foundations of Our Orthodox Faith: A Discourse on the Sunday of Orthodoxy by Archimandrite John Krestiankin

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk: the Russian Revolution was prepared abroad

Jennifer Pahlka: Coding a better government

Recently I came across a link to an article against x because it was counter to human dignity, but I can't remember the author or the website. It may have been illustrative of the liberal turn in Catholic moral theology.

Rorate Caeli: Great Thinkers of the Order of Friars Preachers

James Chastek, The Kettlewell Principle and Deductions from nature being caused by hae hou heneka

A conversation on Ted: Will we ever truly be able to model nature?

Fr. Z with a statement by Joseph Ratzinger in 1969: “The Church will become small and will have to start afresh …”

Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice

Tonight at the DSPT

The 22nd Annual Aquinas Lecture
Albert the Great and the New Aristotelianism: A Turning Point in the Western Intellectual Tradition by Dr. Michael Tkacz

The lecture will probably be recorded and then uploaded to the DSPT website.

Response to Michael Tkacz's Critique of ID

Robert Louis Wilken, Tutoring the Affections: Liturgy and Christian Formation in the Early Church

"My Brother the Pope"

(via Catholic Fire)

Mary Victrix: Traditionalism and Liturgy

By traditionalism, then, I mean that ideology by which Catholics, in the name of conserving Tradition, take it upon themselves to determine what magisterial act does and does not belong to Catholic Tradition.

Can theologians do this? And can the laity make judgments as to what is Catholic doctrine and what is not?

Metropolitan Hilarion: Power that is not based on love will never bring good fruits

Peter King, The Failure of Ockham’s Nominalism

Rorate Caeli: Great Canon of Saint Andrew

Speaking with and about God - In March, the Dominican church of St. Vincent Ferrer will present its annual lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. (March 6, 2012)

Susan Cain: The power of introverts

Landscapes of Nothingness by William Carroll

DSPT Fellow - Barbara Elliott's Presentation on Catholic Imagination and Contemporary Culture

Via The Imaginative Conservative:

DSPT Fellow - Barbara Elliott's Presentation on Catholic Imagination and Contemporary Culture from DSPT on Vimeo.

Imagine That by Tony M. (on Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child)

Matthew Levering reviews The Last Superstition

Sandro Magister, "Concilium" Criticizes the Pope: He's with the Capitalists

Why I Love Religion, And Love Jesus || Spoken Word

Byzantine, TX: Met. Hilarion discusses state of Orthodox Church in China

Some DHS videos

Fr. Pritzl. RIP.

I think this is the movie about which DN informed me a while back: Fetih 1453 (wiki). It was just released this month?

official website

Apparently a movie glorifying the Ottoman conquest of the imperial city.

An Orthodox alternative?
From 2010: The text of the film “The fall of an empire—the Lesson of Byzantium”
A Byzantine Warning.
On the new documentary film, The Fall of an Empire—the Lesson of Byzantium

An Interview with Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov on “The Fall of an Empire: The Lesson of Byzantium”

From 2010: New mosaic of St David in Westminster Cathedral.

Medievalists.net: Stones of Medieval Italy

An Explanation of the The Litany of Humility: Three Aspects of Humility

Mirror of Justice: Hittinger on Maritain's Scholasticism and Politics - Scholasticism and Political Freedom (mp3).

The Angelus:Vatican II at 50: History of the Preparatory Schemas

James Chastek's appraisal of Aristotle's natural science: Note on Aristotle’s Physics

How can metaphysics then be a science rather than tentative opinion?

But in turning to the Physics in search of such truths, all one finds is a series of conclusions that are either false or of no value, and by “of no value” I mean the term as Aristotle himself used it: “definitions which do not enable us to discover the derived properties, or which fail to facilitate even a conjecture about them, must obviously be… futile (De anima, I:1)” If the value of definitions is from the power they give us to derive new properties and facilitate conjecture, then we must admit the truth of any number of things that nullify the supposed truth of common experience. For example, it is more valuable to identify rest and motion (as happens in inertia) or magnitude and time (as happens in Relativity). Again, we should affirm that things with no parts can move (Like electrons. The premise is not inconsequential – it grounds Aristotle’s proof for the existence of God) and we should deny that anything in motion needs a subject of notion (a light wave is not some thing waving – like aether) and that, as a consequence to this, magnitude is not the foundation of physical things, that is, a sort of substrate that supports all activity.

I wouldn't be so quick to jettison Aristotelian physics in favor of the reasonings of contemporary physicists, but it deserves a longer and better defense than I can give at the moment.

Simon Oliver - Radical Orthodoxy

Simon Oliver (2009). Radical Orthodoxy : From Participation to Later Modernity

TEDxMileHighSalon - Michael Huemer - The Irrationality of Politics

The Secular Character of the Laity and the DSPT College of Fellows by Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP

A couple of other links:
Black or white - on the Augustinian cappa
Ancient Heresies and Their Modern Forms

Rome Reports: Process of beatification begins for Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation

Measuring happiness?

TEDxObserver - Geoff Mulgan

James Chastek, A nexus of Aristotle and Plato’s disagreement

James Chastek, God as activity without someone (like God) acting

Giving Up Something” for Lent - Ancient Faith Radio (via Byzantine, Texas)

My 2012 Oscar Pick - The TREE OF LIFE - and why it won't win

Zenit: Doctor Who Found Cause of Down Syndrome Moves Closer to Canonization
Diocesan Phase Closes for Jérôme Lejeune

Br. Philiip Neri Reese, Character, Casuistry and Catharsis

Bishop Seraphim (Sigrist): Orthodoxy is Just Christianity

Why Study Latin and Greek? (via Insight Sccop)

The Pope's homily at Santa Sabina on Ash Wednesday.

In his talk earlier this month at the DSPT, Fr. Sherwin discussed the impact of emotional development on moral development, using the work of Lewis, Amini and Lannon in A General Theory of Love. He also talked about John Senior, and the sort of [emotional] preparation that a solid Christian spiritual life requires. There was some disagreement between him and Dennis de Rougemont on the origin of romantic love, as Fr. Sherwin cited Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde as a counter.

What new insights would Conrad Baars have into our affective life if he were alive today?

The current model of catechesis (CCD class) doesn't seem to be effective. We need something like Dr. Senior's integrated humanities program. (Of course the discussion got me thinking about the topic of poetic knowledge, as well.)

William Byrd - Emendemus in melius

William Byrd - Emendemus in melius. Deller

Insight Scoop: Saints are not sad - short biographies of joyful saints by Frank Sheed

Rome Reports: Pope explains the significance of Lent and Ash Wednesday

Zenit: On Peter's Mission
"To Feed the Flock of Christ, Keeping It United in Faith and Charity
Pope's Homily Sunday With New Cardinals
"The Petrine Ministry Is Therefore a Primacy of Love in the Eucharistic Sense"

Ash Wednesday and Lent in Two Minutes

OP Vocations: The Place of Study in the Ideal of St. Dominic
The Place of Study in the Ideal of St. Dominic
(PDF version)
by Rev. James A. Weisheipl OP

Rorate Caeli: In defense of Mons. Brunero Gherardini - Part 2

Questions on analogy

Steven Long, Thoughts on "A Long Way to Go," a response to Christopher Malloy's "A Long Way to Go."

His book: Analogia Entis: On the Analogy of Being, Metaphysics, and the Act of Faith

Consistory for new Cardinals

Rome Reports: What is a Cardinal?
How many cardinal electors are there and where are they from?
Pope begins meeting with college of cardinals

Rorate Caeli: In defense of Mons. Brunero Gherardini - Part 1

East of Byzantium teaser Vardan Mamikonyan

CNA: Moral theologians reject Catholic writer's defense of HHS mandate by Benjamin Mann

Metropolitan Hilarion: Life is granted to human beings so that they meet with God

Ancient Faith Radio: Philosophers and Theologians (mp3)

Ein Gespräch zwischen Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger und dem Staatsintendanten Prof. August Everding über Leben und Glauben (1997)



More videos: benedetto.tv.

Metropolitan Hilarion: the future of Orthodoxy depends on faithfulness to the church Tradition

Your Eminence, you are a theologian rightly recognized by the scientific communities both inside and outside Russia. In your view, what are the most acute theological problems facing the Orthodox Church as a whole today? Are there problems the solution to which really determines the future of Orthodoxy?




A. Today’s Orthodox Church preserves continuity with the apostolic Christian community and in this sense she is above all a Church of the Tradition. The future of Orthodoxy depends on faithfulness to the church Tradition – the tradition that the Church has preserved in diverse historical situations through centuries.


As opposed to some liberally-minded Christian communities, the Orthodox Church does not need any rethinking or re-interpretation of her doctrinal or moral teaching. And when ecclesiastical scholars, patrologists, historians, liturgists and representatives of other disciplines, in their studies encounter some problems, these problems do not concern doctrine as such but they are specific problems arising in any serious scholarship.


However, there is one really acute and pressing problem which is quite theological, that of church mission today. In this case it is a not a matter of church message, not what the Church preaches but what needs to be done to make church preaching intelligible and effective in today’s situation. Indeed, theology is not only an in-depth study of the meaning of the Church’s dogmatic and moral teaching. It is also a proclamation, a special way of proclaiming to the world and people the truths of the faith through various means. It is not without reason that Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople, a well-known defender of the veneration of icons, used the expression ‘the melody of theology’.


Today we face the task to find such ways of expressing the church teaching as to enable us to give account of our hope to those around us who are still far from the Church or those who are on the way to it.


A particular part of this task is the work on the Catechesis carried out today under the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission.

Remember a good Jesuit

Jesuits Saints and Blesseds: Saint Claude La Colombière

More:
(CE)
Pierced Hearts

Father of Modernity? Heaven forbid!

Via Thomistica.net: Tina Beattie's series on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. The first installment is "Rediscovering a Father of Modernity."

The division into modern and premodern in relating philosophy to corresponding political trends may not be so helpful.

Beattie doesn't really explain what she means, except with the following:
"Aquinas brought to that era a synthesising brilliance with regard to texts and ideas which has left a deep imprint on western religion, politics, law and ethics."

So how does she define modernity? Catholic intellectuals would tend rather to define modernity by its rejection of what came before, including Aquinas and scholasticism.

Fr. Nichols' essays on the liturgy

Lost in Wonder

Mary Victrix: Traditionalist Sleight of Hand

Note that the question answered here is not whether the traditionalists are right in challenging the hermeneutic of continuity. That will be answered in the next post. The question here is simply whether the Holy Father has really invited or encouraged the debate over the possibility of an interpretation of the Council based on a hermeneutic of continuity. He has not.

What will he write in the next post?

TEDxSF - Louie Schwartzberg - Gratitude


A podcast on gratitude from an Orthodox perspective.

The liturgy in the life of the Church (via MB)

Visit of Bishop Hilarion of Vienna
January 30, 2004

He talks about the need for education and touches on the intersection between faith and reason.

A Brief History of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph

Byzantine, Texas: Theological Presuppositions of the Orthodox Iconographer (which links to this My Thesis Summary: The Theological Presuppositions of the Orthodox Iconographer by matushka constantina)

Two from Tune thy Musicke to thy Hart

Stile Antico & Fretwork

John Taverner: Dum transisset sabbatum

Alamire

Ustream

Byzantine, Texas: Florovsky Society Patristic Series Symposium streaming

Complexity seems to open a way towards a new Aristotelian-thomistic ontology (pdf)

The Life of St. Dominic by Fr. Henri Lacordaire OP

Attraction to Infinity: A Review of God at the Ritz by Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete
Review by Christopher West


Frontline interview

Fr. Sherwin giving a talk tomorrow at the DSPT in Berkeley

From the calendar of events:

Dumb Ox Theology Forum: Fr. Michael Sherwin, OP- This Wondrous Malady: Further Reflections on the Psychology of Love
Tuesday, February 7, 8:00 pm
DSPT 1

Catholic Life Series - Free Will - Dr. Fulvio Di Blasi


Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Thomas International Center's Wolfe explains the value of subsidiarity


Does that sound like a traditional exposition of subsidiarity and politics?

Zenit: On the Prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane
"Nowhere Else in Sacred Scripture Do We Gain So Deep an Insight Into the Inner Mystery of Jesus"

Metropolitan Hilarion: Our life should be a continuation of the Liturgy and our home a continuation of the church

The Boston Pilot: Accept mystery of Christ to achieve inner peace, movement's leader says

Father Carron, 61, first became aware of Communion and Liberation after serving as a priest for years after his 1975 ordination. He taught, researched and wrote in various academic settings in Jerusalem, Washington and Madrid and along the way discovered the movement. In 2004, he was invited to move to Milan, Italy, by Father Giussani to share the responsibility of leading the movement.

Prior to his discovery, he explained, emptiness still existed in his heart despite serving the church. That changed when he began to understand what Communion and Liberation espoused to people from all walks of life.

"I thought that I knew Christianity, but there was something in my life that didn't work. There was something in my relationship with my students that didn't work." he recalled. "But the moment I encountered Father Giussani something started to change in my relationship with myself, in my relationship with my students. My classes became more interesting for me, for my students.

"It was a fantastic journey, an adventure," Father Carron said of his acceptance of the mystery of Christ: his life on earth, his crucifixion and his resurrection. "I could understand what this means ... this charism for my life and for the life of the church."

??? What was he missing?

Archived also at Catholic Herald
NET video
Avvenire interview
editorial on Christmas

Don Giussani and the presence of the laity in the Church

Robert George: Embryo: A Defense of Human Life 2nd Edition

Rorate Caeli: Bishop Fellay to Rome: "We are ready."

A final response by Tollefsen to Miller and O'Brien ?

Natural Causes, Divine Commands, and Human Wellbeing by Christopher O. Tollefsen

Domincian Rite Missa Cantata of St. Thomas Aquinas at St. Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula CA (NLM)

Thomistica.net: A New Moral Theology Journal - its webpage. Looks like it is embracing a "broad spectrum" of contributors. Keenan, Hollenbach, and Cahill? Sad.

Still, there is this article by Craig Steven Titus: Servais Pinckaers and the Renewal of Catholic Moral Theology.

Global Religious Leader to Speak to Students about Divinity of Christ

Video?