At Christendom College: Dr. Ken Grasso to Deliver Lecture on Church and State Relations

Dr. Ken Grasso will deliver a lecture entitled “The Freedom of the Church and the Taming of the State: The Christian Revolution, Western Liberty & the Rise of the New Leviathan” to the students and faculty of Christendom College at 4 p.m. in St. Kilian’s Café on April 29. This lecture will be part of the college’s Faith & Reason Lecture Series.

Perhaps a version of this will be published somewhere (if it hasn't been already).

His faculty page.

"Pascha"

Pascha: The New Passover
V. Rev. Fr. Anastasios Gounaris
Dean, Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, New York City

Fr. Z: Theologian responds to Archbp. Marini’s less than helpful comment on same-sex unions

CNA interviewed Fr. Rhonheimer --

“Conferring legal equality to same-sex unions signifies to publicly establish, in the law system, the principle of dissociation of sexuality and procreation,” he explained in an April 22 telephone interview with CNA.

Archbishop Piero Marini explicitly denied that same-sex unions should be equal to marriage between a man and a woman. So the CNA article is a bit misleading, as it sets up a strawman argument... the question is, rather, whether same-sex civil unions should be recognized as such at all. (Or whether one can be conferred certain rights, without any sort of legal recognition of a sexual relationship. While liberals or individualists might think so, one can ask whether the rights of others, e.g. family members, are prior to that of someone who is not related by blood, a friend, or a same-sex "lover.")

Spero News: Novices Enter Russian Catholic Monastery in Rome

To Promote In Order to Remove

It may "save face," but maybe it isn't such a wise idea. Then again, maybe turning the papacy into a bureaucracy isn't a wise idea, either.

Fr. Z: Former papal MC comes out for same-sex unions, trashes Benedict XVI’s pontificate

Holy Mass on the occasion of Priestly Ordinations

From yesterday...


Re: the use of Latin - if the bishop of the Church of Rome, which should pride Latin above all other churches, does not think that the continued use of Latin in the liturgy is worthwhile, then why should anyone else care about it?

Rome Reports: Religious Liberty still a problem, 1700 years after the 'Edict of Milan' was signed

Rome Reports: Cardinal Cañizares: "We wanted to choose the Pope that God had chosen"

Divine Liturgy in St. Peters with Pope John Paul II

Via ByzCath

Byzantine, Texas: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Patriarch visits Phanar

Rome Reports: Pope Francis meets with president of Ecuador and shows his 'environmentally friendly' side

On the bishop's staff (in the Byzantine rite): Orthodox Arts Journal (via Byzantine, Texas - the explanation goes beyond Moses.

Reforming the College of Cardinals?

George Weigel has some recommendations (via Vatican Insider)

No radical suggestions here (with respect to re-imagining the exercise of the papacy).

John Tavis: Pope Francis on the risk of a 'babysitter' church
Pope Francis: to evangelize baptism is enough

More:
Francis: We Must Submit to the Holy Spirit
Francis and Vatican II: “There's no turning back”

The Unprecedented "Presumption" of Changing the World

Vatican Diary / Collegiality yes, democracy no

Simonopetra Monastery - Psalm 18

Thomistica.net: CUA Press to Distribute Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University's Books

Ignatius Press had been the distributor; fiscal or sound business reasons for this change (not renewing the contract?) or is this another consequence of the falling-out between AMU and Fr. Fessio?

Becoming a Dominican

Province of St. Joseph: Formation Process

The Akathist Hymn

Fr. Schmemann on Liturgical Reform

Fr. Alexander Schmemann was familiar with the work of Fr. Bouyer. (Did they ever meet in person?) Did he agree with Fr. Bouyer on the principles of liturgical reform? He did write a review of Liturgical Piety. It is apparent that Fr. Schmemann did think that some reform was needed. In which of his books does he discuss this? There are the following essays online:

On the question of liturgical practices
Problems of Orthodoxy in America: The Liturgical Problem

Not all Orthodox have been accepting of his work.

Related:
On the Importance of Attending the Evening Divine Services by Protopresbyter Valery Lukianov

Hesed/Misericordia

Shortly after Benedict XVI became pope, Eamon Duffy gave a lecture at BC speculating on the direction of his pontificate regarding liturgical reform, and iirc, he guessed that the feast of the Divine Mercy (the second Sunday of Easter) would not be kept on the universal calendar long. It was added because of the devotion of John Paul II. (After all, Sr. Faustina was Polish.) Given the conservatism of Benedict XVI the feast has been maintained, and [Pope] Francis has not removed the feast, either.

Is the devotion of the Divine Mercy itself superfluous? Is the second Sunday of Easter the appropriate place for the observance of the devotion? Are there not other comparable Western/Latin devotions that already existed? I think Dr. Duffy mentioned the Sacred Heart of Jesus precisely in connection with the Divine Mercy.

The Difference is in the Emphasis
The Sacred Heart of Jesus and The Divine Mercy, Part Five
By Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD
(more in the website's library)

A Monk Reflects on Divine Mercy and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Given the image that accompanies the devotion, though, is the Divine Mercy any more Trinitarian than the Sacred Heart, as Fr. Ignacy Rozycki claims (see Dr. Stackpole's essay)? Fr. Sopocko argues that the devotion to the Divine Mercy is a development of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

I was also thinking of the comments by Fr. Louis Bouyer on the devotion to the Sacred Heart in his Liturgical Piety (p. 249, 251 ). Bouyer's criticisms of paralitugies replacing the liturgy of the Church is understandable, given his concern to ground Christian spirituality within the liturgy. There has been a multiplication of devotions in the Latin West,
each focused on a particular aspect of God or His Saving Action in history. Bouyer writes that they have served as a necessary help for a people who were not formed in an authentic liturgical spirituality. The answer to the question of whether some may obscure the spirituality of the Roman-rite liturgy would be yes, for Bouyer. (Is there anything comparable in Eastern Orthodoxy, in terms of the number of devotions?) What would Fr. Bouyer have made of the devotion to the Divine Mercy? Another modern devotion that potentially misleads? Or a beneficial corrective?

We should reflect upon the great mercy and love of God, of Christ - the Jesus Prayer of the East in many ways resonates with both of these Western devotions, but is in a way more "simpler" - with respect to the imagination, at least. It is focused less on a sensible reality (as given by the images propagated with both Western devotions) and more on the person of Christ - and more tied to the objective Mystery, as Bouyer might write?


Related:
Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas - On Devotion to the Sacred Heart

Benedict XVI, Papal Letter on 50th Anniversary of "Haurietis Aquas"

From 2006: Benedict XVI's mission to restore the glories of the Catholic liturgy

The legacy of Pope Benedict XVI


From NCR, Eamon Duffy on Liturgical Reform and Pope Benedict - Where truth and beauty meet: Understanding Benedict - 7