Zenit: Papal Address to Marriage and Family Institute
"In Love Man Is 'Re-created'"

CUA: Catholic University to Host 2012 Conference on 50th Anniversary of Vatican II

Enough talking, time for action? Or maybe the problem is that the talking was mostly for naught, because the authors of the documents didn't really address the problem of "modernity" because they failed to understand it?

If we could ignore the documents of Vatican II for a moment, what is there of pastoral and dogmatic value that could not be presented through what came before the council? American lay people are familiar with what is taught in the name of the council, but what would a summary of the council documents be like?

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, St. John Climacus and Prayer (mp3)

Sandro Magister, Benedict XVI the "Reformist." The Prosecution Rests

Introvigne replies to de Mattei, a leader of the anti-conciliarists. And Professor Rhonheimer returns to explain how and why Vatican II must be understood and accepted. In the way indicated by the pope

Christian Philosophy

homistica: New book on Christian Philosophy debates

A collection of the original sources; it won't have later and non-French contributors like John Wippel and Ralph McInerny.

I wrote a paper on this once -- I'd have to revise part of it at least. The first question that needs to be answered is: "How are we to define philosophy?" Do we accept the scholastic definition, or do we define philosophy as something less exact, so that the lyrical expressions of wannabe poets can be considered philosophy? Is philosophy about the mode in which it is expressed or the reasoning? Are there universal rules for good reasoning (including how to define well), which are studied in logic? How much logic did moderns like Blondel study? I think the debate is illustrative of what happens when people have lost the art of definition and name without guidance.

Some could interpret those who affirmed that there is such a thing as Christian philosophy as making an apologetical argument - Gilson and Maritain, for example. A last gasp of Christian triumphalism, unwittingly put forth by "existential" Thomists? Or another attempt to discredit scholasticism, with its philosophical compnent as the target.

If we accept that philosophy is reasoned-out knowledge, then there is no such thing as "Christian" philosophy. Some may be referring instead to how faith and reason interact or how grace affects reason, and naming this nexus as "Christian" philosophy; while it is true that the supernatural life does have benefits for those who seek reasoned-out knowledge, to say that this is "Christian" philosophy is potentially misleading, as our starting points or logic are not affected.


(And if it is claimed that the life of grace enables reason to reflect upon truths "natural" reason cannot come to know, then this would not be philosophy at all.)

Humans 'predisposed' to believe in gods and the afterlife

I believe apologists have made use of this "universal" fact in favor of theism.

So what are atheists to do but try to explain this away with evolutionary psychology or some other form of reductionism? Could it be that the simple and the uneducated have some sort of understanding that the operations of the mind transcend the limits of matter?

Cardinal Burke on the liturgy

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

Courses by Michel Labourdette op

On the virtues of Hope and Charity. (In French)

Volume 1 of his course is in commercial print! Cours de théologie morale fondamentale

Parole et Silence
Revue thomiste

How much effort should lay people put into discerning God's will?

Everyone should use prudence, and everyone should ask to be better confirmed God's will. Everyone should learn how to abandon themselves to Divine Providence. But does everyone equally need to know God's will? Lay people can discern what they should do, but much of their action is constrained by their duties and the rules and mores of their community. This is true of secular priests to an extent.

But at present it seems to me that those who need to discern God's will the most are those (religious) who no longer participate in the human economy, but wholly serve the Divine Economy. As a result, they need to be enlightened by Him directly as to how they are to serve Him and what they should do. Much of what the laity needs to do in order to fulfill God's will is given to them through the Natural Law, in conjunction with positive laws. The laity need to exercise prudence, as do those in religious life, but I think religious need to check that they are not presuming to be doing God's will, but must in humility ask to know whether this is actually the case.

The young do need to ask the question of whether they have a vocation to the priesthood or the religious life, but after that... maybe only with respect to great or extraordinary things or difficult cass? A parent does not need to question whether God wants him to do what is right for his children?

An old article in the Marquette Law Review, written by Anton Hermann Chroust: The Problem of Private Property According to St. Thomas Aquinas

Lumen Christi Institute: April 27: "The Dignity of Being a Substance" by Gilles Emery, OP

Vimeo

“The Dignity of Being a Substance” from The Lumen Christi Institute on Vimeo.

How great the burden of proof?

Re: torturing people for the sake of getting information

What needs to be be established so that the court (or lawful authority) can find someone guilty of contempt in refusing to answer some question he has been commanded to answer? Beyond a "reasonable doubt"? It seems to me that it would be difficult to show beyond a reasonable doubt that someone knows (or plans) x - I can't imagine there being sufficient incriminating evidence that someone knows x without the needed information being present as well.

I think the burden should be rather great. If it cannot be established without a reasonable doubt that someone knows x, then he cannot be punished for refusing to divulge that information, even if those in authority have reasons for suspecting that he has that information.

Don Paco on St. Thomas's philosophy

Quaeritur: Aren't You Unfairly Criticizing Gilson?

Additional notes on the definition of torture

Begun on March 19.

Some thoughts on the use of "compel" or "coerce" in the definition of torture.

Compel, coerce, force may be synonyms, but their usage may indicate slight (or not-so-sleight) differences in their meanings?

"Compel" may be somewhat ambiguous, as ambiguous as the definition of "torture" can be. After all, torture can be defined as the use of pain or bodily harm to compel obedience, the yielding of information, etc. -- to make someone do what they do not want to do. If a police officer uses pain to make someone resisting arrest comply with his legitimate commands, is he torturing that person? (Or if a child is spanked because he is not obeying his parents' instructions, is that torture?) Pain is used to bring someone to do something the one applying the pain wants. The same is true of force. On the surface, this does not seem like punishment for disobedience, but the use of pain or force is usually a response (and hence justified in the eyes of the law) to prior non-compliance/disobedience of an instruction or order.


"Coerce" may be less ambiguous than the other two words because in the literature the word coercion is often associated with law and government. Law coerces as well as commands. It doesn't necessarily imply a voluntaristic understanding of law; it is how the effects of law are perceived by its subjects, who may have only an imperfect understanding of the purpose of law.Does coercion involve an understanding that the consequences of not following are punishments? Punishments for disobeying a (legitimate) command? In so far as it is tied to law, I think it does. One is given the opportunity to comply, and if one refuses to do so, he is punished.

(The wiki entry on coercion. SEP. IEP on Free Will.)

How do we distinguish morally licit forms of coercion  (if there are any), getting obedience, cooperation, compliance through the application of pain and so on, from illicit forms? One could make an argument from human dignity that no one should be made a tool of another's will, but taken to an extreme, this argument (proper to liberalism) would lead to the sanctioning of disobedience and the outlawing of all consequences for that act. So is compulsion (as in the example of the police officer) to be identified with (legal) coercion and hence punishment?

In coercing the will of another, one is doing so with respect to an external act, and in particular acts of the body, whether it be to say something or to submit to an arrest.One cannot coerce the will to truly choose some opinion or belief, to assent or deny something, because we cannot confirm that this is actually the case. We can only obtain the physical representation of that belief through a verbal or written profession. Nor can we coerce the will's internal acts (desiring or loving some end). "Mental states" are hidden from us. That sort of mind control is impossible for us, and hence a non-believer cannot be effectively compelled from without to embrace the Christian faith. It also goes against the nature of the act of faith because the "grounds for belief" is not relief of pain or one's physical safety or health, but God's revealing of Himself and the acceptance of this. To say that the act of faith is or must be a free act does not go far enough, in my opinion, in explaining why it cannot be coerced. How is it free, that epistemic encounter with God?

Again, even if torture could be morally justified,  it is ineffective (according to various "experts) at procuring truth (confessions of guilt) or information.

*Compulsion presupposes that the original command was lawful - the one giving the command hand the authority to do so, the one being commanded is under his authority, and so on.

Catholic Online: Verbum Domini: Pope Calls the Faithful to Fall in Love with the Living Word of God

Rorate Coeli: A "renewed anthropological foundation to religious freedom" 

I have to agree with those commenting who see no change in the Holy Father's understanding of Dignitatis Humanae. The anthropology is the basis for the freedom and for the right.

Zenit: Mexican Christian Leaders on Religious Freedom [2011-05-06]
"Not a Benevolent Concession of the State But a Fundamental Human Right"

Zenit: Papal Address to Liturgical Institute
"Not Infrequently Tradition and Progress Are Clumsily Opposed"

Pope's Message to Biblical Commission
"Inspiration and Truth as Two Key Concepts"


Pope's Address to Delegation From the "Papal Foundation"
"The Church Is Missionary by Her Very Nature"

Called to Communion: Lawrence Feingold on Freedom of the Will (via ML)

NovAntiqua

Discovered this blog today while doing a search for information regarding the conference dedicated to John Finnis. One of the blog authors, Kevin Feiser, has written a series on the "action theory"/moral psychology of Martin Rhonheimer:

Regarding Rhonheimer…
On Rhonheimer, Part II: Moral Action Theory
On Rhonheimer, Part III: Virtue Ethics

6th Scarpa Conference on Law, Politics, and Culture

Patrick Brennan: More on John Finnis and others at Villanova Law

See also Fr. Rhonheimer is coming to Villanova Law and The Scarpa Conference at Villanova Law: Eskridge, Ferejohn, Finnis, and many others

OUP: The Collected Essays of John Finnis (5 volumes!)