A review of Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet
by Donald Weinstein at Lapham's Quarterly (via the Pittsford Perennialist)

An excerpt.

Hm, review at America Magazine. The author writes on Rick Santorum.

Rorate Caeli: Vatican II: A discussion that can no longer be stopped
A new kind of discussion has begun about Vatican II and it cannot be stopped.

Je m'appelle Bernadette trailer

Bande-Annonce "Je m'appelle Bernadette" (Partenariat Hôtels Vinuales)


(via MER)

Άγιον Όρος • Σιμωνόπετρα • Ψαλμοί - Mount Athos • Psalms

Kallistos Ware, We Must Pray for All: The Salvation of the World According to St Silouan

"If those in hell are not deprived of God’s love, if they are embraced also by the love of the saints, may it not still be possible for them to respond to this love that surrounds them on every side? Is there not still a hope that they may ultimately be saved? St Isaac certainly seems to have believed in universal salvation:[7] as a member of the Church of the East, dwelling safely beyond the confines of the Byzantine Empire, he had no reason to fear the anti-Origenist anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553)."

"The Orthodox Approach to Mission" – A Lecture by Archimandrite Irenei (Steenberg)

CWR: Unity of Faith in a Diversity of Traditions
Pope Benedict XVI’s plan for enriching cooperation among the Churches of the Middle East

Orthodox Items

Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America: 2012 Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in North and Central America

Metropolitan Hilarion concludes his working visit to Greece
Metropolitan Hilarion celebrates at Agia Sophia in Athens

“Spiritual But Not Religious” and the Path to God by Fr. Andrew S. Damick

ROCOR:
Kursk: Celebrations in the Kursk Metropoliate
Jerusalem: Bishop Peter of Cleveland celebrates Divine Liturgy at the Church of Holy Royal Martyr Alexandra of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission of the Moscow Patriarchate

How to Make the Sign of the Cross

(The Orthodox way)

Mere Comments: Russian Monastery Choir on US Tour (includes tour schedule - there is a stop in San Francisco on October 22)

“Christ is in Our Midst” by Anthony E. Clark, Ph.D.
A Catholic pays a visit to a Russian Orthodox Church in Beijing.

(via Insight Scoop)

Mark Lilla reviews Brad Gregory's The Unintended Reformation

Mark Lilla, Blame it on the Reformation (via Michael B. Dougherty and Lee Faber)

More on Ecclesial Movements

Will bishops who come from the ecclesial movements be prepared to properly shepherd local Churches? To come up with strategies necessary to revitalize parish life?

Why is a strong parish life necessary for Christians? Certainly it's been part of the history of Christianity, notably for the Early Church, and much weight must be given to its historical reality and importance as a guide for action. Still, some may go so far as to claim that what is needed now are movements tied either to the workplace or to one's profession. If one has time to meet with other members of the movements after work, then they have time to meet with other members of the parish - but only if other members of the parish are willing to commit to deepening their witness to Christ, that is true.

Ecclesial movements can be seen as a temporary band-aid solution and outlet for evangelization efforts because circumstances in many areas prevent a thorough revitalization of the parish, but ecclesial movements are nonetheless ordered to strengthening the life of the local Church at that level. I am not convinced in the long run that many converts will be made in the workplace by ecclesial movements, especially if the nature of the work goes against the "evangelical simplicity" of the Christian life.

What needs to be done is a more thorough explanation of why parish life is necessary for the Christian, one that will draw upon moral theology (and the order of charity), the science of politics (which will elucidate in relation to human goods the nature of the lay vocation, especially with regards to the word, "world," and how it is to be understood), and an exploration of the Church's liturgy as public prayer.

Perhaps it would be better to say that a healthy, vibrant parish life would be the "natural" result of the laity living out their vocation well. But as I've mentioned before, in many parts of the industrialized world, the political economy itself presents obstacles. But we must also look at the culpability of Christians, or the part they have played in the diminishing of parish life, too.

Ian Ker on ecclesial movements

Alba House: New Ecclesial Movements: Communion and Liberation, Neo-Catechumenal Way,
Charismatic Renewal by Tony Hanna (more info)

New City Press: Ecclesial Movements and Communities by Brendan Leahy

Response by Guzman Carriquiry to the paper "On Being Christian in the World"
(I was unable to find a copy of his "The Ecclesial Movements in the Religious and Cultural Context of the Present Day" online.)

Joseph Ratzinger:
The Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements (pdf)
The Ecclesial Movements: A Theological Reflection on Their Place in the Church

Some of his essays on the topic have been collected here - New Outpourings of the Holy Spirit
(the introduction by Bishop Stanislaw Rylko)

Related:
Pontifical Council for the Laity

Rorate Caeli: SSPX-Rome: Important - Father Schmidberger speaks on conditions and current status of negotiations with Rome
Updated: video with subtitles

ROCOR: Washington, DC: September Celebrations in the Parish of St. John the Baptist Cathedral
Howell, NJ: Metropolitan Hilarion led a Regular Session of the Diocesan Council

Competing with Joseph Ratzinger?

Soon to be published by Liturgical Press: Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was by Gerhard Lohfink - the English translation of a book originally printed in German, I guess.

On the mailing from LitPress, there is the blurb: "If you read only one book about Jesus this year..."

with praise from Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, author of Jesus: A Historical Portrait

I can't find any reviews or critiques by trusted Catholic theologians.

Volume 3 of Joseph Ratzinger's work on Christ will be released in time for Christmas this year.

Related: Book Review of Jesus and Community by Gerhard Lohfink 1982, Fortress Press

Edit.
Jesus and human imagination by Raymond A. Schroth | Sep. 25, 2013
Christological heresy and Pelagianism?

Chiesa: Vatican Diary / The pope's favorites
"They are the cardinals, the bishops, the priests whom Benedict XVI has wanted to add to the participants in the upcoming synod. Three of them are from Opus Dei. And another three from Communion and Liberation"

Let us pray to the Holy Spirit that those attending the synod will be enlightened. Surely He can overcome deficits in learning and experience?

Steven Long on Formal Cooperation

Steven Long, The Dubious Guidance of the New Natural Law Theorists on "Formal Cooperation"

Some thoughts occasioned by Bp. Wcela’s essay on female deacons (via Fr. Z)

A canonical treatment of the question, not a theological response to the ordination of [female] deaconesses in the East and explanations of the practice current in Orthodoxy.

Vengeance and Justice

Something of note: Ed Feser has written something on vengeance and its relation to justice - Justice or Revenge?

Sólo sé mí

Palamism Explained in Twelve Minutes or Less (via Byzantine, Texas) - mp3

Vatican Insider: “Vatican II is the cradle of the new evangelisation”

The theology of Abp. Joseph Augustine DiNoia, O.P. by Michael J. Miller (via Insight Scoop)

"The documents of the Second Vatican Council have lasting value because they were produced and approved by an Ecumenical Council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The interpretations of those documents by enthusiasts who emphasized “renewal” and ignored “tradition” were not necessarily the same thing."

St. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary for All Time by Brennan Pursell

Shinichi Mochizuki

Proof claimed for deep connection between primes

World's Most Complex Mathematical Theory 'Cracked'
NYT

Steve Sailer on supposed Japanese unoriginality.

From 2004: Return of the Relics of St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Theologian to Constantinople

Ecclesia in Medio Oriente

English (pdf) - via FT

Vatican summary

Ecclesia in Medio Oriente: Keys to understanding the new papal document


Related:
Pope's Address Upon Signing Apostolic Exhortation on Mideast [2012-09-14]
It "can be read and understood in the light of this Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross"
Pope's Presentation of "Ecclesia in Medio Oriente"
"A guide to follow the various and complex paths where Christ goes before you" [2012-09-16]
Pope's Address at Ecumenical Meeting in Beirut
"Let us work without ceasing so that the love of Christ may lead us little by little into full communion with each other

Being

James Chastek, What am I trying to signify by “being”? and Simultaneity and the First, Second, and Third Way

I've been thinking of the question of being in relation to Duns Scotus and univocity, but since my handle of metaphysics is that of a beginner, I am just jotting some notes for later reference. Can there be a concept of being without first some sort of assent that a particular thing is/exists? How can one know any sensible thing without first sensing it? While essence is not the same as existence for contingent beings, does our conception of a thing necessarily have a reference to the judgment that it has existed? Is our conception of being then dependent upon some "being" having an effect upon our senses? A being is, first, that which has acted upon our senses, either directly or via something else?

If so, can our conception of being be univocal in this way, while it is equivocal when we try to reason out how material creatures differ from immaterial beings and God? Being is univocal in accordance with this sort of preliminary definition, but equivocal with a more "scientific" definition?

Interesting, according to Vox, the OED gives a definition of torture not just as being a form of coercion but as punishment: "he action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something"

John Taverner: Dum transisset sabbatum

Something from 1936? Any updates in scholarship since then? St. Isidore and mediaeval science by Floyd Seyward Lear

Fr. Uwe Michael Lang's book, "The Voice of the Church at Prayer", reviewed by Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

Zenit: POPE'S MESSAGE ON 10 COMMANDMENTS
"God has given us the Commandments to educate us to liberty and genuine love"

Some discussion of women in the diaconate at ByzCath. Both men and women can serve others - but is it the case that women deacons were raised to Holy Orders? Does the deacon have a place in the hierarchy of authority? (Or is it the case that the diaconate, for both men and women, is a separate Holy Order from that of the presbyterate, as one commentor claims?)

While it may convince some that the priest is male because he represents Christ, what about the question of why is Christ male? Arguing that He is male because He is the Bridegroom while the Church is the Bride may be sufficient for some, but isn't the difference in role not something accidental?

Tomás Luis de Victoria, Ave Regina Caelorum

Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) Ave Regina caelorum a 8


Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) Missa Ave Regina caelorum

Vatican Diary / The conversion of bishop-theologian Bruno Forte

Forte's joining the fray is significant, and in some ways surprising.

It is significant because he is one of the best-known Italian bishops, including at the international level, and enjoys a substantial following among his brother bishops, who in fact appointed him as their representative at the worldwide synod on the new evangelization that will be held in Rome in October. Of the four selections he is the only one without the scarlet, the other three being all cardinals: Angelo Bagnasco, Giuseppe Betori, and Angelo Scola.

It is surprising because Forte has always been considered a theologian of the progressive camp, the camp that most opposes, and not only in Italy, the passage from "for all" to "for many."

At the memorable ecclesial conference in Loreto in 1985, which marked the ascent in the leadership of the Italian Church of then-auxiliary bishop of Reggio Emilia Camillo Ruini, Forte was fighting for the other and the winning side, together with the president of the episcopal conference at the time, Anastasio Ballestrero, and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. And it was he who gave the introductory theological presentation.

This is why he has not rarely ended up in the crosshairs of his more conservative theologian colleagues.

For example, in a 2004 article Fr. Nicola Bux, an adviser – both then and now – to the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, singled out Forte as one of the "promulgators" of a "weak and derivative theology" concerning the resurrection of Jesus, reduced "to an 'etiological legend,' or an artifice in support of the worship that the Judeo-Christians were conducting on the site of Jesus' burial."

But Forte's taking the field is even more surprising because it marks in him a change of judgment with respect to the past.

Behavior psychology and Mass Marketing... as Tools of Evangelization?

Full and Active Participation: The Challenge of “Porta Fidei” and the Promise of Right Brain by Deacon Dominic Cerrato (via Insight Scoop)

Given all that has been said to promote the Year of Faith effectively along with its associated catechetical programs, a new marketing approach needs to be crafted that puts joy before the law. It must lead with the contagious love of Jesus Christ, demonstrating how, by attending these various efforts, the participants will share in that joy by experiencing that love. One way this new marketing approach can be crafted is through the Right Brain Research of Dr. Charles T. Kenny. 22 Right Brain has discovered that a brand is created when people make an emotional connection that transforms the specific product or service into an implicit promise. This promise drives their perceptions, the way they feel, their behavior, and their expectations. By understanding this emotional connection as it relates to the product or service, a highly effective marketing effort can be crafted. The Right Brain approach, inasmuch as it seeks to fulfill a deeply felt emotional need, corresponds directly to the kind of dynamic that moves passive participation to active participation.

Historically, marketing approaches tended to be more left brain. Where left brain describes an analytical approach often expressed through a logical argument, right brain keys in on the emotional benefit for the consumer. As explained in St. Thomas’ ethics, and as illustrated by Fr. Barron’s baseball analogy, these two approaches are by no means mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite: they are inclusive and complementary insofar as the joy (right brain) makes possible a fuller appreciation of the law (left brain). The left brain acts to balance, control, and explain actions that are driven by emotional needs seated in the right brain. All human behavior is an interplay of the left brain and the right brain, a beautiful and synergistic interconnectedness.

Motivating people to participate in a catechetical event is subject to the same universal laws of human behavior and psychology that govern any great brand campaign. These include appealing to one or more of the 47 emotional needs discovered by Right Brain Research, and overcoming one or more of the emotional barriers (i.e., fears) that prevent people from responding. In their commercials, the Catholics Come Home advertising appeals to such emotional needs as: love and acceptance, affiliation, community, hope, intimacy, immortality, and redemption. In those same commercials, they also help people overcome such emotional barriers as: fear of rejection, guilt, fear of judgment, and fear of inadequacy. This achievement can be duplicated using Right Brain Research in the promotion of all catechetical programs.

the Motu Proprio Porta Fidei

I need to read Bellarmine.

And how he explains the separation between temporal authority and spiritual authority.

What Barack Obama Could Learn from St. Robert Bellarmine by Gerald J. Russello

3. Laws affect persons. Bellarmine was adamant in his “On Laymen,” part of a series of works called the Controversiae, published between 1586-89, that “from the fact that political authority is temporal and its end is external peace and that man does not make judgments on internal matters, it is rightly inferred that it can oblige only to perform temporal and external acts but not that it cannot bind in conscience.” This is a crucial point that secularists often overlook, since they have a utilitarian or agnostic view of the law. For them, regulations like the HHS mandate simply preserve “health care” or “equality,” and affect only external actions. For them, such laws do not touch religious belief, which is considered only an internal matter and not one concerned with action.

Cardinal Burke's Address to the Kenyan Canon Law Convention

Zenit: CARDINAL BURKE TO KENYA CANON LAW CONVENTION

Someone wrote in linking to this, "The ever amazing Cardinal Burke on how to remake society in a Just and Christian mold...organically." I think that may be an overestimate of its practical usefulness with respect to civic reform.

Canon law is necessary instrument for the life of the Church. But a conference on canon law is not the same as a symposium on the lay vocation or "spiritual" theology, but one should not take the cardinal's remarks on the universal call to holiness (borrowing heavily from John Paul II) as being complete, nor a program for the renewal of political community.

The Right to Citizenship

A follow-up to this post.

Why is there not a universal, natural right to citizenship?

1. What is required for one to be able to order the community, or legislate, well? [Civic] prudence and the moral virtues.

2. What about being able to judge other people well, according to their character (rather than the platform that they espouse)? This requires experience, familiarity with virtue, and right opinion regarding moral precepts and the good, at least, if not knowledge.

These are not inborn traits; they must be acquired and they are contingent, not necessary. As a result, there can be no natural right since no one is "naturally" qualified to rule or to have some share in it. Some notion of [natural] individual dominion or sovereignty is inadequate to back up the claim that such a right exists. In accordance with distributive justice, then, the work of the whole should be done by all the members of whole only if they are qualified to do it, not simply because they are members.

One might appeal to Aquinas' discussion of law as a counter-argument in favor of all being naturally entitled to citizenship:

Now to order anything to the common good, belongs either to the whole people, or to someone who is the viceregent of the whole people. And therefore the making of a law belongs either to the whole people or to a public personage who has care of the whole people: since in all other matters the directing of anything to the end concerns him to whom the end belongs.

The act of legislating belongs to the community as a whole in directing itself to its good - "since in all other matters the directing of anything to the end concerns him to whom the end belongs." This could be further explained by an appeal to dominion or sovereignty (though Aquinas does not do so in the Summa Theologiae).

But not all participate in the ordering in the right way - some order, some are ordered. And even those who order may not do so equally, for example the members of the family. While the wife (and to a lesser extent their children) may contribute to the deliberation of the household, the husband is the authority. I do not think Aquinas would dispute this point. There appears to be a significant difference between an individual directing himself and an individual being a part of a group. The differences between the members and the consequences of these on their relationships to one another (~social dynamics) are such that the group is not reducible to the totality of the individuals who comprise it. The act of legislation may be attributable to the community as a whole, but it is not necessary that all members of the community are equally the author of that act - there may be justified degrees of participation. While it may be proper that all members of a community be consulted concerning potential legislation (especially regarding its impact on the community), this does not entail that all should be legislators.

While I am sympathetic to the claim that the best constitution (or the one most amenable to Christian fraternity) is that of a republic, it is an ideal and not one that comes about naturally. The paideia that is required must be in place in order to bring a republic into being and to sustain it. Nowadays, it is not as important question  as the problem of size and scale, a more pressing matter, not only because of the lack of ecological sustainability.

If it is not in accord with distributive justice that those who do not have the requisite virtue have a share in rule, and it is not unjust to prevent them from having it, could a valid consequentialist argument be made that if they were to have a share in rule that a worse state of affairs would result (e.g. there would be more disagreement and conflict, or the quality of the legislation would decrease as more compromises would have to be made to satisfy the demands of opposing factions)?

An additional question that needs to be addressed is whether men and women are equally suited to rule. But perhaps a more important consideration is the relationship of a man to his family as the husband and father and to other men as a member of a group.

IERS

Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science

Just started to look at the website; Finalism and “The Aristotelian-Thomistic Concept of Nature and the Contemporary Debate on the Meaning of Natural Laws,” (pdf) by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti at the Pontifical Athenaeum of the Holy Cross.

See also the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk chairs sessions of presidium of Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission and of working group for compiling modern catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church (via Byzantine, Texas)

OCN Come Receive the Light podcasts

website

MB on theosis. mp3

Christopher Blum's Review of Fr. Augustine's biography of St. Francis

The Francis We Never Knew: Surprising Revelations About the Man From Assisi

Mark Martin's Microbiology Blog

via Dr. Helen - All Creatures Great AND Small: Preaching Microbial Supremacy!

Zenit: On the Law of God
"It leads man out of the slavery of egoism and brings him into the 'land' of true freedom and life"

In the Liturgy of the Word this Sunday the theme of God’s Law, of his commandment emerges. This is an essential element both in the Jewish and Christian religions. In the latter the Law of God finds its complete fulfillment in love (cf. Romans 13:10). God’s Law is his Word that guides man on his life’s journey, it leads him out of the slavery of egoism and brings him into the “land” of true freedom and life. For this reason in the Bible the Law is not seen as a burden, an oppressive limitation, but as a precious gift of the Lord, the witness of his paternal love, of his will to be near his people, of being their ally and writing a history of love with them.

Two from Medievalist.net

The Making of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae - Bernard McGinn



Science and the Medieval University

John Paul II on the Right to Citizenship

A reader left a link to Javier Hervada's The Principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church in the combox. It's been a while since I've looked at the essay. Professor Hervada is probably a good man (indeed I owe him for an act of generosity), and I may have even recommended his introduction on this blog at some point, but I wanted to call attention to one part which is probably problematic:

6. THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF THE HUMAN PERSON. One characteristic of the human person is self-mastery. This dominion has two aspects. First, control by reason and will over the other faculties makes a person's acts free and responsible; second, his being and the natural ends proper to it entitle the person to rights and liberties, as well as to duties, in his relations with others. These rights (and duties) a-e called natural rights (or fundamental rights--an expression much used by John XXIII) or inalienable rights of the human person (as John Paul II often calls them).

Usually these rights are stated in general terms; it then belongs to the interpreter to explain them more precisely. The main fundamental rights are as follows (MM 11-27; UN--Address of John Paul II to the 36th General Assembly of the United Nations, Oct. 2. 1979):


...

18) the right to citizenship.

So Professor Hervada is not offering his own opinion or giving his own synthesis of liberalism with CST - rather, he is citing a speech given by Pope John Paul II. Does Pope John Paul II endorse universal democracy as the most just form of government as well? I would argue that this opinion goes against an Aristotelian-Thomistic political theology, and probably against the dominant Catholic theological opinion before the 20th century.

Given Professor Hervada's institutional affiliation one would expect that he not be critical of the opinion of a Roman pontiff. But there is something to be said about ultramontanism being an obstacle to the reforming of the Church.

(Is there a basis for the charges given by certain groups and personages against John Paul II?)

I was reminded how weak our current conception of citizenship is because a friend mentioned that he had passed the citizenship test not too long ago - a test based merely on "knowledge" rather than on demonstrated virtue.

The concept of dominion is used as a theoretical foundation for rights. Something I'll have to remember when reviewing his book on rights.

CST and the United States

Catholic intellectuals and their quest to show how CST transcends the platform of both major political parties in the United States:
The Idol of Liberty
The Role of Government and the Battle over Catholic Social Teaching
The Unity of the Catholic Moral Vision

Let's get beyond the lecturing and start building some real community. Appeals to solidarity and the common good are rather useless if there is very little community to begin with; rather it is a mass aggregate of individuals who are strangers to one another. If they really got to know one another, you might be surprised how many divisions might appear, and while this may not be "ideal," it would be a necessary corrective, much to the dismay of those who live on sentimentalism.

William Carroll on Evolution

Exploring evolution at the Rimini Meeting (via OP website)