Sunday, March 31, 2019

Part 2 of the Cardinal Sarah Interview

CWR: The Church is plunged into the darkness of Good Friday (Part 2)

“There are men of the Church,” says Robert Cardinal Sarah, “some of them high-ranking, who have tarnished the Church, disfigured the face of Christ, but Judas must not lead us to reject all the apostles.”

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Monsignor Patrick Descourtieux

Rorate Caeli: The New Head of the New Ecclesia Dei: Msgr. Descourtieux

Edited. Edward Pentin

Part 1 of an Interview with Cardinal Sarah

CWR: The Church is plunged into the darkness of Good Friday
INTERVIEW

Editor’s note: The following is the first half of a March 27, 2019, interview with Robert Cardinal Sarah, originally conducted in French by Laurent Dandrieu; it is reprinted here with kind permission of Culture à Valeurs [...]

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick on the Bible

Considering Seminary?

via Byz, TX

From 2013
Most of the time, serving the people is not about hearing confessions and serving the Holy Mysteries. It is about keeping the roof from leaking and the people from killing each other. If you can actually get your parishioners to like each other, you will have done a mighty act.

Many priests like to think about implementing ‘ministries’ and ‘parish activities’ and ‘more services’ without first getting to know the people and what they need to grow. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to parish life, so get that delusion out of your head right now. People are different, both as individuals and as communities.

If you must change them before you can love them, then you are not cut out for parish life. You have to love them first, and be willing to love them even if they refuse to change, because most of them will not change and will fight any kind of change tooth-and-nail. You must love them as they are, warts and all. Love is the only thing that really changes people.

Should it incumbent on the priest to be the intermediary between people? Does he play this role in the old world? Perhaps it is part of his calling to reconcile people if there is the possibility to do so -- the Beatitudes. But this is incumbent upon every Christian in that community, as a part of fraternal charity. It is also incumbent upon them to pass and enforce those rules that make communal life possible. In so far as the parish is an instantiation of the local community, if not wholly identical to it in its members, then the priest may be a spiritual father but politically he is no different from any other (male) member of that community, who also share responsibilities and authority, even, with respect to that community.

For Latin bishops and priests, they must be very clear as to what the precepts of the Natural Law, as distinguished to opinions they may have regarding political life, whether those are truly theological opinions, or opinions taken from liberalism.

Friday, March 22, 2019

Latin Traditionalists: Whom to Believe?

Who can lead them out of their conundrum concerning Francis?

Heretical Pope: Bishop Schneider and Cardinal Burke Contradict Each Other

Edit.
Rorate Caeli: Rorate interviews Professor Roberto de Mattei
Rorate interviews Professor Roberto de Mattei regarding Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s analysis on the subject of a heretic Pope.

LSN Editor Needs to Write Better Headlines

Theologian claims Vatican commission on female deacons found no evidence they existed

No evidence of an order of female deacons, i.e. ordained ministers.

40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste

THE “WILL AND TESTAMENT” OF THE FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTE

More coverage

Tallis Scholars

A Defense of Integralism

Church Life: Integralism and the Logic of the Cross by Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist

Too much favoring of monarchy and the mixed regime that has monarchy at its center? The essay doesn't touch upon what qualifications are necessary for the one to rule, and what is to be done for the unjust ruler.

Patriarch Josyf Slipyj

The Case of the Ryfy

Thursday, March 21, 2019

More on the Papacy

1P5: Bishop Athanasisus Schneider: On the Question of a Heretical Pope

Latins still have to untangle the theological/ecclesiological mess they've made surrounding the office of the bishop of Rome.

Related:
A Brief Word on Universal Acceptance of a Pope by Steve Skojec

Monday, March 18, 2019

The Church or the Patriarchate of Rome?

Does he recognize that there is a difference?

America/CNS: Cardinal Marx: church needs to seriously discuss celibacy, role of women and sexual morality

Eternal Memory

OCA: Remembering Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko
SYOSSET, NY [OCA]

Today—March 18, 2019—marks the fourth anniversary of the repose of Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, Dean Emeritus of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Yonkers, NY, and noted Orthodox Christian priest, theologian, preacher, and speaker. ...

Adam DeVille's New Book

Angelico Press announces: A radical proposal for confronting the crisis in the Church


Angelico Press: Everything Hidden Shall Be Revealed: Ridding the Church of Abuses of Sex and Power by ADAM A. J. DEVILLE

St. Thomas and the Supreme Court: Natural Law, Human Rights, and the Ethics of the Angelic Doctor

Update from Norcia

Fr. Z: News from the great Benedictines at Norcia: building, dogs, liturgy, beer

Their website.
Birra Nursia



The sound of the chant is not as bad as that typically produced by the French/Solesmes school.

Out of Time

Evolution. As for that supposed 98+% genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees...

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Fr. John Whiteford on Constantinople and Ukraine

OrthoChristian: ”THE WATERS HAVE BEEN MUDDIED” An Interview with Fr. John Whiteford on the Ukrainian Crisis and the Judgment of God
by Archpriest John Whiteford, Jesse Dominick
Since I became Orthodox, one of the big things I have been concerned with is trying to bring people into the Church. It’s harder to bring people into the Church now because it’s harder to explain what Orthodoxy is.

Theology of Presbyterate/Episcopate

MASCULINITY AND THE LITURGY by Fr. Thomas Loya

If the priest acts in persona Christi, how does he strengthen the "mystical understanding of his husbandhood and fatherhood"? Do presbyters participate in Christ's role as Bridegroom/Husband for the Church as the Mystical Bride? Not directly but as intermediaries or representatives of Christ who teach and lead, subordinate to Christ and the Holy Spirit. But in what way is Christ analogous to the human husband? Who would claim that Christ and the Church share some sort of egalitarian or even a complementarian relationship?

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Monastery of St. Benedict

website

CWR: Tantum potes quantum aude—On founding a new monastery by Dom Alcuin Reid
We are confident that even in the modern world there are those who, as of old, will see the value of endowing a monastic foundation, and indeed who will respond to our appeal.

The feast of St. Benedict is tomorrow on the Byzantine calendar?

A Critique of Integralism

Church Life: The Integralist Mirroring of Liberal Ideals by Timothy Troutner

I. A quarter century after Francis Fukuyama proclaimed liberalism “the end of history,” it is nearly impossible to avoid stumbling across rumors of its demise. With increasing populist dissent...

Icons

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Year A of the 3-Year Lectionary Cycle?

The Latins are currently on Year C.

I am guessing this reflection was written a while ago, for Year A.

Tale of Two Adams: Scott Hahn Reflects on the First Sunday of Lent

Formed from the clay of the ground and filled with the breath of God’s own Spirit, Adam was a son of God (see Luke 3:38), created in his image (see Genesis 5:1-3). Crowned with glory, he was given dominion over the world and the protection of His angels (see Psalms 8:6-8; 91:11-13). He was made to worship God—to live not by bread alone but in obedience to every word that comes from the mouth of the Father.

Is Adam (son) of God? It would seem so. But is he a son of God in the same way that we are, having been reborn in Christ in Baptism and Chrismation? I don't think so. I don't think anyone was an (adopted) son of God in the Son before the Incarnation. Or if the righteous of the Old Testament were to be accounted sons of God, their sonship or their adoption was incomplete, until Christ had conquered death and was risen?

As for the question of obedience, which Adam failed to give -- the obedience that is essential for us to the glorification of the Father, is that the same as the sacrifice of Christ, or is it a part or consequence of the sacrifice (and thus not wholly identical with sacrifice)?

Saturday, March 09, 2019

Latin Journalism on the Eastern Catholic Churches

Catholic Herald: The beautiful witness of the Eastern Catholic Churches by Jon Anderson

Cardinal Müller on His Manifesto

CWR: Cardinal Müller on his “Manifesto”, its critics, Church leadership, current crisis by CWR Staff
Cardinal Gerhard Müller is the former prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and the former bishop of Regensburg, Germany. A noted professor of theology, he is also the author of many [...]

Wednesday, March 06, 2019

Msgr. Nicola Bux Speaks Out

Vatican theologian: ‘Clericalism’ is ‘smokescreen’ hiding homosexuality as abuse crisis’ real cause

Union with Christ

Just last week or so, I was reading something that identified union with Christ as a moral union, a union of wills (which is a supernatural bond, not a natural one) -- I think it was written by a Latin traditionalist. I'm not sure if I posted a link to that essay here. But it is actually more than that, as shown by the use of the image of Christ as Bridegroom and the Church as Bride, who become "one flesh" -- not that we truly are absorbed into the being of Christ and lose our own separate being, just as husband and wife do not become one person in the conjugal union, but rather, we are transformed into Christ but assimilating His life into us (or participating in it). Union as a metaphysics of participation, or the analogy of being with Christ as the primary analogate.

"Bridal mysticism" as a metaphor for the individual Christian can be understood properly in this way, even if there may be some repugnance to the imagery or to its literal application to men.

Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Will Any New Information Be Discovered?

NCReg: Pope Francis Orders Archives of Pius XII’s Entire Pontificate to Be Opened by Edward Pentin

Access to the documents, which include those on the venerable pontiff’s actions during World War II, has been long awaited.

The Prayer of St. Ephrem

CUA Press Lenten Sale

An Important Rule of Iconography

The Oldest Journal of (Roman) Catholic Theology



An Intra-Latin Discussion of the Papacy

Between Douglas Farrow and Roberto de Mattei

CWR: The Church’s One Foundation by Dr. Douglas Farrow
Does the inflated view of the papacy that prevails in some quarters today have roots in a prior inflation that requires correction?

Adelphopoiesis

1P5: Adelphopoiesis: The Myth of the “Gay” Byzantine Marriage Rite by L.S. Predy

The Mystery Hidden for Ages: An Eastern, Ecumenical Sacramental Theology

Very. Rev. Father M. Daniel Findikyan of St. Nersess Armenian Seminary (who was elected as primate last year)

Monday, March 04, 2019

Interview with Archbishop Sample

Alas, what is the pastoral solution?

The problems with moving Confirmation to before first Communion

To just abide in the status quo is intolerable, especially if the rupture between Baptism and "Confirmation" has consequences on the spiritual life. (Latins may pretend that it doesn't but it's an ad hoc argument for a problem they wish to avoid.)

(And if the monoepiscopate is not of divine origin but a development of human positive law, the Latin insistence upon having the bishop be the minister of Confirmation could be readily resolved.)

Centralization Must Be the Answer!

A standard Latin polemic concerning the papacy: The Grass Is Not Always Greener in the East by CASEY CHALK

The Splendor of Marriage

Crisis Magazine: St. John Paul II Is More Relevant Than Ever by JOHN HITTINGER

ITI Put Out a CD!

Saturday, March 02, 2019

Vatican Guidelines for Church Music: Eastern Christian Prospects and Problems

2017 Saints Cyril and Methodius Lecture given by Very Rev. Peter Galadza, PhD

Friday, March 01, 2019