Garrigou-Lagrange on the Importance of Dogma

In the early 20th century, Garrigou-Lagrange was not buying what William James--Mr. "Religious Experience"--was selling, namely the assertion that theological claims possess no value unless they relate immediately to human life and conduct.

First, James: "Take God's aseity..."

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) August 25, 2021

Garrigou-Lagrange Account of Deification

Garrigou on how, by revelation, man is conformed to God, not God to man. When revealing, God remains the origin, measure, and end of his revelation.

"God demands that we grow. When he reveals himself to us, he seeks, in a way, to divinize us and not to be annihilated within us."

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) August 24, 2021

Wisdom and First Principles According to Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

Now free to the public: a lecture by the rightly-lauded translator of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Dr. Matthew Minerd, on Wisdom and First Principles in the inestimable Thomist's philosophy. https://t.co/AS7VhlrIjl

— Brian Kemple (@realbriankemple) May 15, 2021

A Narrative on the Descent into Atheism

"In this way, society becomes radically irreligious and atheistic."

Read more here: https://t.co/HCGeLdtSE6

— Rafael de Arízaga (@RafaeldeArizaga) April 27, 2021

Three TI Lectures Tonight

There will be three Thomistic Institute lectures this evening:

1. "The Compatibility of Neuroscience and the Soul" by Prof. James Madden of Benedictine College.

Auburn University, Biggin Hall, Room 5. This lecture will also be livestreamed over Zoom.https://t.co/r3gaEKuZBG

— Thomistic Institute (@ThomisticInst) March 24, 2021

3. "Entering into Christ’s Passion: The Mass as a Sacrifice" by Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P. of the Dominican House of Studies.

9 PM EST | St. Thomas More University Parish and Student Center | 100 Stinson St, Norman, OK 73072https://t.co/JnRZkQkXbZ

— Thomistic Institute (@ThomisticInst) March 24, 2021

Lecture on RGL

"Garrigou-Lagrange between History and Theology" 18 March 17.00-19.00 CET The #Angelicum invites you to the series of lectures held online (Zoom Meeting) in French with simultaneous translation into Italian and English: https://t.co/W2hY3OQyOH pic.twitter.com/NVPJGj4eV6

— Angelicum (@_Angelicum) March 17, 2021

There Are Still Admirers of Thomism of Strict Observance

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century. Anyone would be wise to entrust himself or herself to him as a teacher and guide.

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) December 9, 2020

Yes, That is the Primary Purpose of Prayer

But there is a place for petitionary prayer as well.

"When we pray, it is certainly not a question of persuading God, of moving Him to change His providential dispositions; it is only a question of lifting our will to His heights, to will with Him in time what He has decided to give us from eternity." -Fr. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) November 7, 2020

The Ongoing Dispute About the Anaphora/Eucharistic Prayer

And when Christ becomes sacramentally or truly present on the altar.

NLM: East-West Disagreements about the Epiclesis and Transubstantiation by Peter Kwasniewski


A modified Tridentine position that is close to the "holistic" position of Fr. Louis Bouyer, who thinks that the Words of Consecration effect consecration of the sacred species but the whole anaphora is important. (But not the same as Fr. Robert Taft's, who talks of the necessity of the whole anaphora, both the institution narrative whether explicit or not and an explicit expiclesis, if there is one.) But Trent was not an ecumenical council with representatives from all of the Apostolic Churches, nor did it take into consideration the liturgies from the traditions of those Churches.

Reprints of Books by Joseph C. Fenton

Missed this in 2018.

First Things: Fenton Returns by Patrick Carey

Fenton told readers of his “The Ecumenical Council and Christian Union” (1959) that the council’s ecumenical work would amount to nothing more than the Church’s previous emphasis on a “return of dissident Christians to the one true fold of Jesus Christ.”

He probably included the Orthodox as dissident Christians.

Related:
Cardinal Ottaviani and the Council by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton

1966 Letter Reveals Cardinal Ottaviani’s Post-Conciliar Concerns

Battling Over Latin Christianity

Latin traditionalists and "conservatives."

1P5: Bishop Barron and the ‘Unhappy’ Renewal of the ‘Trad’ Movement by Timothy Flanders

Pope Benedict would later write concerning his formative years before the Council about his “anti-Roman resentment … imparted to us by our studies” [1] and that “we all had a certain contempt for the nineteenth century; it was fashionable then, somewhat kitsch piety and over-sentimentality — we wanted to overcome all that. We wanted a new era of piety” [2].
He recalls that when he saw the original document on revelation at Vatican II (on behalf of which Ottaviani had pleaded), he wished to circumvent the Magisterium in order to impose his own interpretation of Tradition upon it [3]. He “wanted out of classical Thomism[.] … Thomas’s writings were textbooks, by and large, and impersonal somehow[.] … I didn’t want to operate only in a stagnant and closed philosophy, but in a philosophy understood as a question — what is man, really? — and particularly to enter into the new, contemporary philosophy” [4].
Such castigation of the fathers of the immediate past and the imposition instead of their own interpretation of Tradition seems to be the defining characteristic of the Nouvelle Théologie party. This was the party that, in Barron’s words, “won the day at Vatican II.” This attitude on display by these men appears to run contrary to piety, opening up questions about the continuity that is claimed.

Is the reference to piety here when talking about Tradition and its expressions misplaced? Is a particular linguistic and theological expression of Tradition more important than the Person of Christ?

But at Vatican II, the conservatives switched sides and allied themselves with the liberals in order to overcome the prior Magisterium. They successfully convinced enough bishops to throw out all the original documents (save one, written by Bugnini). They suppressed all the warnings from Ottaviani and others, who stated that their dreams of a springtime were naïve. But after the Council was done, Barron notes, the liberals and conservatives immediately broke into two warring parties, represented in the journals Concilium and Communio.

 But was reconciling the Church with modernity or the modern world the only goal of these "conservatives" or these reformers aligned with or following Ressourcement?

This crisis will be overcome when conservatives renounce forever their alliance with the liberal heretics and unite themselves in charity to the traditionalists they once shunned. They must renew their filial piety toward the pontificates of Bl. Pius IX and St. Pius X.

This is to be stuck in an ecclesiological and theological rut, and of course merely re-confirms the Latin belief that Magisterium of the Church is to be centered in the person of the bishop of Rome.

Humani Generis and la Nouvelle Théologie,

HPR: Looking Back at “Humani Generis” BY FR. BRIAN VAN HOVE, SJ

See also Joseph Komonchak, Humani generis and “la ‘nouvelle théologie'”

Ressourcement

While in the past I may have been wary of the nouvelle théologie to one degree or another, their attempt to re-engage with the Church Fathers was praiseworth in intent, if not in execution. In the last year I've gradually drifted away from "Thomism of Strict Observance," not that I ever really considered myself a member of that school of Thomistic theology, though I was willing to read its texts. Having had a chance to delve into the Church Fathers more in the last year, it may be time for me to re-evaluate nouvelle théologie the 20th century Ressourcement movement and its members. (I have been a fan of Fr. Bouyer for quite some time, so I am thinking more of the Jesuits.)

Ressourcement theology, aggiornamento, and the hermeneutics of tradition by Marcellino D'Ambrosio

“Ressourcement,” “Aggiornamento,” and Vatican II in Ecumenical Perspective by Eduardo Echeverria

Related:
A Theologian for Our Times – Rediscovering Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange

I didn't know the Salve Regina website is associated with the FSSP, though I had been aware of the website's existence not too long after it was created. "It figures."

Naturally Human, Supernaturally God: Deification in Pre-Conciliar Catholicism

Fortress Press
"Naturally Human, Supernaturally God seeks to open a small window upon an interesting case of theological convergence between three of the most important theologians of the pre-Conciliar period of Catholic theology, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P., Karl Rahner S.J., and Henri de Lubac S.J.,..."

Google Books

Thomistica.net: Essays on Garrigou-Lagrange

Rorate Caeli: On the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
The death of a friend of God

Garrigou-Lagrange & Leibnitz? by Steven Long (via Edward Feser)

Recent Theological Opinion on Infused Contemplation (from the last century)

Ascending Mount Carmel: The Greatest Forgotten Catholic Theologian of the 20th Century

Thomistica.net: Garrigou-Lagrange bibliography online - here