Limits According to... Latin Traditionalists?

I just finished reading this book; it's an interesting study on the limits of the papacy. Well worth a read. pic.twitter.com/OHCgoWHIyF

— Hold to Tradition (@TraditionTo) May 11, 2021

Latin Traditionalism?

Great thread on Traditionalism in the post-Vatican II Church from @hilarityjane, started by @EricRSammons, with an assist from @SteveSkojec: https://t.co/glAuQl57qE

— MrCasey (@MrCasey62) March 19, 2021

An Outdated Metaphysical Explanation

Another eucharistic clarification: The accidents of bread and wine do not become accidents of Christ’s body and blood. Rather, by a miracle, they become accidents inhering in no substance (with all the other accidents inhering in dimensive quantity as their ultimate subject). ...

— Urban Hannon (@hannonregular) February 20, 2021

The Secret History of Transubstantiation: Pulling Back The Veil On The Eucharist by Fr Christian Kappes and William Albrecht

NLM

A Common Vocation

Clearly, the "Tridentine" church hd nothing to say about the vocation of all Christians to holiness ... [text from 1681 - not de Sales!] #Earlymodern #theology pic.twitter.com/0fdA49zwbL

— Ulrich L. Lehner (@ulrichlehner) July 22, 2020

X-Ray of the Priest in a Field Hospital

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.

Michael Fiedrowicz, The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite

Angelico Press

From the publisher's description:

In contrast to conventional explanations of the Mass that offer practical or allegorical explanations of particular moments in the rite, the present work attends to the organic process by which the Roman rite was built up from its foundations into a magnificent structure, marked by the accumulated riches of each age through which it passed, and characterized by order, beauty, and piety in its texts, gestures, rubrics, chants, and calendar—ranging from the major elements to the most minute details. Treated as well are the reality of the sacred and how it is encountered, the irreducible role of ritual action, the eastward direction of prayer, the formation and value of a specialized sacred language, and liturgical participation correctly understood.

via Fr. Z, who includes this excerpt:

Only in the orations of the classical rite are contained and preserved numerous ideas that, although they belong irrevocably to the Catholic Faith, are understated or entirely lost in later modified versions: detachment from the temporal and desire for the eternal; the Kingship of Christ over the world and society; the battle against heresy and schism, the conversion of non-believers, the necessity of the return to the Catholic Church and genuine truth; merits, miracles, and apparitions of the saints; God’s wrath for sin and the possibility of eternal damnation.

"The necessity of the return to the Catholic Church and genuine truth" -- in reference to whom? Protestants? Non-Latin apostolic Christians?

Is a Latin traditionalist mindset necessarily tied to Latin triumphalism? Or is Latin triumphalism just the consequence of Roman Catholicism of the latter half of the second millenium taking precedence over charity?

A Latin Perspective

First Things: Go to the Altar by Jane Stannus

The cassocked one answered seriously, “A priest is one who primarily offers sacrifice.”

I'll have to see if there are any dogmatic statements by Latin churches before Trent. From the Concil of Trent, Session XXIII:

CHAPTER I.
On the institution of the Priesthood of the New Law.
Sacrifice and priesthood are, by the ordinance of God, in such wise conjoined, as that both have existed in every law. Whereas, therefore, in the New Testament, the Catholic Church has received, from the institution of Christ, the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist; it must needs also be confessed, that there is, in that Church, a new, visible, and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated. And the sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that this priesthood was instituted by the same Lord our Saviour, and that to the apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, was the power delivered of consecrating, offering, and administering His Body and Blood, as also of forgiving and of retaining sins. 

 Only now do I understand the implications of what my friend said many years ago, regarding the confusion that arises from having the same word translate  ἱερεύς and  πρεσβύτερος.


1 Peter 2:9 in Greek and Latin (Nova Vulgata).
Priest: sacerdos. Priesthood: sacerdotium.



It is standard for the same word to be used for both Greek terms in English and in Latin.
I don't know when the Latin sacerdos first began to be used to translate for the Greek hiereus and prebyteros. Is this true of all of the languages (especially European) in use in the patriarchate of Rome? It is the case that the English word priest is derived from the Latin presbyter, a borrowing by Jerome from presbyteros. Somewhere along the line, ecclesiastical Latin came to prefer sacerdos over Jerome's presbyter? Even though this goes against its normative translation of Holy Scripture?

wiktionary

wikipedia

From Google:

Origin

And a related blog post by "Hadley Rectory": The Etymology of English "Priest" 

So for these languages (and French, but not necessarily the other Romance languages?) that the word used to translated presybter/presbyteros (and referring to that Holy Order) was also used to translate hiereus, rather than the word for hiereus being used to translate presbyteros as in Latin.

Denzinger (in Latin)

Let us continue with the First Things essay:

“Yes, He offered Himself for us on Calvary nearly two thousand years ago. However, in order for us to come into contact with the merits of His sacrifice, the priest renews it in an unbloody way each day.”

Merit. What Christ merited in His sacrifice are the benefits which are given to us by God. A Tridentine view, derived from Aquinas? (How dominant was this opinion about Christ's merits among the schoolmen?) Does merit imply some sort of exchange or return? Not necessarily but it does entail God giving something on condition of some requirement being satisfied. Can Latin "merit" be harmonized with the soteriology of the early Church? In a somewhat roundabout way, a way that needlessly complicates our understanding of the Divine Agape.

Writing for Rorate Caeli on March 24, Father Richard Cipolla suggested that Catholics’ greatest anxiety at this time of locked churches isn’t missing Mass per se, but rather missing an opportunity to receive Communion, overlooking, he fears, the true nature and importance of the Mass itself. This time of waiting and deprivation offers an excellent opportunity to consider the enormous significance of each Mass—with or without communion of the faithful.

Why is the Mass so important? Well, quite simply, the Mass is the sum and substance of our religion. It is the jewel that blazes at the very heart of Christianity, the unbloody renewal of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, carried out continuously in every time and place until the end of the world. It is the heart of our Christian lives, for to be a Christian, as one of the greatest missionaries of the 20^th century said, is to be one “who offers himself as a victim on the altar with Our Lord.”

To assist at Mass is not merely to attend a commemoration or a memorial of an event that happened long ago. The holy sacrifice is an action that happens now, in the present. The priest, acting in persona Christi, approaches the altar—not a table, for this event is not reducible to a meal—to perform the sacrifice, accomplished in consecrating the bread and wine. When the priest pronounces the words of consecration, Saint Gregory Nazianzus tells us, he “sunders with unbloody cut the Body and the Blood of the Lord, using his voice as a sword.” The faithful assisting at Mass unite their hearts to the priest and unite their lives and sufferings to the Victim, that all may be offered to God together.

Renewal? Is that the same as "repeated"? I think Latins in general prefer a word like "re-presented." It is clear that she does not mean repeated from the second and third paragraph. As for "offering it up," how far does this go back in popular Latin piety?

Can the Mass be properly and efficaciously accomplished in the absence of the faithful? A group of progressives recently argued on blog Pray Tell that it cannot. Questioning the theological basis for Mass without a congregation, they claim that the Second Vatican Council changed the liturgy into a communal and public action of the baptized, which the priest can’t accomplish without them.

But they’re wrong. Vatican II said nothing about private Masses. Rather, we ought to look to Session 22 of the Council of Trent. As we consider the locked doors of our churches in this time of crisis, we can take comfort from one fact: Christ is both priest and sacrifice, and therefore a valid Mass is always efficacious, meaning that it always accomplishes the ends for which it is offered. Its efficacy is not determined by the presence of the faithful; the sacrifice of the Mass, Ott tells us, is the sacrifice of the Church, and in that sense is never “private.” Nor are the faithful needed to offer the sacrifice since it is Christ Himself who offers it through His priest. 

The efficacy of the Mass was so beautifully explained to me by the priest who kindly permitted me to publish the story about the construction worker that it’s worth reproducing his words here:
“The holy Mass,” he said, “is the supreme act of religion that renders to God what is due to Him: adoration, thanksgiving, and propitiation for sin, after which we can then present to Him our petitions.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ perpetuates this supreme act Himself throughout the ages, through the ministry of His priests upon our holy altars. He abases Himself in perfect adoration before the Godhead, acknowledging our utter dependence upon Him. The most perfect praise of the excellence of God above all wells up from His Sacred Heart.

“He offers nothing less than His own Sacred Body and Precious Blood, united to His Soul and Divinity, as the perfect gift of thanksgiving in the Eucharist… by which we render to God fitting and perfect gratitude for all of His goodness and mercy towards us.

“He likewise perpetuates the offering of His Sacred Body and Precious Blood in propitiation for sin. In and through the same sacrifice, Jesus presents our petitions (for we utterly depend on Him for all things)…

Has the act of sacrifice been separated from the Sacrament and its reception by the faithful, so that without the latter, it doesn't matter as it is the former that is more important?

The question is, in sacrifice do we "give" anything to God in thanksgiving, other than the thanksgiving?

Three More Thoughts on the Anglican Catholic Liturgy

1. I remembered that the Anglican tradition was supposedly in need of correction by competent Roman authorities. Standing as an outsider now, I would expect that one of the problems Latins and Latinizing Anglicans would have with the BCP would have to do with its sacramental theology or the presence or absence of the word "sacrifice," given their adherence to Tridentine Latin Catholicism. How much disagreement was there in the past between Latins and Anglicans (and Protestants generally) about the Eucharist being a "sacrifice"? And was this debate grounded upon a misunderstanding of a principle, that is the meaning of "sacrifice" in Scripture and the Apostolic tradition?

Some sort of agreement between Anglicans and Latins was reached some time ago:
ARCIC-28 ~ Sub-Commission on the Notion of Sacrifice in the Eucharist in Anglican and Roman Catholic Theology
Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine (1971)

If I were to do further research on this topic, I would have to find out who the experts in Anglican Eucharistic theology are. But here are some affirmations by Anglicans that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. Does that mean certain of their worship books were deficient with respect to form because they don't reflect a Tridentine Latin understanding of sacrifice? Maybe. Does that mean that they are objectively deficient from the standpoint of Apostolic tradition? Maybe not. Latins will insist that their understanding of sacrifice is dogma, promulgated by a valid "ecumenical council" and not just a preferred theologoumenon of that time -- will that barrier to dialogue have to be addressed first or is there some other common principle which we can employ?

Fr. Matthew S.C. Oliver:
No end to sacrifice: The legacy of Gregory Dix
No end to sacrifice: Anglicans on ‘offering’
No end to sacrifice: Mitchell and Meyers, Praying Shapes Believing

Eucharistic Sacrifice in Anglicanism

Anglican Eucharistic Theology: Essentially Compliant with both High and Low-Church Traditions.

A Companion to Anglican Eucharistic Theology: Volume 2

On the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Christian Priesthood. by Alan S. Hawkesworth (1896)

Episcopal Church Glossary: Eucharistic Sacrifice

How We Worship

Greg Goebel:
Good Friday: Do We Still Need A Sacrifice?
What do Anglicans Believe about Holy Communion?

Calvinism and Eucharistic Sacrifice by Rev. Dr. Eric M. Parker

From 2013: Ordinariate Mass - look carefully and you can see Lutheran and Calvinist influences by Fr Gregory-Palamas

A Comparison of the Roman Missal, Missale Romanum and Divine Worship Forms of the Roman Rite Eucharistic Liturgy
2. Before the introduction of Divine Worship in 2015, people asked and even hoped for some sort of restoration of the Sarum Use, but translated into hieratic English. How "Sarum" is Divine Worship? Is there any possibility of a future creation and introduction of another Missal that is more "Sarum"? And would a Sarum rite, whether in hieratic English or Latin, have to be revised, just like the Roman rite, if the Latin notion of sacrifice is found to be in need of correction or modification?

From 2012: Sarum Use in the Ordinariates (see the tagged posts under Sarum and Anglicanorum Coetibus)
The Future Liturgy of an Anglican Ordinariate: Why not Sarum? - The Use of Sarum
What Happened to the Sarum Rite?
The Death of Sarum

3. On the Epiclesis:
Some Anglicans did introduce it, whether it was in imitation of non-Latin rites (or the Pauline Missal?) or because they erroneously thought one was originally present in the Roman Canon, I do not know.

I know Fr. Hunwicke is opposed to its introduction to the Roman rite, because apparently the Roman Canon must remain unchanged (or unreformed, that is unrestored?). Is organic development of the liturgy possible, especially one takes into account the ecumenical councils of the first millenium, which one could say that the Church of Rome has not received properly, not because of its rejection of the councils, but because of its conservatism with respect to its own ecclesial tradition? Should the Roman Canon (and the Eucharistic prayers of Latin rites in general) be more Trinitarian and explicit about the Holy Spirit, even if it is recognized that it is not "sacramentally deficient in form" in the current texts of the EF?

I say Latin rites though acknowledging that it is debatable whether any of the others are celebrated in a way that can be called "living," reflecting a proper engagement and liturgical spirituality of the people that includes an appropriate understanding during the liturgy of what is being prayed and a participation in those prayers.

Related:
Romantic and Patristic Liturgy in Louis Bouyer

NCReg: From Earth to Heaven With England’s Glory: Sarum Vespers Resound in Philadelphia
Catholics prayed together in the Pre-Reformation English form of the Roman Rite familiar to St. Thomas More and his contemporaries.
Peter Jesserer Smith

Tradivox, Again

Tradivox: Where Latin tradition of the second millenium is identified with the Tradition of the Church Universal.

1P5: Tradivox: Bringing Solid Catechisms to the Hungry Faithful

Which catechism is the best?
We get asked this constantly, and the answer really depends on how you measure. A few certainly stand out. The Roman Catechism remains the most authoritative. There are the priceless historical works of Saints Canisius and Bellarmine. The excellent little catechism of Pope St. Pius X must be mentioned, and the extensively reprinted Baltimore Catechism comes to mind for many Americans. These would be a few of the more significant texts in the genre.
Are these your own personal favorites?
Actually, no. My personal favorites are some of the more obscure texts, mostly for devotional reasons. I’ve grown to deeply love the Catholic martyrs and confessors from the early years of the Anglican schism, so there are several catechisms “baptized in blood” from that period that are dear to me — Vaux, Turberville, Doulye, and White, to name a few. The later, more compendious works of Bp. George Hay and Fr. Michael Müller are some other favorites.
The catechisms must all have fascinating histories.
Yes, there are so many stories. We try to give some of that backdrop in the preface of each volume, hoping to assist readers in experiencing a greater spiritual kinship with our Catholic forebears. I recall one man sharing with us that after reading Volume 1 of our Index, he not only learned things about the Faith that he had never heard (after years of Catholic schooling), but was also deeply moved by reading with awareness that these texts were very much written “by martyrs, for martyrs.”

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.

Substantial Unities

If a Dominican defends transubstantiation to the point of re-affirming that bread is one substance (even though it isn't), is he being a good follower of Thomas, a good Tridentine Latin, or both?

Rhetorical question.

A Latin Defense of Transubstantiation

1P5: Substance and Accidents: A Beginner’s Guide to Defending the Eucharist

Both the application of substance and substance/accident as applied to bread must first be corrected, and then we can see if verbally, the theologoumenon that is transubstantiation can still be maintained. Regardless, a naive application of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics is no longer viable given how sophisticated received opinion on material reality has become.

The Latin Traditionalists React

Just as they can't admit that maybe the Ressourcement movement might have had a point.



NLM

Latin traditionalists can't concede anything. "Everything was A-ok with the Church [i.e. the patriarchate of Rome] before the Pian reform of Holy Week in 1955 [or choose some earlier liturgical reform]." As if they were alive at the time and had the omniscience to know that this was true. "Vatican 2 ruined everything!"

Did Ressourcement fade because of the hard-headedness of some of the Latin clergy and religious and the ignoring of Ressourcement by "progressives"? Or maybe the patriarchate of Rome didn't deserve such a gift and God withdrew it.

Kwasniewski writes this howler:

"Many more examples can be given in the realms of clerical vestments, church architecture, and liturgical hymns and orations. And then there will be simply issues of pluralism: some churches give the sacraments of initiation all at once to infants, while others spread them out in acknowledgment of the role of reason and free will. Is one necessarily right and the other wrong? Couldn’t they both be right, because they’re looking from different legitimate angles?"

Would he concede such pluralism on the question of ecclesiastical divorce? I am doubting it, even if he begrudgingly grants it with respect to the Eastern discipline of ordaining married men to the presbyterate. Show me a Latin author who justified the delay of Confirmation on the basis of "the role of reason and free will" rather than ecclesiological considerations centered on the office of the bishop.

Like the West, the East has its “black boxes” into which people are not supposed to look too closely, lest they find tensions, contradictions, reversals, laxities, and other odds and ends. Above all, their systematic theology and moral theology are a mess, because they have no authoritative framework for interpreting the Fathers. Their own version of scholasticism, a bit like Islam’s, imploded and fell apart, unlike the West’s, which with figures like Bonaventure and Thomas attained a rare perfection and magnificence. Above all, there is no one in the East who is as biblical, patristic, ecumenical, synthetic, broad-minded, and comprehensive as the Angelic Doctor. Aquinas makes frequent, sympathetic, incisive use of dozens of Western and Eastern Fathers — indeed, more Eastern authors than Western — so it’s a bit silly to say our theology starts in the 12th century.

Except it is arguable that theology in general did not have that place in the life of the Church that the Latins have given to theologians. Perhaps the Orthodox would here claim that it is the reception of a theological opinion, its incorporation in the liturgical and prayer life of the Church, that matters, rather than what the majority of theologians might say. And anyways, Aquinas is not the end-all, be-all of Latin theology, even if Thomists and Latin traditionalists like Kwasniewski would like to think that his theology holds this primacy of place.

Moreover, what the hieromonk doesn’t seem to grasp, or perhaps doesn’t wish to acknowledge, is the many great spiritual figures the West has always had, and still has. He does not mention figures like St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Bd. Charles de Foucauld, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Bd. Columba Marmion, let alone countless martyrs and saints of every state in life. He mentions St. Pio of Pietrelcina only to suggest that he was opposed by the Church, which is only partially true. The writings of Fr. Jacques Philippe are every bit the equal of many contemporary books published by the Orthodox. One might also take a look at the pre-Reformation volumes of the Classics of Western Spirituality series from Paulist Press to get a rough sense of the richness of our mystical tradition.

I bet Kwasniewski rejects Bouyer's claims about the separation of Latin spirituality from Latin liturgical experience. But this is not a theological claim but a historical claim that must be evaluated accordingly, not in accordance with some a priori position that is taken to be a truth of Divine Faith -- "The Holy Ghost has not abandoned any of the apostolic-sacramental churches, since all of them give abundant evidence of the operations of the Spirit: faith, hope, charity, the gifts and fruits, miracles." Just because the Holy Spirit sanctifies does not mean that a church or group of churches does not have defects which the Holy Spirit must remedy.

I posted a link to the English translation of the original here.

Going Back to Trent

Latins Gonna Latin

This was republished by Catholic Culture in response to the letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy. Alternative ecclesiologies will not be considered!

Theories that Francis is not the Pope (or can be deposed) destroy the credibility of the Church by Dr. Jeff Mirus

A Memorial!

Rorate Caeli: Exactly 50 Years Ago, Paul VI tried to destroy the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

7. Cena dominica sive Missa est sacra synaxis seu congregatio populi Dei in unum convenientis, sacerdote praeside, ad memoriale Domini celebrandum. Quare de sanctae Ecclesiae locali congregatione eminenter valet promissio Christi: "Ubi sunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo, ibi sum in medio eorum" (Mt. 18, 20).


"7. The Lord's Supper, or Mass, is the sacred meeting or congregation of the people of God assembled, the priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For this reason, Christ's promise applies eminently to such a local gathering of holy Church: 'Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their midst' (Mt. 18:20)."

I don't recall Fr. Bouyer criticizing the General Instruction of the Roman Missal itself, rather than the Roman Missal, but I am guessing that para 7 would not be problematic for him. After all, what is to prevent a memorial from also being the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ, through the ministry of the Church (CCC 611, 1323, 1330, 1341)? (At the moment I am accepting Latin theology and expression on this point for the purposes of this post.) Granted, Pope Paul VI does not seem to say this explicitly, but even if he doesn't, it doesn't imply that he denies that the Eucharist is a sacrifice.

Of course, it may be that he had reasons for not elaborating on sacrifice and it is not clear that the received Latin tradition on what sacrifice means, and how Christ's Passion and Death constitute a sacrifice, are correct.

Related:
The Sacrifice of the Mass by Fr. William G. Most
The Sacramental Life of the Orthodox Church by Rev. Alciviadis C. Calivas, Th.D.
The Liturgy in the Thought of Benedict XVI by Giles R. Dimock
Peter Leithart: The Non-Eucharist Eucharist

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.

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?