Eastern Christian Books: Michael Plekon on the Church and Community

Eastern Christian Books: Michael Plekon on the Church and Community

Cascade Books: Community as Church, Church as Community

Michael Pakaluk on Social Origin

Unfortunately he writes under the influence of liberalism and statism, and distorts Aristotle accordingly.

The Original Basis of Social Unity | Michael Pakaluk https://t.co/Bvfyq54yYx pic.twitter.com/j4TDVbIEHf

— The Catholic Thing (@catholicthing) September 29, 2020

The Catholic Thing

A True Believer?

Following upon this post; some videos which reveal Charles Taylor's attitudes towards multiculturalism, diversity, and immigration.

Nikolaos Loudoviko: 'What is Ecclesial Unity?'

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.

The Institution Is the Problem

Because it does not live like a community with mutual responsibility and accountability among its members.

The Smoke of Satan provides clear, concise analysis of the episcopal crisis by Gregory J. Sullivan
Philip Lawler ably depicts the tumult that has brought us to this point and he provides a larger context for the collapse of episcopal authority.

Patrick Deneen, "The Conquest of Community"

Dale Ahlquist on the Chesterton Option

The Dispatch

Plenty of economic localism -- but is it enough? Even Catholics are clueless with respect to community-formation.

Bishop Nicholas Samra on the Ministries of the Parish

I think the "socialization" aspect is rather incomplete and needs to be developed at length so that there is a proper discussion of the friendship that should exist among parishioners of the same parish.

Without stability, how can there be community?

Liturgy in non-liturgical Spaces by Nicholas Denysenko

Having reflected on many years of visiting missions and serving in a non-liturgical space in Kyiv, I ask myself, is there an argument to be made for establishing Church communities that have no aspirations for permanent parish status, but gather where they can for prayer, fellowship, and perhaps learning and service? Are we comfortable with the possibility that we might have to fine-tune our rite to liturgize effectively in unfamiliar spaces? My initial response to these reflections is to suggest that liturgy in non-liturgical spaces illuminates the qualities of gathering for the privilege of offering liturgy, and embracing the fact that Christian identity need not be shaped solely by a particular parish community. Is there a future for mobile and nimble Church communities that do not aspire to become parishes?

A group of people to meet in a place other than a temple because they cannot afford to build one -- why couldn't they have some sort of makeshift worship space at a home instead? But how can there be an effective practice of charity for the average lay person without a stable network of people?

Metropolitan Anthony on Christian Community

Pravmir: If We Were a True Christian Community… by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

Worship as Community

Rorate Caeli: Don Pietro Leone: Cheerfulness

Cluny Media Reprints The State in Catholic Thought

Nomocracy in Politics: “Heinrich Rommen on the Community and the State,” By Bruce Frohnen

Cluny Media

Pick and Choose

Not your usual post about "cafeteria Catholicism."

Is it possible for a Latin to identify exclusively with certain parts of his ecclesial tradition and not with others. For example, stained-glassed windows may have a place as a form of sacred art but Gothic architecture, while grandiose and conveying the scene of God's transcendent glory, may nonetheless be lacking in other ways, especially with respect to being a fitting place for the celebration of the Eucharist if the building is too big. In that case the problem may be more of scale than of architecture. But Gothic even on a small scale, even wooden neo-gothic temples, may still be less than ideal, especially if coupled with sculpture or carvings done in the Gothic style.

Perhaps I could be convinced otherwise.

But back to my original query: if I were my Latin, what is my ecclesial heritage? Is it an all or nothing affair? Do I need to acknowledge all styles of sacred architecture as being part of my heritage, or can I pick and choose? What if I identify more with classical, mediterranean Christianity of the early Church and the Church Fathers and less with medieval Latin Christianity (or Baroque and beyond)?

Because of the papacy, Latin Catholics are used to seeing Western Christendom as having a single ecclesial culture or tradition. Let's identify two components to this (there are others, such as liturgical customs and rites, other practices, saints that receive special honor):
1. artistic expressions of that tradition (architecture, painting, sculpture, music)
2. theological expressions of the tradition

I wouldn't consider the Latin Fathers peculiar to a specific ecclesial tradition; all of the Fathers of the Church constitute a common patrimony for the Church Universal, even if certain Fathers are emphasized by some traditions more than others. (Though some Latin Fathers may be favored over others in a theological tradition or school.)

It seems to me that it is legitimate for a Latin Christian to identify with certain styles of artistic expression more than others, specially if we take into consideration the national origins of those styles. Latin theological traditions may seem to be more "international" in character since historically they were expressed in Latin. But it was legitimate even back then for Latins to favor one theological tradition over another. No one could truly claim that a medieval Latin monk was less "Latin" (much less Catholic) than a mendicant for preferring monastic theology to scholastic theology. Rather than a Latin monoculture, should we instead think of there being a legitimate diversity within Latin (or Western) [Catholic] Christianity? If there can be not only a legitimate pluralism in theological expressions and schools but a legitimate preference, why not with respect to artistic expressions?

One need not pretend that other artistic styles or traditions do not exist, but I think one can properly maintain that they don't have as central a place in one's received ecclesial tradition or identity than those that are preferred. But is it possible for a Latin Christian to have an ecclesial tradition or identity alone, or whether a Latin ecclesial tradition is specific to a community or local Church, and not to individuals. If the latter is true, then only a community or local Church could have an ecclesial tradition, while an individual believer can have only a preference. Moreover, since the Latin Churches have become more centralized around Rome and the number of liturgical rites in use has been reduced to one, the Roman (for the most part), can any local Church really claim that it continues to bear an ecclesial tradition, one that is historically proper to it?

When Europe demands that religions become ‘liberal’
Debate surrounding Islam in the European Union has wider implications for religious freedom.

(via The Catholic Thing)

Notes on the Formal Cause of Political Community

Re: De Regno, even if we accept its authenticity, Aquinas does not explicitly claim that political authority/government is the formal cause of political community.

Government is a function/act proper to some or all of the material elements of political community, it is not identical to the material elements in themselves .

As for what makes a community, it is custom taken in a broad sense, encompassing law (and not just civil law), culture, and also the recognition that one is a member of such a community (what falls under the subjective conception of group identity) both by one's self and by others.

Coming to a proper understanding of political community and society will not be easy for most of us as we have become habituated to living in degenerate forms of community (to the point at which they cease being communities properly speaking).

pl

Leftist communitarians are naive, utopian, or sheltered in their assumptions of what is required for "community." They think that it is easy to create community; one only needs a common end or purpose, something other than friendship itself (and what that necessities). This common end or purpose is sufficient to create and sustain a community, even though obtaining the goal may require some work (as in the case of scaling down or simplifying the economy). Their conception of community is more akin to a team (such as what one finds in a workplace, rather than a sports team). Even if MacIntyre is more realistic in his assumptions, recognizing the contribution of language, culture, and tradition to the formation of culture, and he recognizes that these are bound with historical ethnic groups, leftist communitarians (of whom MacIntyre may be said to be one in other respects) do not acknowledge or seem to be ignorant of the historical origins of identity.

MacIntyre himself does not think there are genuine differences between the sexes and any differences between ethnic/culture groups do not seem to factor into his considerations of multiculturalism and pluralism. Even if he thinks that pluralism is possible because there is not one "community" but many, how would he respond to those who object that the long-term consequences of pluralism are not sustainable if the state or megacity at large hits a crisis point that can only get worse?

Scaling for a Christian Community

Fr. Bouyer contrasted in his The Church of God two ideals of ecclesial "membership," the Church of believers and the Church of numbers. Might it be that the Church can be both, if we observed the proper scale to the local Churches (and parishes)? What is the ideal size of a [neighborhood] parish? How many people can a priest be a spiritual father to? Should he not be able to remember the names of all his spiritual children? How many Sunday liturgies can be said in a temple? Can we eventually achieve the Eastern ideal of one? (Given the time necessary to train priests, it seems that celebrating more than one Sunday liturgy at the [main] altar of a temple is a pastoral necessity.

How big should a local Church [diocese] be, in terms of both members and size? In the Western patriarchate at least, auxiliary bishops are given titles to dioceses that do not really exist any longer. What if, instead, the archdiocese was broken up? What if we had more bishops, instead of auxiliary/titular bishops, and more metropolitans (and provinces)? (Is attendance at an ecumenical council limited to metropolitans, in practice or in law?)

What is the basis for the inequality in status (and power?) between the metropolitan and the suffragan bishops, besides the link between his diocese and the political capital? I need to read up more on Church governance and the sacrament of Holy Orders.

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.