Medieval Bologna

Manhattan of the Middle Ages.

The Italian city of Bologna had 180 towers by AD 1200. The tallest, 320 (97 meters) feet high, still stands and was completed in AD 1119.#archaeohistories pic.twitter.com/vZuDcZaBjW

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) November 28, 2021

More News on the Synod on Synodality

As Pope Francis’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality begins its initial phase at the parish level, Italy’s bishops are blending the process into their own 4-year national discussion.https://t.co/vwbWGc74kh

— Crux (@Crux) October 20, 2021

“We are loyal Catholics," Cardinal Timothy Dolan said. "The Holy Father has asked us to help him keep the Church always under the direction Jesus, our good shepherd, intends.” https://t.co/qgO6TpbrR3

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) October 19, 2021

Meanwhile in Liechtenstein... Catholic leader says his archdiocese won’t take part in global synodal process, citing ‘ideological’ risk. Small archdiocese? 12 parishes for how many faithful?

Why No Teleconfession?

First Things: Why We Can’t Confess Over Zoom by Dominic M. Langevin, O.P.

The sacrament of penance can be described in its signification and effects as a conversation. The sacrament’s goal is to forgive serious postbaptismal sin so that we are restored to friendly and familial conversation with God and the Church. That conversation is itself brought about by a conversation. The ceremony for the sacrament of penance basically involves a discussion between two persons. The penitent confesses to the priest his sorrow for individual past sins, promises to do a satisfactory work, and asks for forgiveness. The priest-confessor assigns a satisfactory work and absolves the penitent, perfecting him in grace. Herein, the priest acts in persona Christi.

Unlike most other sacraments, an inanimate physical object is not needed. There is just a conversation. Some medieval understandings of penance placed the sacramental action exclusively in either the priest-confessor or the penitent. St. Thomas Aquinas clarified that both persons have an essential sacramental role. The Council of Trent confirmed this understanding. One could call the sacrament a “concelebration” between penitent and priest. The sacramental rite involves four specific acts: the penitent’s contrition, confession, and satisfaction, and the priest’s absolution. It is not a monologue, but a dialogue.

This salvific conversation cannot occur through electronic means because the sacrament of penance requires both joint physical presence and live, interpersonal action between the penitent and priest-confessor. The conditions for a full, natural, human conversation must exist.

Taylor Marshall Seems to Get It

The problem of scale.

Liberalism v. "Integralism"

Church Life: What Is Integralism Today? by Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist

But: In order for integralism to succeed as a project, it must respect scale.

An Impractical Patriotism

A Catholic Patriotism by James Kalb
America is not a system of beliefs but millions of people living together, so rejecting some beliefs now treated as official is not rejecting America

James Kalb is a good tradcon fighting the good fight but he's missing the problem of scale, too.

The Common Good and Scale

Thaddeus Kozinski and James Chastek respond to the Robert George-Michael Hannon debate on the common good. Maybe I will eventually write my own post, which will be a rehash of things I've already written before...

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.