Why Confession?

Why Confession? | One of the most unfortunate things about confession is that we’ve warped the meaning of confession. Today, most people understand confession in a very legalistic way. https://t.co/B1SgfV4xmZ pic.twitter.com/8VpzwK7anZ

— Pravmir.com (@Pravmir_English) April 2, 2021

A Form of Latin Legalism?

We are pleased to offer our readers first English translation of the General Rubrics of the Missal promulgated by Pope Clement VIII, which remained in force until the reign of John XXIII. https://t.co/bIKrCdSLLX

— Canticum Salomonis (@Polignacus) July 17, 2020

Is there a connection between the Latin emphasis on rubrics and their conception of worship and sacrifice?

Adam DeVille Reviews Eros Crucified

Routledge

CWR Dispatch:The Idolatry of Eros and the Corporeality of God by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille
Matthew Clemente’s Eros Crucified is philosophy of religion done by a young scholar in such a way as to give one great hope for the future not just of the discipline, but of Catholic letters and intellectual culture more generally.

Some thoughts:

DeVille writes:

One popular, and often dreaded, buzzword in the academy today is “intersectionality,” which is just a newer version of the idea Newman first demonstrated so winsomely: “all knowledge forms one whole.” Clemente, a young Catholic philosopher of religion at Boston College, lives Newman’s method in this book (without mentioning him). Clemente ranges freely across theology and philosophy, refusing to allow them to be forcibly separated via an act of what Paul Ricoeur famously called “controlled schizophrenia.” But Clemente’s point, and method, is not merely reflective of current academic preoccupations to bring things together. It is, in fact, the only method on offer to human thinkers, who cannot (and must not) be bamboozled into seeing the world as divisible, the end result of which is the creation of some “private” sphere labelled the “secular” from which God has been exiled into some other sealed sphere called “religion.” In philosophizing in this way, Clemente is reflecting some of the best insights of recent philosophers including Charles Taylor and one of Clemente’s mentors, the philosopher (and Greek Orthodox priest) John Panteleimon Manoussakis.

Is Clemente's book really philosophy of religion, as opposed to Christian theology? For an unbeliever who reasons accordingly, it might be philosophy of religion. But for a Christian who thinks thus? It is theology, even if the author's academic degree is in philosophy.

Clemente wants us to think about the corporeality of God and its nakedly erotic self-giving in the Eucharist (“this is my body”) as well as its implications for us as human beings in our quotidian living, desiring, and dying, our lovemaking and birth-giving. (Clemente’s one-and-a-half-page conclusion, a meditation on watching and waiting with his wife give birth to their first son, packs in more biblical theology than a year’s worth of homilies from your average preacher.) Clemente writes with verve and a wide sweep of philosophy and theology, ancient and modern. All this learning, including considerable insights from psychoanalytic thought, is rendered in a way that is at once lively and serious.

Might there be some truth in Freud's writings? Perhaps. Would it be better to rely upon sound philosophical psychology which is open to the insights of Christians with rich interior knowledge and wisdom? I would think so. But doesn't it depend on one's audience? What if one is reaching out to those who have been influenced by Freud? How many of those are left?

One does not have a conversation with the dead who can no longer answer for themselves, but with the living, and this is true even in the scholastic method. So how many committed Freudians are there who need an apologia of Christianity or of Christ?

Then there is the question of whether Freud's reasoning and not just his claims can be captured well in essay form... This does raise a question of what the best way of transmitting reasoning through the written word. Something for theologians and philosophers to consider, even if they reject the manualist approach.

Rubrics for the Laity in the EF?

NLM: Should the Postures of the Laity at the Traditional Latin Mass Be Regulated, Legislated, or Revised? by Peter Kwasniewski



Kwasniewski takes a laissez-faire position on this question, and that is appropriate, though it may be counter to the mindset of many Latin traditionalists, who will insist upon kneeling as the appropriate posture for certain parts of the Mass, etc.

There is but one further angle to examine: the Problem of Pews. Since nearly every Catholic church in the West is now equipped with pews, usually bolted down for permanence, the topic is far more speculative than what we have discussed heretofore, and deserving of a separate treatment.

The two questions are intertwined so I await for the next part of his discussion. There is also the first ecumenical council's prohibition of kneeling on Sundays, but Latin traditionalists think the patriarchate of Rome is above that. And then there are sentiments like this expressed in comboxes and elsewhere:

I like the fact that the TLM has no rubrics for the laity at all -- including posture. It underscores the fact that the congregation (to be blunt) has absolutely nothing to do with the activity of the Mass. The priest offers the Mass. The server (clerical role) makes the responses. The schola (clerical role) sings the chant. None of this, at least in the missal or rubrics, is appointed for the congregation.

Legalism

CWR: Pope Francis and Ideology by Eduardo Echeverria

It is unfortunate that the Holy Father’s overall emphasis on legalism is such that he never addresses the antithesis of legalism, namely, antinomianism, leaving us with a lopsided picture of contemporary culture.

Looks Like Latin Legalism

Fr. Z's answer: Must a Latin Church Catholic going to an Eastern Church still obey Latin laws?

What's an Eastern Catholic response?

Roman Legalism

Fr. Hunwicke: Christine Mohrmann (4)

The ancient Romans were very legalistically minded. When they prayed to the Gods, they did their best to ensure that they covered everything; that they addressed the Gods by the right titles (and all of them) so that they could be assured that they were heard; that they asked for everything that they required so that an accidental omission would not frustrate their petitions. Christine Mohrmann showed that there is more than a little of this attitude in the prayers which comprise the Roman Rite of the ancient Latin Church.

Chiesa: Francis Doesn’t Like the Seminaries. Because They Form Priests Who Are “Rigid” and Incapable of “Discernment”

Over just a few days, a hailstorm of rebukes. Which show the pope’s irritation over the criticisms of “Amoris Laetitia,” these too the fruit, in his judgment, of a legalistic and decadent mentality


Bergoglio, Politician. The Myth of the Chosen People

The pope of mercy is also the one of the anti-capitalist and anti-globalization “popular movements.” Castro dies, Trump wins, the South American populist regimes crumble, but he isn’t giving up. He is certain that the future of humanity is in the people of the excluded

Franciscan Antinomianism

Lecturing Roman Catholics once again...

Pope Francis: Rigid People Are Sick by Edward Pentin
A person who is rigid in many cases conceals a "double life", lacks the freedom of God's children and needs the Lord's help, Pope says in morning homily.

Latin Legalism

I was trying to recall areas in which Latins may be said to be legalistic, that is, exaggerating law or (the role of) law as a model of understanding something else.

1. I don't think the charge that Latins are legalistic with respect to moral theology is true, at least with respect to the medievals, though it may be true of Counter-Reformation and post-Counter-Reformation moral theology (see Fr. Pinckaers).

2. Popular piety: indulgences, etc. Possibly a consequence of (1).

3. Speculative theology: the understanding of Redemption, i.e. models of Atonement, Divine Justice, tc.

4. Ecclesiology: conception of episcopal/papal authority (though this is probably not a problem only in the West).

Anything else?

Latin Legalism

Fr. Hunwicke has a series of posts on the scholar of Christian Latin, Christine Mohrmann: 1, 2, 3

See especially the third post: "The ancient Romans were very legalistically minded. When they prayed to the Gods, they did their best to ensure that they covered everything; that they addressed the Gods by the right titles (and all of them) so that they could be assured that they were heard; that they asked for everything that they required so that an accidental omission would not frustrate their petitions. Christine Mohrmann showed that there is more than a little of this attitude in the prayers which comprise the Roman Rite of the ancient Latin Church."

A charge very often levelled at Roman or Latin Apostolic Christianity is that it is legalistic. Certainly, there is a narrowly defined legalism that is characteristic of post-medieval moral theology (see Servais Pinckaers). But can it also be said that a certain understanding of atonement is legalistic and even a certain strain of Latin spirituality, with an emphasis on merits and indulgences and the like, is legalistic. Do we find these tendencies rooted in the Latin culture that gave rise to Christian Latin? After all wasn't Rome known during the days of the Republic and of the Empire as being oriented towards the practical, to law and order?