Was This Recorded?

Stimulating Constantinople Lecture by Fr @DragosHerescu of @IOCS_Cambridge about the impact of secularism on #Orthodoxy in western and eastern Europe, with a focus on “relevance”, diaspora religious life, incl. the impact of Covid-19, and ecumenical prayer. pic.twitter.com/Vq2VJHvLfs

— John Kittmer (@JohnKittmer) November 26, 2020

A True Believer?

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

An African Missionary's Perspective on the Amazon

Sandro Magister: A Missionary Called By the Pope To the Synod On the Amazon Explains What the Church Gets Wrong

An Interview with Stephen Bullivant

CWR: Why have Catholics in the UK and US been leaving the Church since Vatican II? by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille

Theologian and sociologist Stephen Bullivant says a big part of his argument in Mass Exodus is “that the ‘social architecture’ that had sustained and strengthened Catholic life and identity was well on the road to passing away by the time the Council came along.”

Out of Time

Evolution. As for that supposed 98+% genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees...

CWR: Cdl. Müller: “We are experiencing conversion to the world, instead of to God”
In an exclusive CWR interview, the former prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith discusses tensions over the proposed reception of Holy Communion by Protestants, continued conflicts over the Church’s teaching about ordination, and homosexuality and ideology.

Benedict XVI on Human Rights

Sandro Magister: Glory To God, That There May Be Peace on Earth. A Never-Before-Published Text From Pope Benedict

On the Met Exhibit

We have Met the problem—and it is ancient, secular, and us by Carl E. Olson
The Gala at the Met was a sad attempt to pretend, to think (or feel, more likely) that colorful celebration and rampant symbolism can capture or reveal the essence of Catholicism.

Related:

The Sense of the Sacred

Dom Karl Wallner

A 2007 Interview with William Cavanaugh

From The Nation State Project, Schizophrenic Globalization, and the Eucharist: An Interview with William T. Cavanaugh by Ben Suriano & William T. Cavanaugh :

TOJ: You mentioned that the state acts as if it does not have an overriding metanarrative of its own, yet it does. You’ve commented on how it does take itself as peace-loving and the greatest promoter of world peace, yet through the use of violence as well. Can you, however, comment more specifically about the myths at the very origin of the state—in the early stages of its formative history—that have especially led to these currently accepted ideas?

BC: Well, when I say “the state” I am thinking in particular of the Western liberal democratic state. What is at the origin of this form is the idea of liberalism—which is, to reiterate, the idea of openness and universality overcoming particularity. This is one of the most basic ideas at bottom of the nuts and bolts formation of the Western state. It is basically an overcoming of the local through a centralization of power in the allegedly universal. So the particular loyalties of the people in the medieval period—loyalties to church and clan and guild and town and lord and so on—all of those particular loyalties are fragmented and absorbed into one centralized, universalized loyalty to the state. This transferring of loyalties in the process of state building is then a basic project that we find at the beginning of the rise of the Western state.

TOJ: You have mentioned in your work Charles Tilley’s idea that this process of state building is a process of war-making, almost like organized crime, in trying to centralize this power and these loyalties. And the centralized ordering of social space now seems to be more de-ritualized and secularized without the older particular loyalties of the past. Yet you have claimed in your work that in order for the state to develop this seemingly open, secular order it nevertheless uses quasi-religious liturgical practices that are somewhat of a religious parody in order to discipline and instrumentalize the devotion and imagination of the people. Can you comment on this movement of de-ritualizing and yet using quasi-liturgies by the state in order to gain allegiance and order? And what are ways it is still apparent in the U.S.?

BC: This process of state building and secularization is a very ambivalent movement because it certainly is the case that the liturgical rhythms of previous societies have been truly washed away. This is evident in the ways that the rhythms of time have been changed. Sundays used to be days of rest and now everything is open all the time on Sunday and everything is available 24-7 on the internet and so on, which really does de-liturgize society in a way.

But there are exceptions to this. I think the primary exception is the way that rituals of national patriotism are highly symbolic and highly ritualized and liturgized, especially as they revolve around the flag as the central totem symbol.

"Anniversaries"

Rorate Caeli: De Mattei: Shedding light on today's crisis

RT Interview with Patriarch Kirill

‘Western laws now clash with moral nature of man’ – Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

The Myth of Religious Violence

And another lecture at SCU:

William T. Cavanaugh, "Secularism and Idolatry"

CWR: "Amoris Laetitia" and Vatican II’s Project of Inculturation
Vatican II sought to initiate a dialogue with the modern world, meant to be an extension of the Church’s evangelizing mission. But things have not gone as hoped and planned.
By Dr. R. Jared Staudt

"Pope St. John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council amid great optimism. Pope John called for aggiornamento and an opening of the windows of the Church, but we know that the 1960s were not a time of fresh air. In fact, I would argue it was the breaking forth into daily life of a long trajectory of radical individualism. The Council sought a renewed encounter with the modern ..."



Luther and Protestantism get blamed for the rise of individualism (subjectivism); is Protestantism the roots of the modern turn? Did Luther and the Protestant "Reformers" destroy the authority of the Church? Whence voluntarism and false notions of freedom?

Dr. George Demacopoulos and Dr. Aristotle Papanikolaou

And the Two Become One Flesh by Veronica A. Arntz

A questionable interpretation of the parable of the wedding feast.

Lastly, through this improper reception of the Eucharist, we come to the wedding feast without the proper garment. In one of Christ’s parables, a king is hosting a marriage feast for his son, and after many of those invited rejected the invitation, the king brought in any from the streets who would come. Among these, however, “He {the king} saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless” (Matthew 22:11-12). This man was thrown “into the outer darkness” because he did not come properly dressed (Matthew 22:13). Thus, when we approach the Lord without having gone to the sacrament of Confession, and receive him unworthily, we are likewise approaching the wedding feast of the Lamb without the proper garment. Here, we see the eschatological purpose of the Church: if we do not participate in the Church with the right end of Heaven in mind, then we are doing a disservice to the Body of Christ. How will we be able to respond to the invitation to come to the “Spirit and the Bride” at the end of time, if during our whole lives as Christians we were not properly prepared to receive him? (Revelations 22:17). For the ultimate end of the Body of Christ is to enter the Mystical Body in Heaven, and to do that, we ought to be properly prepared to be part of the Body, and to receive the Eucharistic Body.

Is HPR so hard up for submissions that it is publishing essays by college seniors? (Even if that college is WCC.)

Our understanding of Christian marriage or natural marriage is dependent upon our understanding of the Church and its relation to Christ? Aristotle and Cicero, cited at the beginning of the essay, had no knowledge of the Mystery of Christ. One can just as easily say that the marriage crisis is due to the loss of faith, but what Christian trying to live in Christ doesn't realize that already?

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

(via The Catholic Thing)

William Cavanaugh: "Does Religion Promote Violence?"

Whom Does Modern Man Worship?

Rorate Caeli: The Horror of Surrogate Religions: cats are a substitute for children and skyscrapers for bell towers