The Archdruid's latest, In the World After Abundance, called to mind some of the comments for this thread at The Spearhead, Still They Serve, which advocated nuclear energy. We all like our American way of life, the convenience and its easiness. Some would perpetuate it at all costs, dismissing the risks involved as negligible. Some men(?) have even criticized Angela Merkel's decision to move Germany away from nuclear energy as the typical decision-making of a woman, valuing security/safety more than anything else. I haven't done the risk analysis and I question the use of statistics in arguments, but even if safety/health is not the highest good for human beings, can we say that a life of convenience is worth the risk of something really bad happening?

How does the argument from safety against nuclear energy differ from the corresponding argument for gun control/prohibition? Does it follow from whether the fear is reasonable or not? Is inaction therefore justified? (We would then have to deal with the question of risk assessments. Oh, and the commensurability of goods.) Or is it because a gun is not always in use while a nuclear power plant is? The negative effects of nuclear power are always being contained while the plant is in operation. What can the nuclear power plant be protected against, and how many different things could happen to threaten it? Only one bad thing could happen with a gun, its being misused, so in comparison the number of safeguards that are needed for a gun are fewer.

Women are typically more cautious, while men are more willing to take risks.
Each "attitude" or inclination has its place, but one must consider the reasonableness of the inclination by the goods involved. It may be foolhardy to risk death for $50. But for $200 million, if it could help one's family and village?

I haven't really focused on this aspect of moral reasoning before...

(cross-posted at The New Beginning)

The limits of human law

The Western Confucian juxtaposes the view of the state (and law) given by Nicholas Hosford in The Role of the State with John Finnis's interpretation of Aquinas in his SEP article. According to the latter, "coercive jurisdiction extends to defending persons and property both by force and by the credible threat of punishment for criminal or other unjust appropriation or damage[, b]ut it does not extend to enforcing any part of morality other than the requirements of justice insofar as they can be violated by acts external to the choosing and acting person's will."

In his article dealing with the limits of law, Aquinas writes that law prohibits "only the more grievous vices," chiefly grave forms of injustice. But it is not necessarily limited to prohibiting injustice, as Finnis (and liberals) would maintain. Because of the unity of the virtues, one could argue that law can prohibit those "private" vices which could potentially undermine justice and living up to one's obligations to the community. (Is it not the case that disordered desires can lead to the performing of unjust acts for the sake of fulfilling those desires?) Injustice is a direct threat to communal living, but it seems to me that law can be used to protect all that is ordered to virtuous life with others.


One way to counter this is deny this thesis of the unity of the virtues (as Finnis does, I believe - I will have to double-check). One can separate the acquisition of justice from the acquisition of the other virtues. Finnis does this by weakening the notion of virtue to the point that it is simply habitual rule-following. One of his disciples, Robert George, allows for the extent of law to be greater (so that it encompasses the banning of pornography, for example). I will have to see if he diverges from Finnis in his premises. (Making Men Moral and In Defense of Natural Law.)

David Werling, Why Not the Univocal?
A Response to Fr. Cavalcoli in the Ongoing Debate
Regarding Vatican II and the Traditionalist Critique

(Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli, Why Not Univocal Indeed!)

Does God command genocide?

Two by Kyle Cupp: Genocide and Divine Command Theory and Authoritarian Ethics. See the comments to the first by Dominic Holtz, O.P. and A Sinner.

WIRED: U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

Op-StJoseph: New Issue of Dominicana
Journal of the Dominican Students

DSPT: Reflection on Pope Benedict XVI's "Jesus of Nazareth"

View on ExposureRoom

Aquinas Lecture 2011

The Vocation of the Catholic Philosopher: From Maritain to John Paul II
John P. Hittinger , ed.

Will Catholic philosophers in the United States lead the charge for a change in Catholic higher education and how it is being handled? Who will speak the truth to power about the higher education scam? Hiding behind the defense that a Catholic liberal education is not meant to be practical will seem self-serving.

The American Maritain Association

Stefan Sagmeister: 7 rules for making more happiness

bio

I'll have to watch this some other time...

Thomistic Institute

An introduction to the new website.

Thomistic Institute Website from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

Zenit: Statement on Anglican-Catholic Dialogue
"What Unites Us Is Greater Than What Divides Us"

Salve Project

Dominican Internet Projects

ORDINANDI 2011

Video currently down...

Dominican Province of St. Joseph

Homily for the Mass of Ordination to the Priesthood of Rev. Br Mark Francis Manzano OP and Rev. Br Boniface Willard OP
St Theresa Catholic Church, Oakland, California, 28 May 2011
by the Most Rev. Anthony Fisher, OP
Bishop of Parramatta, Austrailia

CB was talking to Sarge and he recommended 3 faculty members over at UST: Randall Smith, John Hittinger, and Steven Jensen. Perhaps I had forgotten that Hittinger was no longer at the Air Force Academy. I was surprised by his praise of Steven Jensen -- I remember the controversies over the moral object, and I thought he had not prevailed against his opponents (especially in his discussion of self-defense killing). Then again, it has been a while since I read his stuff; would his recent book be worth the price?

Two from Public Discourse

What’s Good? Wherefore Ought?
Thaddeus J. Kozinski, May 11, 2011
Only an ethics rooted in the divinely revealed truth of creation-as-gift and creator-as-love can coherently and adequately make sense of the universal experience of ought.

Thoughts About Oughts
Christopher O. Tollefsen, May 13, 2011
The requirements of natural reason in the pursuit of goods provide a more adequate starting point for moral reflection than the theological considerations in which moral reflection should come to its fruition.

Someone needs to record a better version of O Spem Miram and put it online.

The liturgy for the ordination yesterday was generally acceptable to my tastes, but my friend was left yearning for the old rite.

Against the Grain: Critical Responses to Tracey Rowland's "Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II"

The Smithy: How to Understand Scholastic Thought

Ordination announcement for the Western Province.

Sandro Magister, Religious Freedom. Was the Church Also Right When It Condemned It?

Benedictine theologian Basile Valuet weighs in on the dispute over Vatican Council II. Against the traditionalists Gherardini and de Mattei. But also against the "Ratzingerian" Rhonheimer

From God's Word:

Among the sedes apostolicae, there is in turn the sedes apostolica of Rome, which obviously relates to the other sedes apostolicae roughly as these do to the sees that are not directly apostolic. It thereby represents the ultimate and genuine criterion of Catholicity, sufficient in itself.

Taking everything together, we may determine that, at the moment when the theology of the successio apostolica  was first formulated as such, and when the Church first undertook to define her own nature, the "canon" of her being, in a conscious way, this theology was neither episcopal theology nor certainly papal theology; rather, it was dual, insofar as it distinguished between "episcopacy" and the sedes apostolicae--embodied, above all, in the one see of Rome. If the successio is the concrete form of the word, then that paramount--perhaps scandalous--concreteness that lies in the ultimate connection with the Roman line of succession, has been part of it from the beginning: at this point, all anonymity is abolished; the concrete name makes the inescapable demand that one take up a position; it is the most acute form of that extreme concreteness in which God set out by assuming, not just a name for men, but the flesh of man--the flesh of the Church. Must it not also be the most acute form of scandal that this "foolish" action of God provokes?

Let us return. It is clear that the duality of the earliest theology of succession afforded by the emphasis on the sedes apostolicae has nothing to do with the later concept of patriarchates, to which it may well have supplied starting points. Confusion of the original claim of the sedes apostolica with the administrative claim of the city that is a patriarchal see characterizes the tragedy of the dispute beginning between Constantinople and Rome. The concept of the patriarchate, which, especially from the Council of Chalcedon onward, was set in opposition to the Roman claim, and tried to contain it within the patriarchal way of thinking, misjudges the nature of this claim at its most profound level, since it is based on an entirely different principle. The patriarchal principle is post-Constantinian; its significance is administrative; and hence its practice is closely linked with political and geographical realities; in contrast with that, the Roman claim is understood on the basis of the originally theological theme of the sedes apostolica. To the same degree that [new Rome] which could not consider calling itself "apostolic") blurred the old idea of the sedes apostolica in favor [of] the patriarchal concept, old Rome reinforced its references to the completely different origin and character of its own authority.

This authority is in fact quite different from a primacy of honor among patriarchs, because it operates on a quite different level, independent of such administrative concepts. The concealing of the old theological idea of the sedes apostolica, which was after all from the outset a part of the Church's understanding of herself, by the idea of the five patriarchates must be regarded as the real evil in the dispute between East and West, an evil that also had its effect upon the West, inasmuch as--despite the retention fo the concept of the sedes apostolica--a largely administrative and patriarchal concept of the importance of the Roman See developed that could hardly help any outsider to have a clear grasp fo the real essence of the Roman claim, as distinct from any other claims. [33-35]

Pope Retires Title "Patriarch of West" as Obsolete
Communique
Catholic Culture

Aristotelian logic by William Thomas Parry, Edward A. Hacker (GB)

Something to keep track of... It's out of print but maybe a cheap used copy can be had...

Poetic knowledge and classical education

What sort of mind is proportioned to an education in philosophy? Dialectic and contact with the real world are necessary for the student of philosophy, but what else is required for the student to be able to accept the definitions given to him by his teachers and books? I have thought that the best way to stimulate inquiry is through socratic questioning, but what other means are there for the teacher of philosophy? Is it proper to proceed in a "logical" fashion, with definitions/axioms and reasoning from them? This question about how to teach philosophy got me thinking about pedagogy and other modes of knowing... I again recall the complaints lodged by critics of the manuals. Was the seminary and Catholic university education of the early 20th century intellectually deadening because the requisite preparation that is necessary for scientific learning is missing?

John Senior and Poetic Knowledge:

A tribute to John Senior
Our Schoolmaster Remembered
An interview with James S. Taylor (His Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education.)
"The End of Education": John Senior and the Idea of the University

Teaching Classical Literature Classically by Andrew Kern (CiRCE)
THE “GOOD BOOKS” LITERATURE PROGRAM by Elisabeth Carmack, Ph.D., N.D., DiH.
CIRCE Institute

Related:
Inside Classical Education
Institute for Classical Schools
Memoria Press
The Classical Scholar
Classical Academic Press

Institute for Catholic Liberal Education

A critique of certain programs (including Well-Trained Mind) by a Randian.

A piece on peak oil

Entropy, peak oil, and Stoic philosophy by Ugo Bardi

Any other proponents of neo-stoicism out there?

Zenit: Papal Address to Marriage and Family Institute
"In Love Man Is 'Re-created'"

CUA: Catholic University to Host 2012 Conference on 50th Anniversary of Vatican II

Enough talking, time for action? Or maybe the problem is that the talking was mostly for naught, because the authors of the documents didn't really address the problem of "modernity" because they failed to understand it?

If we could ignore the documents of Vatican II for a moment, what is there of pastoral and dogmatic value that could not be presented through what came before the council? American lay people are familiar with what is taught in the name of the council, but what would a summary of the council documents be like?

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, St. John Climacus and Prayer (mp3)

Sandro Magister, Benedict XVI the "Reformist." The Prosecution Rests

Introvigne replies to de Mattei, a leader of the anti-conciliarists. And Professor Rhonheimer returns to explain how and why Vatican II must be understood and accepted. In the way indicated by the pope

Christian Philosophy

homistica: New book on Christian Philosophy debates

A collection of the original sources; it won't have later and non-French contributors like John Wippel and Ralph McInerny.

I wrote a paper on this once -- I'd have to revise part of it at least. The first question that needs to be answered is: "How are we to define philosophy?" Do we accept the scholastic definition, or do we define philosophy as something less exact, so that the lyrical expressions of wannabe poets can be considered philosophy? Is philosophy about the mode in which it is expressed or the reasoning? Are there universal rules for good reasoning (including how to define well), which are studied in logic? How much logic did moderns like Blondel study? I think the debate is illustrative of what happens when people have lost the art of definition and name without guidance.

Some could interpret those who affirmed that there is such a thing as Christian philosophy as making an apologetical argument - Gilson and Maritain, for example. A last gasp of Christian triumphalism, unwittingly put forth by "existential" Thomists? Or another attempt to discredit scholasticism, with its philosophical compnent as the target.

If we accept that philosophy is reasoned-out knowledge, then there is no such thing as "Christian" philosophy. Some may be referring instead to how faith and reason interact or how grace affects reason, and naming this nexus as "Christian" philosophy; while it is true that the supernatural life does have benefits for those who seek reasoned-out knowledge, to say that this is "Christian" philosophy is potentially misleading, as our starting points or logic are not affected.


(And if it is claimed that the life of grace enables reason to reflect upon truths "natural" reason cannot come to know, then this would not be philosophy at all.)

Humans 'predisposed' to believe in gods and the afterlife

I believe apologists have made use of this "universal" fact in favor of theism.

So what are atheists to do but try to explain this away with evolutionary psychology or some other form of reductionism? Could it be that the simple and the uneducated have some sort of understanding that the operations of the mind transcend the limits of matter?

Cardinal Burke on the liturgy

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

Courses by Michel Labourdette op

On the virtues of Hope and Charity. (In French)

Volume 1 of his course is in commercial print! Cours de théologie morale fondamentale

Parole et Silence
Revue thomiste

How much effort should lay people put into discerning God's will?

Everyone should use prudence, and everyone should ask to be better confirmed God's will. Everyone should learn how to abandon themselves to Divine Providence. But does everyone equally need to know God's will? Lay people can discern what they should do, but much of their action is constrained by their duties and the rules and mores of their community. This is true of secular priests to an extent.

But at present it seems to me that those who need to discern God's will the most are those (religious) who no longer participate in the human economy, but wholly serve the Divine Economy. As a result, they need to be enlightened by Him directly as to how they are to serve Him and what they should do. Much of what the laity needs to do in order to fulfill God's will is given to them through the Natural Law, in conjunction with positive laws. The laity need to exercise prudence, as do those in religious life, but I think religious need to check that they are not presuming to be doing God's will, but must in humility ask to know whether this is actually the case.

The young do need to ask the question of whether they have a vocation to the priesthood or the religious life, but after that... maybe only with respect to great or extraordinary things or difficult cass? A parent does not need to question whether God wants him to do what is right for his children?

An old article in the Marquette Law Review, written by Anton Hermann Chroust: The Problem of Private Property According to St. Thomas Aquinas

Lumen Christi Institute: April 27: "The Dignity of Being a Substance" by Gilles Emery, OP

Vimeo

“The Dignity of Being a Substance” from The Lumen Christi Institute on Vimeo.

How great the burden of proof?

Re: torturing people for the sake of getting information

What needs to be be established so that the court (or lawful authority) can find someone guilty of contempt in refusing to answer some question he has been commanded to answer? Beyond a "reasonable doubt"? It seems to me that it would be difficult to show beyond a reasonable doubt that someone knows (or plans) x - I can't imagine there being sufficient incriminating evidence that someone knows x without the needed information being present as well.

I think the burden should be rather great. If it cannot be established without a reasonable doubt that someone knows x, then he cannot be punished for refusing to divulge that information, even if those in authority have reasons for suspecting that he has that information.

Don Paco on St. Thomas's philosophy

Quaeritur: Aren't You Unfairly Criticizing Gilson?

Additional notes on the definition of torture

Begun on March 19.

Some thoughts on the use of "compel" or "coerce" in the definition of torture.

Compel, coerce, force may be synonyms, but their usage may indicate slight (or not-so-sleight) differences in their meanings?

"Compel" may be somewhat ambiguous, as ambiguous as the definition of "torture" can be. After all, torture can be defined as the use of pain or bodily harm to compel obedience, the yielding of information, etc. -- to make someone do what they do not want to do. If a police officer uses pain to make someone resisting arrest comply with his legitimate commands, is he torturing that person? (Or if a child is spanked because he is not obeying his parents' instructions, is that torture?) Pain is used to bring someone to do something the one applying the pain wants. The same is true of force. On the surface, this does not seem like punishment for disobedience, but the use of pain or force is usually a response (and hence justified in the eyes of the law) to prior non-compliance/disobedience of an instruction or order.


"Coerce" may be less ambiguous than the other two words because in the literature the word coercion is often associated with law and government. Law coerces as well as commands. It doesn't necessarily imply a voluntaristic understanding of law; it is how the effects of law are perceived by its subjects, who may have only an imperfect understanding of the purpose of law.Does coercion involve an understanding that the consequences of not following are punishments? Punishments for disobeying a (legitimate) command? In so far as it is tied to law, I think it does. One is given the opportunity to comply, and if one refuses to do so, he is punished.

(The wiki entry on coercion. SEP. IEP on Free Will.)

How do we distinguish morally licit forms of coercion  (if there are any), getting obedience, cooperation, compliance through the application of pain and so on, from illicit forms? One could make an argument from human dignity that no one should be made a tool of another's will, but taken to an extreme, this argument (proper to liberalism) would lead to the sanctioning of disobedience and the outlawing of all consequences for that act. So is compulsion (as in the example of the police officer) to be identified with (legal) coercion and hence punishment?

In coercing the will of another, one is doing so with respect to an external act, and in particular acts of the body, whether it be to say something or to submit to an arrest.One cannot coerce the will to truly choose some opinion or belief, to assent or deny something, because we cannot confirm that this is actually the case. We can only obtain the physical representation of that belief through a verbal or written profession. Nor can we coerce the will's internal acts (desiring or loving some end). "Mental states" are hidden from us. That sort of mind control is impossible for us, and hence a non-believer cannot be effectively compelled from without to embrace the Christian faith. It also goes against the nature of the act of faith because the "grounds for belief" is not relief of pain or one's physical safety or health, but God's revealing of Himself and the acceptance of this. To say that the act of faith is or must be a free act does not go far enough, in my opinion, in explaining why it cannot be coerced. How is it free, that epistemic encounter with God?

Again, even if torture could be morally justified,  it is ineffective (according to various "experts) at procuring truth (confessions of guilt) or information.

*Compulsion presupposes that the original command was lawful - the one giving the command hand the authority to do so, the one being commanded is under his authority, and so on.

Catholic Online: Verbum Domini: Pope Calls the Faithful to Fall in Love with the Living Word of God

Rorate Coeli: A "renewed anthropological foundation to religious freedom" 

I have to agree with those commenting who see no change in the Holy Father's understanding of Dignitatis Humanae. The anthropology is the basis for the freedom and for the right.

Zenit: Mexican Christian Leaders on Religious Freedom [2011-05-06]
"Not a Benevolent Concession of the State But a Fundamental Human Right"

Zenit: Papal Address to Liturgical Institute
"Not Infrequently Tradition and Progress Are Clumsily Opposed"

Pope's Message to Biblical Commission
"Inspiration and Truth as Two Key Concepts"


Pope's Address to Delegation From the "Papal Foundation"
"The Church Is Missionary by Her Very Nature"

Called to Communion: Lawrence Feingold on Freedom of the Will (via ML)

NovAntiqua

Discovered this blog today while doing a search for information regarding the conference dedicated to John Finnis. One of the blog authors, Kevin Feiser, has written a series on the "action theory"/moral psychology of Martin Rhonheimer:

Regarding Rhonheimer…
On Rhonheimer, Part II: Moral Action Theory
On Rhonheimer, Part III: Virtue Ethics

6th Scarpa Conference on Law, Politics, and Culture

Patrick Brennan: More on John Finnis and others at Villanova Law

See also Fr. Rhonheimer is coming to Villanova Law and The Scarpa Conference at Villanova Law: Eskridge, Ferejohn, Finnis, and many others

OUP: The Collected Essays of John Finnis (5 volumes!)

Fr. Tomas Tyn, O.P.

Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli, O.P. recommends these two websites for more information about the Servant of God Tomas Tyn, O.P. in his Response to the traditionalists of "The Remnant," in defense of Arzillo: Studio Filosofico Domenicano and Arpato.

SD's Youtube Channel




Other links:
Padre Tomas Tyn: un domenicano senza compromessi
Totus Tuus Tools
Servo di Dio Tomas Tyn
a forum thread
another homily on Fr. Tyn





P.Tomas Tyn, OP: La temperanza (Matilde has audio files of Fr. Tyn and videos of Fr. Cavalcoli)
P.Tomas Tyn: Omelia di P.Pilastro, OP (1.1.1991)
P. Tomas Tyn OP (1950-1990) mostra fotografica a Cremona

Now a short comment on Fr. Cavalcoli's response. He writes:

By comparing Descartes with Aristotle, Aristotle did not intend to refer to the dualism of Descartes, of whom he does not speak, but to the Cartesian way of thinking, too attached to clarity and distinction, something that can be acceptable in mathematical thinking, but not in theological, which is a form of thought based more on analogy than on univocality. Now, it is precisely the method of analogy that is characteristic of Aristotle, and not of Descartes.

Analogical thought makes it possible to understand how a concept, while still remaining identical to itself, can however at the same time develop, progress, explicate and clarify itself. This is typical of all vital phenomena, from the biological level to the spiritual. Because of this, Blessed John Henry Newman compared dogmatic or theological progress to the development of a plant, which grows and develops while still remaining itself. A five-foot oak tree is still itself even when it has reached one hundred feet.

Thus the doctrines of Vatican II must not be viewed as a disowning or rupture with the previous magisterium, but as a confirmation and explication of them. In other words, with Vatican II we know better those same truths of faith that we knew before.

The science of] Theology may be characterized by analogical thinking.But is it too much to ask for clarity in a dogmatic statement or formula. We would expect it in a dogmatic definition; otherwise imprecision would render it useless as a tool for teaching the Faith and opposing error. Conciliar documents are not meant for theological speculation; rather, they are there to explicate Sacred Tradition for the sake of the Christian faithful. (I think there is a difference between explication as (re-)defining the truths of the Faith, as opposed to shedding light or giving insight to the principles (supplied by Faith) through reasoning.) It would seem to me that this is a straw man argument.

Roberto de Mattei responds to critics

Sandro Magister, The Church Is Infallible, But Not Vatican II

And it made mistakes, maintains traditionalist historian Roberto de Mattei. The dispute continues for and against the popes who guided the Council and put its innovations into practice

Ryan T. Anderson reviews John D. Mueller's Redeeming Economics: Dismal Science Redeemed: What’s Gone Wrong.

I'm puzzled by this account given by Mueller:

Thus the theory Aquinas outlined—known as “Scholastic” economics—had four key elements: the theory of production, which explains which goods (and how many of them) we produce; the theory of justice in exchange, which accounts for how we are compensated through the sale of goods for our contributing to their production; the theory of final distribution, which determines who will consume our goods; and finally, the theory of consumption (or utility), which explains which goods people prefer to consume.

I think I have the book, but if I do, it's in storage. What he writes here about distributive justice does need to be checked, since distributive justice pertains to common goods. It could be argued that whatever we produce from natural resources, which are clearly "common goods," is also common, but I haven't come across a persuasive argument that this is so.

Vocations Vid for the Eastern Province

Various popes, bishops and theologians have written about what constitutes a good regime (one that governs in accordance with the common good), and they have accepted the classification of regimes taken from the ancient Greeks. Political theorists from Aristotle to Leopold Kohr have talked about the limits to the size of a polity, and how good governance is not possible if a polity exceeds this limit. I would consider this to fall under "Natural Law reasoning" (that is to say, a precept concerning the limit to a size to a polity would be of the Natural Law, touching upon both the common good and good government). But is it something that the Church could ever endorse?

John Allen, Laicizing bishops, a movie flap, Ireland and America, and Vatican II

More often than not, people like to see their own convictions as a middle position between two extremes. We all feel better, I suppose, thinking of ourselves as rational moderates, standing against ideologues on either side.

When it comes to interpretations of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), some progressive Catholics are tempted to see Pope Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of reform,” which stresses continuity with the pre-Vatican II church, as the opposite end of the spectrum from more liberal views. That’s not, however, how most people in the Vatican size things up, where the “hermeneutic of reform” is instead understood as a balanced position between thinking that church history began with Vatican II, and thinking that the council was just plain wrong.

For that taxonomy to work, there have to be credible exponents of the “just plain wrong” position. That’s where Italian historian Roberto de Mattei and Monsignor Brunero Gherardini, a canon of St. Peter’s Basilica, enter the picture.

Both have published provocative books about Vatican II. Last year, de Mattei offered Il Concilio Vaticano II: Una storia mai scritta (“The Second Vatican Council: A Story Never Told”), styling Vatican II as a rupture with tradition comparable to the French Revolution, and faulting every pope since Pius X for allowing it to happen. Gherardini produced Concilio Vaticano II: Il discorso mancato (“The Second Vatican Council: The Missing Discussion”), in which he said some council fathers believed “the church was to be a kind of research laboratory rather than a dispenser of truths from on high.”

Both books were recently reviewed in L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, and in both cases the verdict was fairly negative. The commentary on de Mattei came from Italian Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, author of a study of the council openly critical of the more liberal “Bologna school” associated with Italian scholars Giuseppe Alberigo and Alberto Melloni. Marchetto wrote that de Mattei’s work is “ideological” and suffers from “extremist tendencies.” Likewise, Inos Biffi, a medieval expert and a frequent writer for L’Osservatore, charged that Gherardini doesn’t so much “discuss” Vatican II as “denigrate” it.

The dividing line is this: If the post-Vatican II period brought some confusion and excess, is that the fault of the council itself? Benedict XVI, and figures in sync with his views such as Marchetto and Biffi, say no; traditionalist critics such as de Mattei and Gherardini say yes.

All this illustrates a core insight about the Catholic Church: Deciding who the moderates are depends on the range of views one takes into consideration. When you see the whole picture, it’s often tougher to conclude that the Vatican, or the pope, represents an extreme.

Again, Allen talks about "moderates" -- this is a unhelpful term, when it comes to evaluating the second Vatican Council or its documents. I think those who are critical are critical primarily of the documents approved by the Council Fathers and of certain ambiguities. As for explaining how the documents came about, that is the job of a historian, not of a theologian or bishop, even if it is up to the theologian or bishop to interpret the documents in light of Tradition and to present them in that manner.

This is also separate from the question of whether the second Vatican Council is the cause of all the problems in the Church from the late '60s through the '70s. Again, I don't think that this is what Gherardini would claim.

The hermeneutic of continuity might be mandated by charity (and fidelity?), but does it not presuppose that the Church must reconcile the documents of the Council with tradition because of their authoritative weight? Are not syllabi and anathemas better?

op-stjoseph: St. Thomas Aquinas and the Church: Theo-Centric Ecclesiology

Peter Moskos, In Defense of Flogging

Surprised to see this published in the CoHE. The book. Publisher.

OP Vocations: Fr. Romanus Cessario OP: St. Catherine on Dominican Preaching

Who's Betraying Tradition. The Grand Dispute

The discussion is becoming heated over how to interpret the innovations of Vatican Council II, above all on freedom of religion. The traditionalists against Benedict XVI. An essay by philosopher Martin Rhonheimer in support of the pope

by Sandro Magister

Fr. Paul Murray, O.P. on contemplation

Part 1 and Part 2

TEDx: Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries

faculty page
Biomolecular Materials Group
TIME

The uses and abuses of 'happiness' by William Davies (EB)

There are at least four ways in which the term ‘happiness’ can be used to augment public policy debate. No doubt these overlap in certain ways, but confusions and conflations between them are doing considerable harm to the quality of public debate in this area, which impacts upon the credibility of bodies such as Action for Happiness.

The first is philosophical, and harks back to Aristotle. A good life, Aristotle argued, is a virtuous and happy life. It is one that fulfils us as human beings, marking us out from other animals. Aristotelians are not necessarily averse to engaging in technical, economic debates, as Amartya Sen’s wonderfully expansive intellectual career has demonstrated. But nor is the ethical concept of happiness – something that surely concerns all of us – collapsible into statistical, economic or psychological questions of what is measurable or what precise actions will ‘deliver’ a pleasant chemical hit to the brain.

CUA: CUA to Host Conference on 120th Anniversary of Rerum Novarum

Philip Sutton, Same-sex attraction: science and philosophy

2011 Paschal Message of His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America

A Blessed Pascha to all of you!

Pope John XXII and the Franciscan ideal of absolute poverty by Melanie Brunner (via medievalists.net)

If you think community is so important, then why aren't you living in accordance with what you teach?

More thoughts on the topic of this post.

What about the scholastics? Is their witness diminished because so many of them did not labor where they came from, but were instead teaching at "international" centers of learning? They can be defended because they had been excused from family and communal duties because they had been set aside for God and His work.

I also note that it seems that the treatment of community and its origins in their political treatises and commentaries on Aristotle is short, if not "dry"short if not "dry" because the nature of communal life and how it came to be was not at issue in that day; it was simply taken for granted. Could they have imagined the various social and technological changes that have made modern atomistic living possible? As Fr. Cessario pointed out in class one time, the reason why the medievals didn't write much on the community is because they were living it. It is a more developed topic for us and the subject for so much spilled ink precisely because we don't have it.

I think it is correct to say that the teachers at the medieval universities were all clergy, secular priests or religious. When did lay masters first appear at the European universities, and when did they become a significant minority? How did they live up to their duties to family and community? What institutions were there, other than the state, for forming the laity? How much resistance was there to the centralizers of modern Europe, and was any of it found outside the nobility? Was there a lack of training among the elites in political science, or was alienation from the masses a greater factor? That is, the elites fought against centralization in order to maintain power and status, not to protect the communal life of those subordinate to them.

Stabat Mater

Dominican Liturgy: Dominican Chants of Good Friday

Wired: Gut-Bacteria Mapping Finds Three Global Varieties
NYT
Science Daily
Press release

An article from 2010.

Query: According to what laws or standards can a reform of the papal government be carried out? It would seem that a reform of the Roman Curial offices is needed, but could they be abolished? Or does the coordinating function of the papacy require some form of the curia to help it? What functions do the various offices serve? It does seem that they exist for the good of the Church Universal. Can we speak of constitutional law with respect to canon law and the various papal decrees on the congregations?

Knowledge and Love - Saint Thomas Aquinas

The Happiness Manifesto

Via the FB page for The New Economics Foundation:

TEDxDanubia 2011 - Nic Marks - The Happiness Manifesto


The Happiness Manifesto
Amazon

Lack of moral witness by academics?

I'd rather live as a member of a community than as someone who just talks about community but doesn't live it. Academics may have some sort of communal life, with their colleagues at their institutions or with fellow congregants at church, but I suspect it is rather limited. If they talk about community and political reform then, on what basis can they be credible witnesses to the way of life they are advocating? Their voting record? Their community activism or advocacy? How do they treat their neighbor? The parable of the good Samaritan applies not only to our treatment of (guest-)strangers we find in our midst (the ancient Greeks knew of hospitality as a duty to the gods) but to those with whom we live or have daily dealings.

The American Thing

Some additional thoughts to this post, but on the American polity, or rather, polities.

I wonder, those American Catholics (especially those who adhere to the Nationalist understanding of the Constitution) who talk about subsidiarity, how many of them live in a real community?

I would argue there can be real authority only when there is a real community, and there is shared commitment to the community and the common good. I would question whether those who are prepared to leave, for the sake of better economic opportunity or advancement, can really be considered members of a local community. Without community, can there be real self-rule or real authority at the "lower levels," rather than rule by a "fortunate" few. Even if one is attached to a romantic notion of democracy (i.e. the capacity of most people for self-rule), do they recognize that in such a situation, when true community is absent, that the regime is usually a bad one, with those who rule doing so for the sake of a few and not for the good of the whole? (What whole?)

It may be the case that most states no longer have a real basis for sovereignty (as they lack autarky and true citizenship), but it seems better for us to recover constitutional order for the sake of reform, rather than attempting to start from scratch. There is something to turning to the Constitution and our own legal and constitutional history for the devolution of power. It may be the case that true subsidiarity can only be brought about when the assumption that states are the locus of sovereignty is addressed, but this would be a better way to decentralize, rather than waiting for things to fall apart. As it is, many Catholics seem to ignore the traditional role of the states when discussing subsidiarity, holding to a nationalist conception of the Union and seeing the states as nothing more than administrative units, one more "level" of authority.

Holy Wednesday Hymn of Kassiani-Τροπάριο της Κασσιανής

The School of Salamanca (via MoJ)

Bishops as Teachers: A Resource for Bishops

Shawn Tribe, The Italian Debate About Continuity, Rupture, and the Second Vatican Council (which references the most recent Magister article, The Disappointed Have Spoken. The Vatican responds)

op-stjoseph: Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Aquinas: An Imagined Encounter
A talk by Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, O.P.

Another CMT contributor -- Subsidiarity and the Case of the Missing Lunch
By: Jana Bennett

Meanwhile, we non-politicians tend to see only the distinctions between federal and state levels, but much less so at local levels. But if we’re taking the principle of subsidiarity seriously, the feds and the state should be supporting local schools in all the ways it can, but stay out of decisions that schools themselves ought to be making – including whether it is appropriate to “teach to the test,” and how to measure their student populations’ successes. Someone teaching special education on a reservation, which has undoubtedly unique aspects compared to, say, the wealthy school district in my area that everyone wants part in. Or, the impoverished “Teach to the test”, even in statewide measures, make no sense, but because education is big bucks, the state and the feds are involved far more than I think is warranted. We ought to trust each other more – especially the people on the ground.

Just as we ought to trust a principal to know her school and make a determination about lunches. She’s not being unfair or unjust; she’s giving students with very particular needs an out, but she’s also making a fairly-considered decision for her school.

I won't address the question of American federal system and the locus of sovereignty. The problem is that not all authority is the same, just set in hierarchical order. The sphere of authority will differ in accordance with the nature of the good of the group. When it becomes possible that attendance at schools is 100% voluntary for all children then we can talk about what powers a principal may have under contract. Asserting that a principal has authority (even if conceded in law) does not mean that it is true -- tyrants claim the protection of the law.

One should be wary of limiting the authority of parents, even if it is under the guise of protecting children's health or promoting a good learning environment -- the school is not the state, and even the state should be restrained in what it can and cannot legislate for the sake of legitimate liberty.

Perhaps one should not expect much from a blog, including a careful analysis of all of the terms that are involved (though this would be necessary for rigorous argumentation), but professional academics should be careful of writing a blog, less their competence be judged by it.

Is There Still a Male-Female Wage Gap? by Charles Camosy

Though this certainly complicates the issue for me, it still seems that women being primarily responsible for child-rearing puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the workforce…and that this is de facto structural sexism. But I’d be interested in comments from people who know more about this stuff than I do. What is the reply here?

The manosphere has a term for men like this.

On a group blog in which everyone is equal, who will uphold and judge according to Tradition? One can allege that there are novelties in Church teaching concerning the role of the wife and mother, but more work is going to have to be done to show that they are not concessions to the demands of a society in which economic freedom is lacking.

Sunday Night Prime - On the Last Day - Fr. Benedict Groeschel w Fr. Bryan Kromholtz - 04-03-2011

The video begins with Father Kromholtz, O.P. talking about the GTU.

John O'Callaghan, Great God, It's the Great God Debate (via First Things)

Francis J. Beckwith, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Inadequacy of Intelligent Design

"Ethan" comments and cites St. Thomas:

Accordingly, there is diversity and inequality in things created, not by chance, not as a result of a diversity of matter, not on account of certain causes or merits intervening, but from God’s own intention…

The distinction of things is not from chance… those things which are distinct by their forms are not distinct by chance, but perhaps those things are, whose distinction is from matter. But the distinction of species is from the form, and the distinction of singulars in the same species, is from matter. Wherefore the specific distinction of things cannot be from chance…

It follows therefore that theform of the universe is intended and willed by God. Therefore it is not from chance: for we ascribe to chance those things which are beside the intention of the agent. Now the form of the universe consists in the distinction and order of its parts. Therefore the distinction of things is not from chance.

Therefore the specific distinction in things, which is according to their form, is not on account of their matter: but on the contrary matters were created diverse, that they might be suitable for diverse forms. Hereby is excluded… the opinions of any who held the distinction of things to be the result of various material principles.

I'll have to look this up when I get a chance.

Dominican Liturgy: Primitive Hymn for the Feast of St. Dominic

RADICAL EMANCIPATION: CONFRONTING THE CHALLENGE OF SECULARISM

CALL FOR PAPERS
NOTRE DAME CENTER FOR ETHICS & CULTURE
12th ANNUAL FALL CONFERENCE

James Chastek, From truth to ideology:

We can see this dialectic between truth and ideology quite clearly in the progression of thought after Parmenides. It’s almost impossible for us to exaggerate the exhilaration of hearing Parmenides in his own day. Think of how excited we get when we do nothing but make a machine runs faster than the one that came before it, then think of what a thrill it would have been to discover for the first time all of the following: being as the subject of discourse, the force of logical argumentation, the principle of contradiction, the identity of being and thought, the unity of being and truth and the one, etc. Inseparable from this, however, is the conclusion that motion and change must be considered mere opinions – that is, they are not features that the world has of itself. To put this in modern terms, motion and change are merely “subjective”. The disciple of Parmenides is thus torn between wanting to hold the premises and deny their conclusion. This situation can last for centuries and reach no adequate resolution despite the best efforts of many very brilliant persons.


Enter Aristotle. With a single distinction that everyone knew but no one ever managed to notice, get a hold of, or name (the division between the per se and the per accidens) he manages to resolve the whole Parmenidean problem in a single stroke, and in such a way that preserves and even illuminates more fully logical argumentation, being as a subject of discourse, the various ways in which being and thought are one and many, etc. The solution is so simple and elegant we wonder how no one could have noticed it before. Once someone points it out and we get a clear view of the solution, we feel like fools for not having noticed it before. Over time, it becomes harder and harder for us to see why Parmenides could have even thought what he did.


Ideology and dogmatism have already begun to creep in. We flatter ourselves with the thought that Parmenides was simply a stage of thought that we have moved beyond. And isn’t this true? The difficulty is that Aristotle’s distinction is essentially a solution to a Parmenidean problem, and so in the measure that we no longer see Parmenides as a problem, Aristotelianism becomes the answer to a question that no one is asking. At this moment, the basis of the system is in some measure irrelevant and even arbitrary. Our great truth and great synthesis becomes words that we ask the students to memorize. “The truth” quickly becomes a principle of ignorance and arbitrary will.

A delayed addendum

To this post on abortion -- if those who believe that abortion should be legal make use of the claims that I have laid forth (namely that it can not be demonstrated by reason alone that ensoulment happens at conception), they cannot claim that abortion is therefore permissible because the life that is being ended is not that of a human being. They cannot, on the basis of the "no harm principle," justify abortion because it cannot be demonstrated either that ensoulment has not taken place. From my argument it is the case that one can only be a committed agnostic, and if one cannot know for sure whether the life of a human being is at stake or not, one cannot end that life since one is potentially committing murder (e.g. the hunter in the woods who does not take due precaution that his target is actually a deer and not another hunter).

Besides, even if it could be shown that the conceptum is not human, this would not completely take away from the gravity of the sin of abortion. Abortion would still be a mortal sin, for the reasons given by theologians who accepted that ensoulment took place much later after conception.

Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer

website

High Up, Let Down by Pope Benedict
They are some of the leading traditionalist thinkers. They had wagered on him, and now they feel betrayed. The latest disappointments: the Courtyard of the gentiles and the encounter in Assisi. The accusation that they make against Ratzinger is the same that they make against the Council: having replaced condemnation with dialogue

by Sandro Magister

Death amidst Life: Lenten Gregorian Chant

Death amidst Life: Lenten Gregorian Chant from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

David Hart on the proper Christian attitude towards capital punishment

The Power of the Sword by David Bentley Hart

Edward Feser, Catholicism, conservatism, and capital punishment

You claim that definitions can only be relative and subjective

But how could this be the case unless you knew you were talking about the same thing?

Another attempt at a Thomistic appropriation of rights discourse

Equal Basic Rights for All, Born and Unborn by Christopher Kaczor

Study in the Dominican Tradition

Study in the Dominican Tradition from Province of Saint Joseph on Vimeo.

(via op-stjoseph)

First Things: Giving Caesar His Due
A review of Defending Constantine by Robert Louis Wilken

The ordination of Joseph Ratzinger to the priesthood

(via NLM)

gloria.tv

Zenit: On St. Alphonsus Liguori
"Priests Are a Visible Sign of the Infinite Mercy of God"

Ave Maria U conference on rights

A report at First Things: Catholic Contributions to Human Rights.

The proceedings will be published in the Ave Maria Law Review.

Thaddeus Kozinski, The Good, the Right, and Theology (via Peter Hawthorne)