Sandro Magister, Vatican Diary / The "spirit of Assisi" that the pope doesn't trust

Charles Morerod, O.P. to become bishop

Rorate Caeli: A Thomist Bishop in Suisse Romande

Related:
Non-protagonism helps ecumenism
"The Ecumenical Meaning of the Petrine Ministry"

All Saints Day

Do we lay the blame on Dignitatis Humanae?

Insight Scoop: "Religious liberty is also prior to the state itself. ..."

Testimony of Most Reverend William E. Lori, Bishop of Bridgeport, On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives (pdf - alt)

Another bishop affirming the "absolute" religious liberty. Are certain traditionalists right to point to a rupture in Vatican II? Or is this just a statement approved by a group of bishops that nonetheless does not have support within Sacred Tradition? At least DH concedes that religious liberty may be curbed for the sake of public order; have Catholic bishops going further in their adoption of rights language?

Bishops’ Religious Liberty Chair Urges Congress to Defend Religious Liberty at House Judiciary Committee Hearing

A Friar Comments on the New Document From the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

Fr. Christian explained that there is a “a hierarchy of documents,” and also a hierarchy of bodies within the Roman Curia. Inside of the Curia, “congregations” are more significant than “pontifical councils,” which means that “in terms of pastoral authority the Secretariat of State is top and in terms of doctrinal authority the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is top.”

Another factor, he said, to take into consideration when assessing the significance of a “Vatican document” is whether it has been “reviewed by the Holy Father himself,” and also the number of Vatican departments involved in its creation.

He lamented that “unfortunately, the Church herself hasn’t actually explained that hierarchy very well.” Thus, he believes, it can be confusing for Catholics to understand what significance to give to different publications emanating from bodies within the Vatican.

As for this week’s document from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Fr. Christian has only read some of it but his initial analysis is that while it is appropriate for Vatican departments to speak out as part of the Church’s “social mission” they also have to be wary of straying beyond the limits of their competence.

“Is it the Church’s place to decry systems that seem to infringe on the dignity of peoples or to applaud those areas which seem to promote human dignity? Yes,” he said firmly.

“But is it the Church’s role to hypothesis concrete solutions to these things? Normally we would say ‘no.’ That’s what makes me a little nervous about a document which it seems may be promoting something rather more concrete than usual.”

Jay Bradner: Open-source cancer research

Insight Scoop: The U.S Bishops' Committee responds again to Elizabeth Johnson...

Insight Scoop: Who was Rev. Louis Bouyer?

No repeat?

But will it yield any fruit? That those who are invited attend does that mean the Holy Spirit is at work? (Especially if they know that Pope Benedict intends to leave no ambiguity to the event this time?)

The Commandment of Assisi: "Purify your own faith" (via Insight Scoop)

Zenit: Pope's Homily at Vigil in Preparation for Assisi

Also from Sandro Magister: The Truth about Assisi. Never-Before-Seen Words from Benedict XVI

Assisi Gives an Encore. But Revised and Corrected

Tomás Luis de Victoria - Laetatus sum

O quam gloriosum est regnum - Tomas Luis de Victoria

Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy

Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy
Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity
Adam A. J. DeVille

America review

Dominicana: Pulling an All-Nighter: The Example of St. Dominic

Public Discourse: Human Development and Human Flourishing: Creating Capabilities Isn’t Enough
Ryan T. Anderson, October 26, 2011
Private Property and Human Flourishing
Adam J. MacLeod, October 25, 2011

MoJ: Koritansky's "Thomas Aquinas and the Philosophy of Punishment"

Insight Scoop: New: "The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Holy Spirit" by Fr. Louis Bouyer

DSPT:  "Work as Sacramental: The Mysterious Dynamics of Personal Vocation" (more info)

Brian Davies

Over at Thomistica.net, a post on a new book by Brian Davies: Is God a Moral Agent?
One argument given by Davies that God is not a moral agent is that moral agents are under obligation to a moral law; he attributes this understanding to Aquinas. Is this a proper representation of Aquinas's definition of a moral agent? Could Davies's argument be restated, with Kantian terms thus: is God not a moral agent because he is autonomous while angels and humans are heteronomous, and only heteronomous beings are moral agents? Is this a case of equivocation causing misunderstandings? (It wouldn't be the first time with analytic philosophers.)

How does St. Thomas (or a traditional Thomist) define moral agency? We would look at the different sorts of agency present in creatures, starting with the distinction between voluntary and involuntary/natural. The question is whether by moral agency Aquinas adds anything to his notion of "perfect voluntary" agency. What texts does Davies cite to develop a definition of moral agency?

It is clear that human beings and angels are not God. Is good used analogically of God and creatures? Or equivocally? But if God is not a moral agent, can we say that He is morally good at all? It would seem from the short blurb given at Thomistica.net that Davies does take his reasoning in this direction in order to establish a different Christian theodicy. It seems erroneous to me. If God cannot be said to be good, or is not essentially good, then what reason would He have to save us, rather than desiring our destruction or misery? Why should we not imitate His example, rather than submitting to a moral law?

I get the impression that Davies has missed the order of learning and is relying too much on premises taken from his reading of the text (foundationalism?), and then formulating arguments without being confirmed that his understanding of reality is correct.

Thoughts on religious and the common good

How are they no longer in the world? By no longer participating in the temporal common good, but wholly serving the supernatural common good in itself. Religious are no longer are bound by duties to family or their native political communities, etc. Their ties to family and community are severed. This does not mean that they do not have relations with a political community -- they may maintain economic relations. For example, even a self-sustaining monastery may exchange goods with members of the local community. The mendicants and members of younger religious orders created during and after the Catholic Reformation are primarily dependent upon the surplus wealth of the lay faithful. In that respect, only a few have been privileged to depend on God alone for their survival.

Would the apostolic works of the mendicants and active religious be considered a part of the temporal common good, or only a part of the supernatural common good? It seems that it would be the latter, if we understand the temporal common good to be obtainable by our power alone. If the temporal common good were identified with the complete perfection of the community, then one would have to take grace and supernatural perfection into account, but this is not something which man holding temporal authority (and nothing more) can provide, only God through His Church.

Is a temporal authority, then, concerned with natural perfection alone? Is there anything here that would preclude the hierarchy of the Church from wielding temporal authority in a Christian polity? Temporal authority is subject to the supernatural authority of the Church, but can the latter not hold both, just as charity is a general virtue which commands the other virtues? (Would it be the case then that temporal authority can be permitted to be separate, or that it can be delegated by the Church to others?)

Before Christ, temporal authority was limited in what it could bring about. With the Incarnation, has it been superceded by the authority of the Church with respect to Christian polities (or absolutely, with respect to all polities)?

A bottom-to-top approach in understanding the political community might lead one to think that a temporal authority must be separate from the supernatural authority of the Church, which, as the superior power, is placed over the temporal authority or recognized by the temporal authority as such.

To answer these questions we might have to reconsider what the end of living in common is: to provide for the perfection of all members through work and mutual exchange but also to live with others for its own sake... De Regno discusses why political authority is necessary -- because the common good is not identical to the private good of its members.

The supernatural common good is God; the hierarchy of the Church does legislate as to how charity is to be exercised. (To a limited extent? The bishops are more guides, pastors, than rulers of the Church?)

Is the political common good subsumed or incorporated into the supernatural common good, or is it kept separate but subordinate? Is it necessary to keep the political common good separate because in a polity there are sinners living with the just, and the laws of a polity must be proportioned to its members accordingly? (Humans are competent to judge only sensible actions. Hence this is one reason why the Church's authority with regard to the supernatural common good is limited?)

Social life does not require as much as living in union with God, and so laws which maintain external peace between the members of a community and command acts of justice can be imposed on both sinners and the just. The laws for a political community are therefore distinct from those for the supernatural community, the Church. But this does not necessitate that a bishop may not hold temporal authority. (Although it may be prudent for him not to, since his function is to take care of the Church and concern for temporal affairs may take away too much time, etc. from his pastoral work.) One could also argue that there should be a division of power in order to prevent an abuse of power.

MoJ: The Retributivist Tradition and Its Future -- November 4 at St. John's Law School
The new Journal of Catholic Legal Studies (here)

A New Generation of Theologians by Ryan N.S. Topping (via Pertinacious Papist)

New Master in Sacred Theology

James Chastek responds to Lee Faber: Petrus and St. Thomas on univocity made by the mode of conceiving

The Public Discourse: The Scientific Revolution and Contemporary Ethics
William Carroll, October 18, 2011
Modern science does not require us to abandon notions of nature and human nature upon which so much of traditional ethics depends.

Justin Hall-Tipping: Freeing energy from the grid

TED


How much energy inputs would be required to relocalize energy capture/production in this way?

Feser replies to Tollefsen

At his blog.

I do have things to say on the last post from each of the gentlemen, but I do not know if I will have the time to actually post them.

Lee Faber, Harmonization of Thomas and Scotus on Univocity

Sandro Magister: Council Under Construction. But Some Are Folding Their Arms
Cardinal Cottier, the jurist Ceccanti, the theologian Cantoni are defending the innovations of Vatican II. But the Lefebvrists are not giving in, and the traditionalists are stepping up their criticisms. The latest developments in a fiery dispute

Tollefsen Responds to Feser

Punishment: Political, Not Metaphysical

Ignatius Press - Fall 2011 releases

The complete list here.

Some titles of interest to me - Ronald Knox, A Retreat for Lay People
Waugh & Heenan, A Bitter Trial
Another reprint: The Song at the Scaffold by Gertrud von le Fort
Sigrid Undset, Ida Elisabeth
Ratzinger, Dogma And Preaching (2nd Ed)
Louis Bouyer, Newman: His Life and Spirituality (I had already mentioned The Church of God.)

Adam DeVille, Augustine of Hippo and Orthodoxy

More from Edward Feser on capital punishment

“Punishment, Proportionality, and the Death Penalty”; his blog entry.

Met. John Zizioulas on primacy

OrthodoxChristianity.net: Petrine Ministry and the Unity of the Church edited by James Puglisi

30 Days, from 2003: “When we speak of the primacy...

... we are referring to the primacy of the Church of Rome, that is exercised by the pope in that he is bishop of that See". An interview with Joannis Zizioulas, Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamum

by Gianni Valente

An interview from 2005.

Papal Primacy and Conciliarity; John Zizioulas - Ecclesiological presuppositions of the holy Eucharist

Something from GOARCH: Papal Primacy by Rev. Emmanuel Clapsis

Dominicana: Evelyn Waugh and Despair

Insight Scoop: Now available: "Methodical Realism" by Étienne Gilson

I think the book was published by Christendom Press for a while, but I suppose it has gone out of print?

Michael Sullivan, Christian Philosophy

Thomistica.net: Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen Brown

Reprint of Grenier

Lulu (via James Chastek)

Tomás Luis de Victoria - Vadam et circuibo

Travelling to New York for a friend's wedding. Maybe some original posts when I get back.

Insight Scoop: Timeless spiritual classic "Abandonment to Divine Providence" released ... along with the author’s practical letters of advice

Byzantine, Texas: Noted author, Fr. Gabriel Bunge tonsured to Great Schema

Zenit: 3 Jesuit Heroes
Canada Hails 400 Years of Service

The third Jesuit profiled? Bernard Lonergan. Interesting how many centers devoted to the study of his writings there are: Lonergan Institute, Lonergan Centre, BC, Sydney, Loyola Marymount, Seton Hall.

Links and more links.

Lonergan Philosophical Society

One Day in a Monastery

I had copied the url for this trailer somewhere, but came across the trailer again today through Byzantine, Texas.

Two from Mirror of Justice

1. Celebrating John Finnis at Villanova

What's new in the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights?

"Adds a substantial postscript by the author developing and refining the theory in response to thirty years of discussion, criticism, and further work in the field"

2. Robert George, The Question of Judicial Supremacy

Reflections of a Questioner: The Palmetto Freedom Forum Revisited
by Robert P. George

Dominicana: Church, Family and Civil Society

Andrew Cusack: New Cathedral in Russia
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Magadan, Siberia

Op-StJoseph: Whether Faith Needs Philosophy
An Article in First Things by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP

Alas, you need to subscribe to read the full article.

Thomas Bushlack, Is There a Christian Response to the Debt Ceiling Debates? (via MoJ)

See this comment at MoJ:

However, I find this quote a little too cute:

"This principle...would remind us that the time to cut programs and spending is not during an economic downturn, but rather once the economy has rebounded enough to pick up the slack currently left by the high unemployment rate."

Maybe, but is this just a foregone conclusion concerning the common good? Fiscal responsibility, the courage to make difficult choices concerning entitlement programs etc... also ought to be factors in working for the common good.

I question whether this is just another example of someone, instead of being informed by what "common good" means, merely superimposing his own preconceived notions of reality upon the term.

Yes, what of the role of civic prudence, which must take into account whether such spending is sustainable? What are the potential negative consequences for continued deficit spending if such deficits can never be made up? There are many other questions as well -- what is being purchased with this money? Should it be the Federal Government's responsibility to do this? (Is it Constitutional?)

A response by Edward Feser to Christopher Tollefsen at Public Discourse: In Defense of Capital Punishment. Related posts at his blog: In defense of capital punishment and On rehabilitation and execution.

 

TAC: 40th Anniversary Gala: Audio and Photos

Gombert - Salve Regina

Alamire

Op-StJoseph: New website for Providence College. Here it is. At the website I see this: ​Collaborative Dorr Rebellion Documentary to Premiere. The filmmakers seem to be democrats: "But while Rhode Islanders may be among the only people to learn of this important incident in the history of voting rights, constitutional scholars and historians remember it as a milestone in the quest for the common man to control his own government." Not exactly something I'd expected to see in connection with Providence College.

A DPS project of the Phillips Memorial Library.

Is a [naive] commitment to democracy a feature of Americanism?

Wiki: Dorr Rebellion

Intellectual history as the sophomore's philosophy

Robert Barron on Univocity and Voluntarism

Why reason when doing genealogy is so much easier?

MoJ: Catholic theologians' statement against capital punishment

More from Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Germany

Vultus Christi: Only God Himself, His Word and His Signs

First Things: The Case Against False Assertions by Christopher Tollefsen and Alexander Pruss

Edit. In the comments someone mentions this paper by Alasdair MacIntyre: Truthfulness, Lies, and Moral Philosophers.

First Things: The Pastoral Response to Homosexuality by Melinda Selmys

Francesco Cavalli, Salve Regina

MOJ: John Coughlin's "Canon Law"

OUP
faculty page/Notre Dame News
"Antinomianism and Legalism in Canon Law"

Salve Regina by Rheinberger

Rheinberger - Abendlied - The Cambridge Singers

Edward Feser, Modern biology and original sin, Part II

Rome Reports: Pope: “I came to Germany to speak about God”



Zenit:
The Pope Has Come to Germany, He Speaks of God
L'Osservatore Director Reflects on First Days of State Visit

Pontiff's Reflections at Marian Shrine [2011-09-23]
"At the Foot of the Cross, Mary Becomes Our Fellow Traveler and Protector"

Papal Homily at Ecumenical Prayer Service [2011-09-23]
"In the Prayer of Jesus We Find the Very Heart of Our Unity"

Papal Words to Germany's Evangelical Church [2011-09-23]
"God Is Increasingly Being Driven Out of Our Society"

Benedict XVI's Address to Muslim Leaders [2011-09-23]
"We Believers Have a Special Contribution to Make Toward Building a Better World"

Holy Father's Comments en Route to Berlin [2011-09-22]
"We Are in Need of a Presence of God in Our Time"

Pontiff's Homily at Germany's Olympic Stadium [2011-09-22]
"The Risen Lord Gives Us a Place of Refuge, a Place of Light"

Papal Message to Berlin's Jewish Leaders [2011-09-22]
"Strengthen Our Common Hope in God in the Midst of an Increasingly Secularized Society"

Pope's Words to Germany's Lower House of Parliament [2011-09-22]
"The Listening Heart: Reflections on the Foundations of Law"

Benedict XVI's Address at Berlin Welcome Ceremony [2011-09-22]
"Just as Religion Has Need of Freedom, so Also Freedom Has Need of Religion"

Scholé: The Jesus Prayer: Annotated Bibliography and Internet Resources (See also: The Jesus Prayer: Breathing and Posture.)

CathBlog - Metaphysics well regarded outside the Catholic 'ghetto' by Simon Rowney (via Insight Scoop)

Humanitas: Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre, and the Role of Tradition by Mark T. Mitchell

NCRegister: Young Theologians Encouraged to Confront 'The Intellectual Tasks of the New Evangelization' (via First Things)

Vatican Council II: a Debate That Has Not Taken Place, by Msgr. Brunero Gherardini
(via Ite Ad Thomam)

Thomistica.net: Aquinas’s De unione verbi incarnati: An Interview with Klaus Obenauer, part 2.

The Korean Martyrs -September 20

Die Kirche ist von außen und innen bedroht

Predigt von Weihbischof Athanasius Schneider beim Pontifikalamt im Alten Ritus in der Wiener Karlskirche am Fest Maria Namen, am 12. September, auf Einladung der Petrusbruderschaft.

Dominicana: Br. Philip Neri Reese, O.P., Truth and the Wonder Trap

Robert George: Remarks on Natural Law at Notre Dame

MoJ

Steven Long responds to Christopher Tollefsen regarding capital punishment

Thomistica.net: "Goods" Without Normative Order to the Good Life, Happiness, or God: The New Natural Law Theory and the Nostrum of Incommensurability

Chris Masterjohn recommends the following:
Publish-or-perish: Peer review and the corruption of science
Pressure on scientists to publish has led to a situation where any paper, however bad, can now be printed in a journal that claims to be peer-reviewed

Sister Matthaia Osswald's story of conversion to Orthodoxy: My Great Adventure in Search of the Truth

A Catholic can't help but scrutinize her reasons for converting, and the importance of the Divine Liturgy in the process.

Fr. Giertych has already been down to TAC. He will be in Berkeley next Tuesday. As my car is in the shop, I do not know if I will be able to attend, but I will post the video if it becomes available.

An interview of Wojciech Giertych, O.P. by the Province of St. Joseph.


Post-production for Master of the Sacred Palace was completed in May, but no news of when the DVD will be released. A post about him and his duties at Pro Unione.

His course on moral theology.

Medievalists.net: The Normans between Byzantium and the Islamic World

A typical NNLT appeal to "dignity"

Capital Punishment, Sanctity of Life, and Human Dignity by Christopher O. Tollefsen

TED: Richard Resnick: Welcome to the genomic revolution

Haven't the reductionistic claims of geneticists been shown to be exaggerated already?

Record: LIVE chat with Lucianne Walkowicz on extrasolar planets and how that affects life on Earth, September 15, 1-3pm EDT.

History of the Ancient World: Church, State and Divorce in Late Roman Egypt

Godzdogz: Fruits of Study 6: Suffering and Love in St Catherine of Siena

TED: Kate Hartman: The art of wearable communication




TED ever going to have someone talk about using less energy?

Dominicana

The journal of the student brothers of the Province of St. Joseph.

"Upright"

Online Etymological Dictionary:

O.E. upriht, from up "up" + riht "right." Similar compounds are found in other Germanic languages (cf. O.Fris. upriucht, M.Du. oprecht, O.H.G. ufreht, Ger. aufrecht, O.N. uprettr). Figurative sense of "good, honest" is first attested 1520s. The noun in the sense of "something standing erect" is from 1742. 

Another link between "straight" [right] and being morally good? The erect position is proper to man, not only because he is a biped but a quadruped, but the natural posture is what is healthy for him as well?

EvoPsych

MoMo, FaMo, MoFa, and FaFa By David Barash

Angelicum: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Philosophy keynote highlights

Edward Feser has some responses to comments to the first part on original sin and modern biology.

Should I get a copy?

Rick Garnett recommends Josef Pieper's The Christian Idea of Man. A short introductory work that probably isn't as thorough as his essays on the cardinal virtues?

Laura Inglis interviews Robert George (via MoJ)

Zenit:

Papal Address to Engaged Couples
"Educate Yourselves Henceforth in the Liberty of Fidelity" [2011-09-12]

Papal Address to Priests and Parents
"No Vocation Is a Private Issue" [2011-09-12]

Papal Homily at Close of Eucharistic Congress
"A Eucharistic Spirituality Is a Real Antidote to Individualism" [2011-09-11]

On the Virgin's "Fiat"
The Risen Christ Is the "Source of Hope and Comfort for Daily Life" [2011-09-11]

Robert Araujo, SJ: On Cheering Death and Catholic Legal Theory

Life on the Rock - 09-08-2011 - The Rule of St Benedict - Fr Mark and Doug with Cullman Monks

The Smithy: Henry of Ghent on Aquinas and Existence

Henry of Ghent: "The first way of understanding the participation of a creature in being is mistaken; it is not an understanding but a phantastical imagination. For the essence of a creature should not be imagined like the air indifferent to obscurity and luminosity, but like a certain ray in itself apt to subsist, produced by the sun, not by the necessity of nature but by free will."

Isn't it rather petty to complain that an analogy is a phantastical imagination rather than an understanding?

Thomas' image of the air's illumination is an image of one sort of thing being poured into another sort of thing to make it actual in a certain way, but for Henry (and, I might add, the Franciscan tradition in general along with him) existence can't be understood as a different sort of thing than the existing nature and added to it in order that it can be.

But does Aquinas think that existence and nature are two separate things? How can they be distinct without being separate in reality? How is "real" to be understood? After all, St. Thomas's and the Thomistic understanding of the real distinction is what is at issue...

Discussion of Peter Moskos's book on punishment

Public Discourse: Flogging: The Best Hope for Our Broken Prison System? by Stefan McDaniel

More on the book.

Ptolemy of Lucca and Giles of Rome on women as soldiers

Women in the Military: Scholastic Arguments and Medieval Images of Female Warriors

OP Vocations: In Praise of the Rule of St. Augustine

Moniales OP: Interview With Our Master General, Fr. Bruno Cadore, OP

Richard Lewontin reviews The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

Edward Feser enters the fray

Modern biology and original sin, Part I