My Conversation with Professor Robert Pope on The 21st Century Renaissance

Ancient Faith Radio: Metropolitan Kallistos Ware on the Neopatristic Synthesis

The Second Vatican Council according to Albino Luciani by ANDREA TORNIELLI

It is also interesting to look at the way Luciani experienced the long process that lead to the Council’s declaration on religious freedom «Dignitatis humanae». “Religious freedom, interpreted in the right way“ wrote Luciani “ so we would not misunderstand. We all agree that there is only one true religion and those who are aware of this truth must practice this religion and no other. That said, there are also other things that are right and we must say them. In other words, those who are not satisfied with Catholicism have the right to profess their own religion for various reasons. Natural Law states that each one of us has the right to search for truth, especially religious truth. One cannot find it by staying shut in a room, reading some books. We truly search for it by talking with other people, by sharing opinions…. The right to the truth is just a common saying, but there are only physical or moral people who do not have the right to search for truth. Therefore do not be scared of slapping truth in the face when you give someone the right to use their freedom”.


“The choice of religious belief must be free.” explained the bishop of Vittorio Veneto “ The freer and more earnest the choice, the more those that embrace the Faith will feel honoured. These are rights, natural rights. Rights always come hand in hand with duties. The non Catholics have the right to profess their religion and I have the duty to respect their right as a private citizen, as a priest, as a bishop and as a State”.

Memorial of St. Dominic, 8 August

A photo taken by Fr. Lawrence:



EWTN
wff
St. Dominic's Church in SF
St. Dominic's Church in Benecia
Contemplation and action: Pope reflects on example of St. Dominic
General Audience: Pope speaks about prayer of Saint Dominic

On the Prayer of St. Dominic

Was this movie ever completed and released?

Going to NYC to attend a wedding. Planning to be back by Monday!

Finally!

I've been waiting at least 6 or 7 years for this book to be released by Ignatius Press; it should be out in November - Enchiridion Symbolorum, new, updated bilingual edition.

Two on Mathematics

The Purpose of Mathematics in a Classical Education by Thomas Treloar
History of Mathematics Education in the European Middle Ages

Zenit: Papal Letter to Knights of Columbus
"concerted efforts are being made to redefine and restrict the exercise of the right to religious freedom"

Wesley J. Smith, Incorporate and Lose Your Religious Liberty?

Faith and Religious Liberty

Rorate Caeli: De Mattei: "Religious Liberty - or liberty for Christians?"

"Further, the right of being immune to coercion, or rather the fact that the Church does not impose the Catholic Faith on anyone, but requires the freedom of the act of faith, does not arise from a presumed natural right to religious freedom or a presumed natural right to believe in any religion whatever, but it is founded on the fact that the Catholic Religion, the only true one, must be embraced in complete freedom without any constraints."

This does not seem to explain why the act of faith cannot be coerced. Should it not be said that the act of faith, by its very nature, must be free? The will moves the intellect to assent to God as First Truth, and the will cannot be coerced.

Secondly, if one is motivated to assent to propositions of the Faith for a reason other than God Himself, then it would not be an act of Faith but of some other sort of belief.

Since Faith cannot be coerced or compelled and its object is Divine and it is an act possible only through God's grace, it falls outside the competence of human authority. Human authority may act to protect the Church but it cannot punish those who have deliberately rejected Faith, except in so far as they threaten the good of the community? Does the Church have the authority to punish those who have sinned in rejecting Faith? It seems to me that Aquinas is wrong on this point. Even if Christians are obligated to keep the Faith, once they have turned away from it, how can they be compelled to return to it? How can anyone but God move them to return to Faith?

Did St. Thomas Aquinas Justify the Transition from "Is" to "Ought" by Piotr Lichacz, O.P.

(Fribourg)

General Audience: The Pope explains St. Alphonsus Liguori and importance of prayer


Zenit: On Prayer According to St. Alphonsus Liguori

Pope's personal secretary Monsignor Georg Gänswein turns 56

St. Hildegard of Bingen: Writer, composer and future Doctor of the Church

Rome Reports

As announced in a comment, there is a new blog: The Absolute Primacy of Christ.

An Interview with Fr. Maximos Davies

From a year ago, before the monastery moved to Wisconsin.

Sister Vassa (Larin) on Divine Liturgy and History

Sister Vassa (Larin) on Divine Liturgy and History from George Kokhno on Vimeo.

A Book About One Aspect of Congar's Theology

A Church Fully Engaged: Yves Congar's Vision of Ecclesial Authority by Anthony Oelrich

A Response to Mary Rosera Joyce on the Soul

New Oxford Review: A True Turnaround, A Real Revolution by Mary Rosera Joyce

It seems obvious that our sexuality is basically biological. When a baby is born, we can tell immediately whether the child is a boy or a girl based on the physical evidence. This fact leads us to believe that sexuality revolves around these bodily organs. But if we were to examine further, we would realize that the function of the genital organs depends upon the brain, the physical source of all the nerves in the body. The earth similarly depends upon the gravity, energy, light, and heat of the sun for its various functions.

We may notice upon further examination that, apart from the brain, every cell in the female body is sexually different from every cell in the male body. The causal power of this cellular difference affects the shape and function of the entire body, including the brain in its three divisions: high, middle, and low.

The high brain, for example, is the cerebrum. There is more connective wiring (corpus callosum) between its two lobes in women than in men. The general effect of this difference on their respective use of logic is that men are generally more gifted for analysis and women for synthesis. Thus, women have been lauded for what is known as their “multitasking” ability. They are able to attend to more than one task at a time. Men are more able to focus on, probe into, and grasp one concept or task at a time.

Besides its centrality in our physical sexuality, the brain is primarily involved in the other dimensions of our personhood: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. As a result, the differences between men and women extend into their entire personhood. Human sexuality is not merely biological, or primarily genital. Thus, what seems to be the obvious center of our sexuality — our genital organs — is not the true center. There would be no genital sexuality without the involvement of the brain. And there would be no sexuality in the brain without appropriate sexual causality in the life principle of human personhood, the spiritual soul.

1. I found the essay to be problematic. "Sexuality revolves around these bodily organs"? I think people would be apt to say that the most obvious difference between the two sexes can be found in the reproductive organs.

2. The function depends on the brain? That is prone to reductionism, in so far as the sense organs are not identified with the brain alone. It is true that attraction and desire depend on sense knowledge (not just sight) and instinct, what we found attractive about the other sex, and so on. The brains are differentiated according to sex - sex hormones have an influence on their development.

Sex differences "permeate" the body and its systems (as she somewhat recognizes).

3. As for sexual causality in the soul, what does that mean? That sex differences are the result of differences in form? She goes on to explain:

When we look at a human being as an object, the physical body is the most obvious to our sense of sight. We cannot see the soul. So we are inclined to think of the soul as hidden within the body.

Ordinarily we think that we originate in the union of a sperm and an ovum, and the soul is thought to be infused by God into this newly formed body. Consequently, the soul is considered to be in the body until it leaves at death. But this common idea of the soul “entering” and “leaving,” like the sun rising and setting, is “Ptolemaic” and begs for re-vision.

The idea that the soul enters and leaves the body started to change when Pope John Paul II began, but did not complete, a “Copernican” turnaround in the way we view the human person and human sexuality with his “theology of the body.” In his encyclical “On Faith & Reason” (Fides et Ratio, 1998) he asked philosophers to develop the philosophy of being “without resorting to worn-out formulae” (no. 97). He asked them to complete the revolution he began. Where, then, would we start this process of completion? A plausible point would be the moment of conception.

She seems to be rejecting what might be called a "dualistic" conception of the soul. Fine - let us not attribute more significance to a popular understanding (or, more accurately, imagining) of the soul than it deserves, or mistake it with a more scientific (in the Aristotelian sense) account of the soul. In attributing this problem to Catholic thinkers before John Paul II, she would be exaggerating, no? Unless she is judging the Aristotelian account of the soul to be "dualistic" as well.

Among the “worn-out formulae” that the revolutionary turnaround would abandon is our customary explanation of life’s beginning. We still have a primitive way of interpreting what appears to us to be obvious. That is why pro-abortionists have been able to move in with their seemingly convincing rhetoric, and have successfully cleared the way for the elimination of many millions of new persons. They have even used the “delayed animation” theory of St. Thomas Aquinas to secure their objectives.

St. Thomas was one of the greatest theologians in history. Nevertheless, he believed, along with almost all of his contemporaries, that the earth is the center of the universe. He and many others also thought that human life begins with a vegetative soul, followed by an animal soul, followed by a human soul infused by God into the developing organism. It was this gradualist view that prevented him from acknowledging the immaculate conception of Mary (cf. Summa Theologiae III, q.27, a.3).

In our contemporary world, aided by subsequent developments in science, we now defend the beginning of human personhood at conception. But our interpretation of conception is still philosophically “earth-centered.” We think that the egg and sperm unite; it surely looks that way under a microscope. Actually, these cells interact and die together as a new life begins. We also think that God creates and infuses the soul into the newly “united” sex cells.

This idea of infusion implies that the soul is contained within the body. But the body, as a container, could not possibly express the person. For that purpose we need a turnaround from seeing the soul as inside the body to seeing the body as within the soul. Then, instead of our view being body-based, it would become person-based.

In a person-based view of the moment of conception, we would begin to see the soul as receiving within itself the interacting gametic (generative) cells and expressing itself in the resulting human body. This critical distinction would introduce a reversal in our manner of thinking about conception. The view of the soul as created by God and as receiving the body would replace the previous concept of infusion. In this way, we could better understand how the body, received by the soul, expresses the individual within his being and within the powers of his person.

In our tradition, however, there is no recognition of substantial receptivity in the soul. Instead, the infused soul is viewed as the actuating form of passively receptive matter. But receptivity is not only passive; it is primarily active. By actively receiving the gametic causes of the body, the soul becomes the body’s formative power. Thus, the soul is both receiving and giving in relation to the body. The soul, then, receives the body so that the body can become the expression of the person.

St. Thomas's gradualism seemed to be justified according to what they knew about embryonic development. The science that she claims as support could also be used to support a view of delayed homonization. If we took ideologues at their word and maintained that science is purely empirical then we cannot make a judgment that the rational or human soul is present at fertilization. But we cannot reason to this conclusively either, just based on the evidence alone. (I have maintained that this can be held only through the supernatural virtue of faith.)

But on to the rest of her explanation. Can matter act upon form? (This sloppy thinking about receptivity reminds me of a certain brand of Catholic phenomenology - did the author go to FUS?) How can the soul "receive" without being further actualized? As it it is somehow changed by actualizing the body? Her account destroys any proper understanding of form as act.

The human soul, by actively receiving the interacting gametes at conception, becomes sexually differentiated in its spiritual depths. Seeing the source of our personhood in this way is the beginning of a true sexual revolution.

At conception and thereafter, the inner causal source of human sexuality would be properly understood as spiritual, not physical. The person is basically spiritual, and has a soul that receives physical causes and expresses itself physically. Not only Freud, but many Aristotelian traditionalists, however, would be unwilling to accept such a radical departure. Hugh Hefner and his kind would simply turn their backs. Like those intellectuals who refused to look into a telescope to see the evidence of the Copernican revolution, many twenty-first-century intellectuals would likewise insist that the physical sex urge is the center of human sexuality. But this is the equivalent of saying that the earth is the center of the universe.

The center and source of our sexuality is our spiritually-based being as expressed in our body. True sexual freedom is not genital-centered, but person-centered. It is the freedom to develop well, as a man or woman, by chastely receiving the energy of the sex urge for interior sexual maturation. This process is meant to re-center, in the inner “sun” of awareness, the growing person’s experience of the sex urge. In other words, some degree of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional sexual maturity is meant to precede and prepare the person either for celibacy or marriage, genital intercourse, and children.

Interior sexual maturation results from a special way of thinking about the physical sex urge. Since all nerves in the body receive their impulses from the brain, our way of thinking affects the nerves to the organs of the body, especially those related to our freedom. A re-centering in our thinking, then, affects the powers of the brain and eventually increases our sense of freedom for sexual integration.

But this re-centering cannot happen while our view of sexuality remains fixed on the physical aspect alone. By seeing our sexuality as person-based, we can deepen the premises of our traditional conclusions, and strengthen them. And so, when the earth begins to revolve around the sun in our way of thinking about our personhood, manhood, and womanhood, a true sexual revolution can begin. Pope John Paul II’s deep desire for further development in our understanding of ourselves would be on its way to fulfillment.

The author is trying to root the differences between the sexes within the soul. But she is imagining the soul to be some sort of thing which is subsequently "shaped" by being receiving the body, rather than understanding the soul as being proportioned to the body. Insofar as it is spiritual, the souls of males and females are the same. But in so far as they are proportioned to a specific body in actualizing it as the form, with certain sex organs and so on, then they are distinct. She is critical of Aristotelianism without understanding its hylomorphism. It is perhaps telling that she rejects accounts that locate the soul "in" the body, and yet she still uses the language of "inner source." A Thomist will agree that sexual freedom is not genital-centered but person-centered in so far as we have reason, and our sense appetites should be ordered by it. There are differences in the bodies of males and females and also in their behaviors - these differences are "taken up" or "ratified" by the soul but the soul does not "receive" anything as if it is somehow further actualized. (We only need to compare the souls of animals with the souls of human beings to better comprehend this, though perhaps we may need to better understand how the universal is instantiated in the individual.)

If she were merely speaking metaphorically about the soul receiving the body, it would be more acceptable, but it would also renders the account less useful as a way of understanding reality. The soul is, by definition, the form of the body - if it is present at conception then it is the formal cause of development and all of the specification and differentiation of the parts that ensue.

4. Can the gametes said to be "interacting" at fertilization? Only improperly since they no longer exist as distinct entities. There is only the conceptum, which now has the matter that was previously present in egg and sperm.

5. As a result of her premises, her account of chastity (and by implication, sin) seems excessively intellectualistic. "Interior sexual maturation results from a special way of thinking about the physical sex urge." No doubt training in chastity benefits from a proper understanding of human sexuality and its telos, and how this is ordered by love or caritas. But what Thomist would deny this? Our problem with sex does not primarily arise from an erroneous understanding of sex and the person.

Nor should a affective maturity entail a false understanding of members of the opposite sex, such as putting women on a pedestal. This stance can be harmonized with her words here, but proponents of theology of the body may be too "romantic" or "idealistic" in their understanding of relations between men and women and female sexuality.


I'll ignore her characterization of the Copernican revolution and the reaction of "conservatives" to that, for now, but it does seem inaccurate on many levels.

Dr. Phillip Crotty on Newman as Educator

Cherubic Hymn: Extended Melody - Χερουβικόν: Αργό Μέλος- 1st Tone

According to this, Jonah is listed in the Roman Martyrology. Sufficient to establish his historicity?

The Imaginative Conservative: Of Rights and Duties: A Jeffersonian Dialogue
by Paul Crimley Kuntz

Ite Ad Thomam: The Principle of Predilection: "Nothing would be greater if God did not will it more good."

The "inequality" of God's love for us can be reflected in the order of charity - we should love those who are closer to God more than those who are not (i.e. wish them a greater good). (As opposed to the intensity of our love.)

Still, Aquinas touches upon how charity can command acts of other forms of friendship.

"Moreover there is yet another reason for which, out of charity, we love more those who are more nearly connected with us, since we love them in more ways. For, towards those who are not connected with us we have no other friendship than charity, whereas for those who are connected with us, we have certain other friendships, according to the way in which they are connected. Now since the good on which every other friendship of the virtuous is based, is directed, as to its end, to the good on which charity is based, it follows that charity commands each act of another friendship, even as the art which is about the end commands the art which is about the means. Consequently this very act of loving someone because he is akin or connected with us, or because he is a fellow-countryman or for any like reason that is referable to the end of charity, can be commanded by charity, so that, out of charity both eliciting and commanding, we love in more ways those who are more nearly connected with us."

Abide With Me - Hayley Westenra

Rome Reports: Lefebvrists list conditions to rejoin Rome

Sunday Night Prime - Eastern Catholic Churches - Fr. Groeschel with Fr. O'Loughlin, - 05-22-2011

Vernacular Values by Ivan Illich

The Book Haven: “Beauty is not a luxury”: Dana Gioia on the antidotes to power

Mirror of Justice: Finnis on Justice - a paper by John Gardner

Louis Bouyer and Church Architecture by Uwe Michael Lang
RESOURCING BENEDICT XVI'S THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY

Community and Christian Life by Br. Vincent Ferrer Bagan, O.P.

On Saint Anthony and the beginnings of monasticism, by Peter H. Görg

The first of his works translated into English? Apparently he's written something on Vatican I (in German).

Message for the 2012 World Tourism Day

"Along this way, the energy problems have to be taken into due consideration. It is an erroneous assumption to think that “an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed”.[3]"

All very diplomatic, no talk about re-engaging simplicity.

James Hannam lecture

James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

Related:
Walter Pannenberg, The Historicity of Nature: Essays on Science and Theology
Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition

Sandro Magister, The Gospel According to Caravaggio

Catholic Church Conservation: Archbishop Müller of the CDF responds to SSPX

Fr. Harrison Revisits Dignitatis Humanae

Living Tradition 151: Dignitatis Humanae: A Non-Contradictory Doctrinal Development

"Introduction to [Byzantine-rite] Liturgy"

(via NLM)

Rod Dreher, Latest on Metropolitan Jonah Situation

Some Dominican Videos

Ite Ad Thomam: The Best Manual on Ascetical and Mystical Theology (Free Download)



Royo Marin, Antonio - Teologia de La Perfeccion Cristiana 01

Hardley Arkes on Ralph McInerny

From Ralph, a Note from Afar by Hadley Arkes

Interview with Elias Katsaros

A special interview with Elias Katsaros



Byzantine Art Studio

The Imaginative Conservative: Thomas Aquinas on Wisdom by Robert Woods

Rome Reports: Benedict XVI currently finishing book on Jesus of Nazareth

A visit to the Grand Mosque of Rome

Some rumors swirling about concerning the SSPX. We'll find out soon if they are true.

Culture Wars: The Sad Story of Thomism in America

Florian Michel, La pensée catholique en Amérique du Nord: Réseaux intellectuels et échanges culturels entre l'Europe, le Canada et les Etats-Unis (Desclée de Brouwer Paris, 2010).

Reviewed by Joseph Filipowicz

The book itself might be worth reading; the review is ok, though it does not talk much about De Koninck. But at the end the reviewer slips into the a rather extreme "traditionalism" in how he views the American founding:

And what is the response of the other Catholic leaders? It is to continue the project of Maritain, with the Hispanics of the 2010s playing the role that the Polish played in the 1930s-1970s. We are told that there are two traditions present in the United States, that of the Protestant Puritans and that of the Catholic Hispanics. Both of the traditions are good leading to the highest development of democratic freedom, and, in the end, the tradition of democratic freedom stems from the same font, the wisdom of Aquinas. Once both of them figure this out, American will become good and whole again. 

This position, which descends from the thought of Maritain, should now be seen for what it truly is, namely, preposterous. The Protestant Puritans were radicals who were rebelling against a group of rebels that were rebelling against the Catholic Faith. The American Founding Fathers were a new set of rebels who had descended from the Puritan rebels. The American Protestants and Jewish elites that came together to form higher Judeo-Protestant American Culture at the end of the 20th Century were together forming a new form of subversive and revolutionary culture. The likes of Dewey, Wirth, Blanshard, and their leftist and neoconservative progeny do not see any possibility of compromise with Catholic culture unless the Catholics are willing to change their system of morals so that they would embrace birth control, war, individualism, capitalism or any other of the modern materialist ideologies stemming from the 18th Century.

I do think Maritain may have been too optimistic and misjudged how reconcilable liberalism and "modern liberal democracy" are with Catholicism. Part of this is probably due to erroneous assumptions concerning the modern nation-state and whether it is at the proper scale to bring about the common good, even if we abstract from historical considerations about how it came to be and the forces that were at work. He probably accepted the Yankee narrative and its understanding of the Constitution, too.

Rome Reports on the St. Augustine production

From 2 years ago, when the miniseries first came out in Italy/Europe?

Ite Ad Thomam: Video Conversation with Fr. Cekada on The Ottaviani Intervention
Ottaviani Intervention

Will someone write a biography of Cardinal Ottaviani?

In an advertisement for the publication of Yves Congar's journal written during the Second Vatican Council, a part of the entry for Tuesday 6 November 1962 is given: "At 6 pm, I called on Cardinal Frings: he had asked me to come. Ratzinger, Jedin and Rahner were there too. Purpose of the meeting: to see how to go about proposing the Rahner-Ratzinger texts in place of the existing dogmatic schemas."

It would be great if someday those schemas were publicly available for review.

A progressive take on the cardinal: How the Order of Deacons Was Restored to the Roman Church
A Time article from 1979: Religion: A Cardinal Carabiniere

Feast of St. Benedict

(new calendar)

“The Limits of the Church” by Fr. Georges Florovsky

Fr. Z: New Gregorian chant recording by the seminarians of the FSSP!

Metropolitan Jonah tenders resignation
Holy Synod appoints Archbishop Nathaniel Locum Tenens, Bishop Michael Temporary Administrator

Some videos:






Metropolitan Jonah Historic ROCOR Visit, Clip 1
OCA Metropolitan Jonah Homily at St. John's ROCOR in Mayfield
Divine Liturgy by OCA and ROCOR Primates on the Feast of the Kursk Root Icon

For the Peace from Above'... (lecture) Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

Also from last year: Related: Fr. Dumitru Staniloae - Essence of Christianity

What is the Order of Malta and how does one become a member?

Rome Reports:

Catholic Church Conservation: Head of CDF calls SSPX stupid and claims God is the greatest liberal.
Rorate Caeli: Müller speaks: The Church, a house of many rooms and Mgr. Bux on Müller: these complainers are just being "Capernaists"!
SSPX German District on Müller

Social Justice Reconsidered: Austrian Economics and Catholic Social Teaching | Edward Feser

Thomas Fleming on the Search for Higgs Boson

The Atoms of Democritus

Stephanie Mann reviews Thomas More: A Lonely Voice Against the Power of the State

Supremacy and Survival: Book Review: Thomas More by Peter Berglar (via Tea at Trianon)

Cantate Domino (Giuseppe Pitoni) - Christopher Wren Singers - Christmas 2011

Higgs Boson

No Thomistic commentary on the "particle" in question? Seems like it would be an easy dialectical target.

CERN intro
Lab

The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

The Atlantic Why the Higgs Boson Discovery Is Disappointing, According to the Smartest Man in the World Hyperphysics WIRED

Rorate Caeli: Gentle reminder: Laymen cannot judge Bishops on matters of faith

From 2009: Father Barron comments on the Fourth of July

Haven't listened to it yet... cringeworthy?

Video of Hieromonk Gabriel Bunge

Ieroschimonahul ortodox Gabriel Bunge la Cluj Napoca noiembrie 2011- ASCOR Cluj part. 1
Part 2 Despite his becoming Orthodox, his book Earthen Vessels is still useful to Catholics.

Archimandrite Sophrony on the Jesus Prayer

The Jesus Prayer: Method By Archimandrite Sophrony

a website dedicated to him

15% Off All Books

Eighth Day Books - sale ends tomorrow.

Orthodoxy: The Cosmos Transfigured by Paul Evdokimov

Zenit: Papal Address to Delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

Venerable brothers, in our meeting today, while we entrust to the intercession of the glorious Apostles and Martyrs Peter and Paul our prayer, so that the Lord, rich in mercy, will grant us to arrive soon the blessed day in which we will be able to share the Eucharistic table, we raise our voices in a hymn of praise to God for the path of peace and reconciliation that He gives us to follow together. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council, which will be celebrated solemnly next October 11. It is in fact in concomitance with this Council, at which, as you well know, some representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate were present in the capacity of fraternal Delegates, that a new and important phase began of relations between our Churches. We wish to praise the Lord first of all for the rediscovery of the profound fraternity that binds us, and also for the path followed in these years by the Mixed International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church as a whole, with the hope that in the present phase progress will also be made.


Recalling the anniversary of Vatican Council II, it seems fitting to me to recall the figure and activity of the unforgettable Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, of whom will be observed in a few days the 40th anniversary of his death. Patriarch Athenagoras, together with Blessed Pope John XXIII and the Servant of God Paul VI, animated by that passion for the unity of the Church springing from faith in Christ the Lord, were promoters of courageous initiatives that opened the way to renew relations between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Catholic Church. It is a motive of particular joy for me to see how His Holiness Bartholomew I follows, with renewed fidelity and fecund creativity, the path traced by his Predecessors the Patriarchs Athenagoras and Dimitrios, distinguishing himself at the international level for his openness to the dialogue between Christians and for his commitment to the service of proclaiming the Gospel in the contemporary world.

Zenit: A CARAVAGGIO WORK BACK FROM THE DEAD; PETER'S GIFT TO ROME
Restoration of "Raising of Lazarus" Reveals Masterpiece

Thomistica.net: Augustine Opera Omnia in Latin Online

Capilla del Sol: Music from the Missions of Latin America

New Head of the CDF - Bad News?

Poacher turned gamekeeper put in charge of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
kreuz.net – Ein hartgesottener Ketzer wird Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation\

Gerhard Ludwig Müller for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Edit. Fr. Z's blog entry

NCRegister Interview with Archbishop Di Noia

Rorate Caeli: For the record: Important interview with Ecclesia Dei VP Di Noia
"The Pope doesn't want this division to continue"

The NCR interview.


Jordi Savall/HesperionXX -Maria matrem virginem


The complete video for Friday's liturgy for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul.

Did I post a link to this lecture by Fr. Spitzer(?) on God and Modern Physics? I have not yet watched it, but I assume that like many contemporary Catholic apologists, he accepts contemporary cosmology as a premise for his argument.

Magis Center of Reason and Faith
Why Modern Physics Point to God

Related:
Dr. Paul L. Gavrilyuk
Associate Professor of Historical Theology
faculty page

alt

The Incredible Human Journey

The BBC series can be found on YT, for now.

Predictions About Fr. Rhonheimer's New Book

The Common Good of Constitutional Democracy
Essays in Political Philosophy and on Catholic Social Teaching

Martin Rhonheimer
Edited by William F. Murphy

1. It presupposes the modern nation-state as the starting point.
2. The definition of common good will be inadequate because he does not address the question of scale.
3. The question of scale in relation to the form of government will not be addressed as well.

I am curious as to what he has to say about multiculturalism.

Another post on forthcoming titles shortly.

Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul

Westminster Abbey Choir
Cappella Musicale Pontificia Sistina

Thaddeus Kozinski recommends...

Liberty, the God That Failed
Policing the Sacred and Constructing the Myths of the Secular State, from Locke to Obama
Christopher A. Ferrara

Along with: On the Road to Emmaus by Glenn Olsen

The first seems to be what one might expect for a traditionalist critique of the American political order, explicating the source of its principles being solely the Enlightenment and liberalism.

Zenit: Archbishop Nichols: What Does Human Dignity Really Mean?
London Prelate Considers History, Present Relevance of Key Concept

Archbishop Nichols observed that the idea of human dignity has a long history, going back to Cicero, Augustine and Aquinas. It was further developed by the Salamanca school of Dominicans in Spain at the time of the colonization of America. Subsequently, during the last century or so, it has been the topic of the social encyclicals of the Church.


Human dignity also has great importance outside the Church, he added. The UN Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 1 states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”


He also noted that Article 1 (1) of the German Basic law, also drafted in 1948, states that “human dignity is inviolable. To respect it and protect it is the duty of all state power”.

Cicero, Augustine, and Aquinas? Aquinas distinguishes between various sorts of dignity. What of Cicero and Augustine?

An interview with Freeman Dyson

Counterpunch: An Interview With Freeman Dyson on the Origins of Life on Earth by SUZAN MAZUR

His homepage.

More:








Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society
NYT: The Civil Heretic
TED profile

LIVING LATIN LANGUAGE

REGINALD FOSTER’S METHOD IN THREE EXPERIENCES OF 105 ENCOUNTERS

More from the Science and Faith Conference

Edward Feser & Jonathan Sanford - Science and Faith Conference


Stephen Barr & Alexander Sich - Science and Faith Conference


Michael Behe & Daniel Kuebler - Science and Faith Conference


Jay Richards & Mark Ryland - Science and Faith Conference


(How is the Institute for the Study of Nature doing?)

More from FUS.

Unfortunately, no video is available for Dr. Carroll's presentation? (There is video of the response.) But I did find the following:

William Carroll: Darwin in the 21st Century: Nature, Humanity, and God


William Carroll: "The Scientific Revolution and Discourse on Science-and-Religion"

Brad Gregory "Against Nostalgia: Catholicism, History, and Modernity."

Brad Gregory "Against Nostalgia: Catholicism, History, and Modernity." from The Lumen Christi Institute on Vimeo.

Alvin Plantinga & John Bergsma - Science and Faith Conference

Phil.-Theol. Hochschule Benedikt XVI. - Katholische Theologie studieren in Heiligenkreuz

MOJ: Political Philosophy, by Michael J. White

OUP

Ite ad Thomam: Announcing a New Master's Program in Scholastic Philosophy (Institute Catholique de Toulouse)

What's going on with the Society of Scholastics?

Via Dominican Vocations: "The Holy Father has nominated His Excellency, Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P., until now Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, to be the Vice President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei.”"

Rorate Caeli: Di Noia to CNS: "Possible to have theological disagreements and be in communion" - "Can't read Vatican II texts from the viewpoint of liberals who were in the Council"

Diary from Vatican II by Father Robert Barron (on Yves Congar's journal)

Psalm - Byzantine Chant no 2 - St John Koukouzelis - 14th Century

Changes in the Curia

Levada is to resign from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, leaving Müller in pole position to substitute him. Meanwhile, the Vatican library is getting a new librarian and Bertone’s substitution appears imminent
ANDREA TORNIELLI

Augustinian Localism?

Augustinian Reflections on Love and Localism by A.J. DeBonis

I still need to read through City of God all the way through...

James Chastek, Morning research trail and Cajetan’s account of the Thomas / Scotus debate on the source of contingency

Restless Heart

Ignatius Press announces forthcoming release of the film, "Restless Heart"


Another dubbed foreign movie. Accurate with respect to the details and costumes?

Fr. Z: Of Beer, Norcia, Monks, Boars, Cheese, Truffles and the City of God

Birra Nursia! Coming to BevMo? Sarge might go visit Norcia if he has some time. No time for France (or Le Barroux).

The Benedictines of the Immaculate continue to update their blog.

Christopher J. Malloy, Objections to the Summa's Structure
Joseph G. Trabbic, Is the Summa Structurally Flawed?

One may read criticisms of the Summa that it is too rationalistic in its theology; I recall reading this objection from Orthodox apologists as well. The Summa presupposes the Creed; could there be a scientific exposition of the Trinity without a exposition of the unity of God?

Human Rights and Natural Law by Archbishop Rino Fisichella (via Insight Scoop)

Zenit: Holy See on Sustainable Development
"Human beings, in fact, come first. We need to be reminded of this"

Thomistica.net: The journal formerly known as The Modern Schoolman...

Adding prefaces to the EF

Rorate Caeli: FIUV Position Paper: Prefaces
Fr. Z: Should the “new” Prefaces be incorporated into the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite?

Flying out tonight to visit Sarge and the Lone Star Republic; be back next week.

Lee Faber: Scotus the Voluntarist

The Theological Origin and, Hopefully, End of Modernity by Thaddeus J. Kozinski

Voluntarism, an indifferent will as primary moral agent; nominalism, the rejection of any real reference for universal concepts; disenchantment, the default existential mode of a buffered, self-sufficient “individual”; and desacralization, the “immanent frame” surrounding and conditioning modern social and intellectual life—these were the background assumptions of the Enlightenment, but they seem now foregrounded social, cultural, and political dogmas. The “Regensburg Address” of the Pope, with his account of the three waves of dehellenization, is, I think, a key text for grasping this development. Dehellenized reason closed to intelligible being, a voluntarist God beyond good and evil, a non-participatory cosmos mechanically construed, and a univocal, flattened concept of being supplanting Aquinas’ precarious but precious metaphysics of analogy—these are the metaphysical, epistemological, and theological roots of modernity, and they are deeply planted. As the Pope suggests, these roots have nourished a misshapen cultural tree, nay, a forest; and it cannot be simply cut down and replanted—for it is our home, whether we like our home or not, for, at least for the time being, there is no other domestic domicile into which to move, it would seem.


Now, great fruits came via their heroic attempts: the progress of medicine and human rights; what Taylor calls the “affirmation of ordinary life”; the dignity of persons seen as ends and never means (Casanova); the autonomy of politics, science, and economics from ecclesial control. This represents, as in the words of Maritain, a maturation of the political order and the Gospel seed coming to fruition. This is the true message of Gaudium et spes, when interpreted correctly–that is, not as a replacement of the Syllabus of Errors, but its complement. After Vatican II, no Catholic can interpret the prior social teaching and theology as simply a rejection of modernity, but neither can they reject or dismiss the prior teaching as outdated or simply mistaken.

The question of modernity, again. Kozinski offers a couple of scenarios as to how this all plays out, but I think maybe the analysis starts off on the wrong foot. Was there a rebellion against the authority of the Church? Undoubtedly. Did that rebellion provide the intellectual roots for liberalism? Or merely the occasion for it to develop as a reaction against the wars of religion?

Maybe it is not "modernity" that is the problem, but the power of earthly rulers vying against God; they are the ones who have made of liberalism and a host of other idealogies in order to take power for themselves in the name of liberating the masses.