Medievalists.net: A Spectacle of Great Beauty: The Changing Faces of Hagia Sophia

Insight Scoop: Vatican II and the Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger
The Introduction to Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology—Fundamentals of Ecclesiology with Reference to Lumen Gentium by Fr. Maximilian Heinrich Heim

An allusion to a "remnant" Church?

Maybe, maybe not?

Pope suggests it’s best to be ‘honest’ and leave the Church if you don’t believe: HLI priest

Zenit: ON BELIEVING IN JESUS, BREAD OF LIFE
"In those words is foretold the paschal mystery of Jesus"

Pope explains how doubt was created in Judas


From earlier this year: John Allen, A Pope of Ironies

Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, 28 August

The Scriptural Roots of St. Augustine's Spirituality | Stephen N. Filippo | IgnatiusInsight.com

Dominicana: St. Augustine: Ever Ancient and Yet Ever New!

The extended trailer for Restless Heart:


A review of the movie.

Byzantine, Texas: The explosive growth of Orthodoxy in Guatemala

Even though she is patroness of the Americas, is there much devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe outside of Mexico (and Mexican immigrant communities)?

Does Orthodoxy have better safeguards against syncretism? Is it because of a better model of inculturation? Or just better catechesis?

Can we define what we mean by modernity, please?

Irony of Ironies: Vatican II Triumphs Over Moribund Modernity by Samuel Gregg

You don't need to reach the bottom of the essay to guess that the author is associated with the Acton Institute. Defenders of the liberal [dis-]order are apt to credit liberalism or capitalism with the development of new technology, the increase in longevity and decrease in morality, and so on, as if these developments could only happen because of the concentration of capital in the hands of the few.

From earlier this month--Feast-Day Celebrations at San Francisco’s “Old Cathedral”

Metropolitan Hilarion in town?

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk will visit USA to take part in celebrations on the occasion of 200th anniversary of Fort Ross

He will be celebrating the Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas tomorrow, at Holy Virgin Cathedral on Tuesday.

Fort Ross 2012 Bicentennial
Diocese of the West

From February: An Interview with Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev





IEC 2012: Br. Alois Löser, Dr. Maria Voce, Liturgy of Word and Water - June 11, 2012

David Anders, Archbishop Minnerath on Rome, the Papacy, and the East

Clarifications on the Political Common Good

Solidarity, subsidiarity, and principled sanity by Carl E. Olson (via Insight Scoop)

A lot of people have made use of a picture of Inigo Montoya from Princess Bride and the quotation, "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means," with reference to some disputed term or other. I think it would be humorous to make one of these photos with "common good."



Is the definition of the common good (along with subsidiarity), as put forth by contemporary CST and used by Mr. Olson, helpful? Yes, but primarily with reference to the modern nation-state. He cites the Compendium: "The common good of society is not an end in itself; it has value only in reference to attaining the ultimate ends of the person and the universal common good of the whole of creation. " The political common good, as "traditionally" understood by Thomists and Aristotelians, is not the same as the instrumental good defined by John XXIII and adopted into contemporary CST. The common good, the good of the community, is an end in itself - desirable for its own sake and not merely as a means to an end desired for itself. This does not mean that it is not subordinate to a "higher" end or good, like the supernatural common good (and man's ultimate end), God Himself. The common good, as defined within contemporary CST, may be an instrumental good to the political common good, but it is not identical to the political common good:

The principle of the common good, to which every aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fullest meaning, stems from the dignity, unity and equality of all people. According to its primary and broadly accepted sense, the common good indicates “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily”.

This instrumental good is explained as such by proponents of the New Natural Law Theory, for example. And yet there is use of language usually associated with the traditional [definition of the] common good:

The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains “common”, because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future. Just as the moral actions of an individual are accomplished in doing what is good, so too the actions of a society attain their full stature when they bring about the common good. The common good, in fact, can be understood as the social and community dimension of the moral good.

An explanation of how the common good is common, though it may have been better to explain how it is common or shared - not as belonging to them, like property (in which case common would be said in praedicando), but as a shared end. And in the next paragraph:

A society that wishes and intends to remain at the service of the human being at every level is a society that has the common good — the good of all people and of the whole person [347] — as its primary goal. The human person cannot find fulfilment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists “with” others and “for” others. This truth does not simply require that he live with others at various levels of social life, but that he seek unceasingly — in actual practice and not merely at the level of ideas — the good, that is, the meaning and truth, found in existing forms of social life. No expression of social life — from the family to intermediate social groups, associations, enterprises of an economic nature, cities, regions, States, up to the community of peoples and nations — can escape the issue of its own common good, in that this is a constitutive element of its significance and the authentic reason for its very existence[348]

Can the second part of this section be harmonized with the first? If the common good is the "social and community [communal] dimension of the moral good [the life of virtue]" then is it the same as "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily"?

As for Fr. Barron's essay -- "Now in Catholic social theory, subsidiarity is balanced by solidarity, which is to say, a keen sense of the common good, of the natural and supernatural connections that bind us to one another, of our responsibility for each other." Solidarity may be identified with the virtue of social justice (or legal justice), or with civic friendship, or both, depending on, of course, its definition. The Compendium:

Solidarity is also an authentic moral virtue, not a “feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good. That is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all”[418]. Solidarity rises to the rank of fundamental social virtue since it places itself in the sphere of justice. It is a virtue directed par excellence to the common good, and is found in “a commitment to the good of one's neighbour with the readiness, in the Gospel sense, to ‘lose oneself' for the sake of the other instead of exploiting him, and to ‘serve him' instead of oppressing him for one's own advantage (cf. Mt 10:40-42, 20:25; Mk 10:42-45; Lk 22:25-27)”[419].

I've already written about subsidiarity (as well as the contemporary notion of common good) and how these terms probably are better understood as reactions to the growth of the modern nation-state and polities that are too big for their own good, and the concomitant political and economic centralization. This may have been a conscious formulation for the first theorists, but those currently presenting CST as a basis for seeking political solutions may be unaware of the original contextual background of the terms.

Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts when we consider the [political] community and its members? Is legal justice distinct from civic friendship? I will have to address these questions at some other time. At some point I will also have to rewrite the discussion of how one cannot talk about common good if a community is mostly absent and the potential for community must be developed first, addressing the need for a common culture and a single identity, one people. Taking the United States as one nation, or polity, is a problem, because the scale is too big and the relationship between all of its members to one another too tenuous for the most part. Talking about the common good (and subsidiarity and solidarity) when the current political order (taken broadly as to referring not only to the federal government but also the culture and social order), or constitution in the Aristotelian sense, mitigates against it.

The Purpose of Education: A Catholic Primer by Stratford Caldecott

Discussing primarily the formation in the intellectual virtues, rather than in the moral virtues.

His Beauty in the Word is published by Angelico Press.

CMT: What is Happiness? by Charles Camosy

How does one relate goods to ends and activities? Some precision would be helpful.

From December of last year: In Defense of Human Dignity – on the 500th Anniversary of the Preaching of the Dominican Friars in Hispaniola

Related: Dominicans in the Americas
Join us in celebrating our 500th anniversary!
(Update)

Happiness and Its Discontents by Fr. Michael Sherwin, OP

(Logos)

Zenit: Pope's Message to Rimini Meeting
"Not only my soul, but even every fiber of my flesh is made to find its peace, its fulfillment in God"

Thus do we discover the truest dimension of human existence, that to which the Servant of God Luigi Giussani continually referred: life as vocation. Everything, every relationship, every joy, as well as every difficulty, finds its ultimate meaning in being an opportunity for a relationship with the Infinite, a voice of God that continually calls to us and invites us to lift our gaze, to find the complete fulfillment of our humanity in belonging to Him. “You have made us for Yourself – wrote St. Augustine – and our hearts are restless until they rest in You” (Confessions I, 1,1). We need not be afraid of what God asks of us, through the circumstance of our lives, were it even the dedication of ourselves in a special form of following and imitating Christ, in the priesthood or religious life. The Lord, in calling some to live totally for Him, calls everyone to recognize the essence of our own nature as human beings: we are made for the Infinite. And God has our happiness at heart, and our complete human fulfillment. Let us ask, then, to enter in and to remain in the gaze of faith that characterized the saints, in order that we might be able to discover the good seed that the Lord scatters along the path of our lives and joyfully adhere to our vocation.

Dominicana: J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., “Theological Method and the Magisterium of the Church,” Dominicana 54:2 (2011), 51-61.

Tired of the Conflict Between Catholics

Spiritual Consumers by Matthew Cantirino

One of my mom's friends had recounted to my mother how a priest had admonished people for being picky and choosey as to which Masses they attended.

It can be rather easy to do some amateur "psychologizing" about groups of people, in order to draw some sort of moral point. I've done it as well. But it has to be couched in terms of hypotheticals; and is it really that helpful for the intended audience? It can easily degenerate into condemnation of the "other." But it does get boring, whether it be from the right or the left, when there is a failure to grasp reality and the nature of the problem. Are both just different forms of Americanism? Do older, "left-leaning" Catholics really think institutionally? Or is their comfort level first and foremost?

Mr. Cantirino writes:

This is anecdotal, but virtually all of the youngish (say, under-35) orthodox Catholics I know, for example, don’t attend Mass at their local parish. They’ll travel long distances–sometimes, clear across cities–to certain “special” chapels or “traditionalist parishes” or order houses where a dynamic priest keeps them coming back. In many ways this is highly commendable: That someone is willing to take significant additional time out of their day to commute to church signifies a deep commitment to the liturgy and an impressive grasp of its importance. And it’s a sympathetic dilemma: Certainly, young people don’t do this to spite their canon-law pastor, but they do often find the services on offer in their bailiwick in some sense impoverished, or the preaching theologically wayward, or the architecture grossly midcentury, and for the good of their spiritual health decide they can and must find a home elsewhere.

But should this be the end goal? Might it be fruitful to encourage a way of thinking that emphasizes not only the individual’s conscious embrace of orthodoxy (key though individual response has always been in Catholicism), but which also sees this commitment as eventually settling, becoming the norm, and integrating itself into the existing framework rather than subsisting outside of or in a subculture of it? This, then, would seem to be an emerging challenge for the “movement” back towards orthodoxy. We’ve become, maybe by accident, accustomed to a sort of “remnant” mindset rather than an institutional one, to prophetic denunciations from without but with not enough “working within.” So perhaps it’s time for “self-conscious” young Catholics to start seeing themselves less as dissidents and “choosers” and more simply as part of the future of the Church, and begin working out what that means.

Traddies and conservative Catholics may put a premium on orthodoxy and good liturgical praxis and sometimes, their ability to live as a community suffers since they have to travel over long distances to their church. Many may be ignorant that this is not the idea, but even if they are aware of the problem, when looking to the good of their family, a strong parish life may not compare. Sure, some may have a mindset which is opposed to an awareness of communion with those who are ignorant. But should the burden be on them or on the priests and ultimately the bishop of the local Church?

Commonweal and the like belong to the past, even if that crowd may feel good at the moment because a SWPL Democrat occupies the White House, because it is tied to a dying, unsustainable political economy. How many go beyond an easy, painless progressivism to make real sacrifices for others that is in accordance with the order of charity (rather than following their own notions of victim classes and the "preferential option")?

Not a “Swerve,” but a “Slouch” by Anthony Esolen
Modern atheists may think they’ve found an ally in ancient Epicureanism. They’re quite mistaken.

Feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 20 August

On the Love of God

Fr. Augustine's Book Talk Rescheduled

I saw Fr. Augustine today and asked him to sign some copies of his book. I mentioned the book talk at the DSPT and he responded that it had been rescheduled for January, so that Regis Martin could participate. (? I think I am remembering the correct name.)

Fr. Augustine may also be giving a talk at the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi in October, but that has not been finalized yet.

Sister Vassa Larin

Sister Vassa Larin from George Kokhno on Vimeo.

John Allen on Archbishop Dolan

Lake Effect: The Mind of the Archbishop - mp3

Audio files for Orientale Lumen XVI Conference

Ancient Faith Radio - website for the annual conference


Related:
Diaconate in Christ: Orientalium ecclesiarum No. 17. Commentary Part II

Simonopetra

A Thousand Years are as One Day

NCReg: Catholic University Looks East (1851)
Ukrainian Father Mark Morozowich is the first Eastern Catholic to lead CUA’s School of Theology.

Joseph Trabbic on Maritain

Some Critical Comments on Maritain's Political Philosophy

Finally, I cannot accept Maritain’s thesis about democracy’s privileged connection to Christianity. As I read ecclesiastical history, the Church has always been very pragmatic about her relationships with the various types of political regimes, never teaching in any binding manner that some one kind of regime in particular has its roots in the Gospel. And yet, as I argued [earlier in the review], it does appear that Maritain would have to insist that Christians are in some sense bound to promote democracy. There is not the space here sufficiently to reflect on the papal teaching of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that, in fact, was quite critical of some of the same democratic tenets held by Maritain. It is ironic that in reviewing Christianity and Democracy in 1945 the prominent Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams questioned the Catholic nature of Maritain’s political thought: “How, then, does M. Maritain, the Thomist and the Roman Catholic, manage to become here the apostle and the mentor of the democracy of the future? He does it by ignoring Roman Catholicism and by ignoring the antidemocratic heritage of pre-eighteenth-century Christianity.” No doubt there are many who would say that previous Catholic teaching on political matters has since been superseded by John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris and Vatican II’s pronouncements in Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes. But if we apply the hermeneutic of continuity proposed by Benedict XVI, we might discover that the story is far more complex than the hermeneuts of discontinuity and rupture would have us believe.

I think there is an impulse to an equality rooted in fraternity "within Christianity," such that Christian polity leans towards becoming a republic whenever possible. Perhaps Maritain's bigger mistake was identifying democracy with the contingent historical form of the modern nation-state and not addressing the problem of scale with respect to community.

Fr. Spitzer, in his Ten Universal Principles, talks about adjudicating between competing rights claims. Evidence that there is a problem with contemporary rights theory, that there can be competing claims? Or is the problem in the identification of rights with a specific understanding of ownership?



More from TEDxPannonia

Fr. Augustine's Lecture Cancelled?

A book party of sorts for his biography of St. Augustine - it was scheduled for September 26, but there is no longer any mention of it.

There is some discussion of the relationship between Church and State in the combox for Thomas Storck's Liberalism and the Absence of Purpose. My short contribution: "...while it may be somewhat useful to think of the division between the sacred and the secular in terms of supernatural and natural (especially with respect to the limits of secular authority), this can lead to be problems if we do not consider the underlying reason why this division is apt, namely the goods themselves. The political common good is communal well-being, or the virtuous life of the community – civic friendship. All friendships are open to something higher serving as a source of unity joining friends together – in this case, the higher good is God Himself. While secular authority may not be able to directly bring about man’s salvation through the imparting of grace, a Christian polity can nonetheless promote conditions which facilitate the observance of the Christian life (for example, removing obstacles)."

Mount Athos • The Holy Mountain

Mauricio Kuri on Religious Freedom

Metropolitan KALLISTOS Ware Salvation in Christ - The Orthodox Approach -Lecture

Met. Kallistos Ware | PRP Special : The Jesus Prayer

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