Scientific American: Sex with Other Human Species Might Have Been Secret of Homo Sapiens’s Success

SVS Press Releases Book by "The Opinionated Tailor," Kh. Krista West - The Garments of Salvation

Les fondamentaux de la culture chrétienne

Also from KTOTV: La liturgie des heures

Fr. Z: REVIEW: The book on Augustine which Pope Benedict would have wanted to write.

Added this to my wish list as well.

St Augustine of Hippo, An Intellectual Biography, by Miles Hollingsworth

Rorate Caeli: Fr. Chad Ripperger's "The Binding Force of Tradition" - Book review

Pravmir: Archbishop Mark (Arndt): Advice to Potential Monastics

Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos

A post at Rorate Caeli reminded me of its existence: Summer Book Suggestions - 2nd Post: What book was important for your conversion or discovery of Tradition?

Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos published books by Dominicans like Fr. Santiago Ramirez, as well as Fr. Carlos Soria and Fr. Alberto Colunga, who are mentioned in that post. How is the publisher faring in the Spanish economy?

Some ideas for conferences and such... not that I would have the resources or standing or credentials to put one on my own, but maybe it is possible to find some sponsors for something less than academic. (Or more than academic, depending on your perspective and the ultimate end of such gatherings.) While the 20th century disputants may have passed on, what about revisiting the debate between the neo-scholastics (neo-Thomists) and the new theologians? Are there any today who would acknowledge being the successors to neo-Thomism? Or would they, like many Dominicans, see themselves as restoring or reviving a Thomism? How is each school to be distinguished from the other?


For the needs of "modern man," how are we to explain God and His saving work? Render scripture more intelligible? Understand God better?

Related:
"Uniting Faith and Culture: Hans Urs von Balthasar" by J. Peter Pham (via Insight Scoop)

Revue Thomiste - books

Présentation de la Revue Thomiste (le fr Serge Thomas Bonino)


Aquinas on the Spirit's Gift of Understanding and Dionysius Mystical Theology by Bernard Blackenhorn

Gilles Emery: "The Thomistic Doctrine of God and Dominican Spiritual Life"

First Things: Five Myths About Pope Francis by William Doino Jr.

The author does not touch upon liturgy.

Відеозвернення Блаженнішого Святослава до молоді

Live from Mumford Road: Episode 4 (Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo)

The Deacon went to Christendom; I believe he was more of a traditionalist while he was there, so I'm interested in his "journey to the East." He is a deacon at Holy Transfiguration (still one of my favorites) and heads the Institute of Catholic Culture.

Christ the Bridegroom Monastery

Should pick up an copy of the recent The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly - could be useful.

The Latest in the Hart Debate over Natural Law

Ed Feser links to some of the posts and writes his response: Hart stopping.

Byzantine Discalced Carmelites of Holy Annunciation Monastery, Sugarloaf, PA

Their website.

Zenit: Focolare Youth in Rio Will Teach Peers About Blessed Chiara
Also Leading Interreligious Dialogue Project

Sandro Magister: The Prelate of the Gay Lobby

Facts and personages of the scandalous past of the man whom Francis, unaware, delegated to represent him at the IOR. Here's how a parallel power lives and thrives at the Vatican, plotting to the harm of the pope

John Cavidini reviews George Weigel's Evangelical Catholicism: Church as Sacrament

Is Cavidini making too much of Weigel's use of friendship?

For example: “Evangelical Catholics know that friendship with the Lord Jesus and the communion that arises from that friendship is an anticipation of the City of God in the city of this world.” Despite the echo of Augustinian language, the theological syntax is foreign to the ­Augustine of the City of God and to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which invokes his ecclesiology of the totus Christus. The communion of the Church does not arise from personal friendship with the Lord Jesus, but from Christ’s undeserved, atoning love which, mediated by the sacraments, makes the Church. The Church is the bond of communion, whether it is consciously known in a subjective friendship or not.

Do Protestant Evangelicals talk about friendship with Christ? Or a personal relationship? Friendship with God can also be a way of understanding caritas (Aquinas's definition, after all) - which is itself a gift of God and the Church can be understood as the social dimension of caritas.

It is significant that Weigel claims Dei Verbum, not Lumen Gentium, is “the key Vatican II document for the deep reform of the Catholic Church.”He never mentions the doctrine, prominent in Lumen Gentium and emphatically repeated in the Catechism, that the Church is the sacrament of communion with God and of unity among human beings.

I don't plan on reading Weigel's book in the near future; but what if his "friendship" with Christ is equivalent to "communion"? What is the relationship of the Church to this? Does Christ save individuals as individuals? Or as members of a new people? It could be that Weigel is not sufficiently precise in his writing and that the book is as problematic as Cavidini suggests.

John Burger on Orientale Lumen

CWR: Grassroots Ecumenism of Friendship Keeps Orthodox-Catholic Hopes Alive by John Burger
Orientale Lumen Conferences Boost Participants’ Knowledge of Issues, Forge Ties

Related:
Pope in a Minefield by Tim Kelleher

Ancient Faith Radio: Searching for the Sacred Symposium (mp3)

Chiesa: Vatican Diary / Those saints made as he commands

For Romero, Francis loosens the restraints of the Holy Office. For John XXIII and for a Jesuit to whom he is devoted, he goes ahead without waiting for the miracle required by the norms. In beatifications and canonizations, the pope is acting as an absolute monarch

What happened to a more humble papacy?

Recent Theological Opinion on Infused Contemplation (from the last century)

One Bishop Per City or Region

Ancient Faith Radio Correcting a Canonical Anomaly - mp3

Autocephaly problem: history and present

Ukrainian Catholic University: International Biblical Conference “Biblical Studies, West and East: Trends, Challenges and Prospects”

Fr. Thomas White's Presentation

Thomism After Vatican II

Br. Charles Shonk on Fra Angelico

A Pale Light

Archimandrite Boniface Luykx on the Sacrament of Confirmation

Originally published in HPR - On Confirmation

The Most Reverend Bishop Athanasius Schneider - "Vatican II Must be Clarified" (June 27, 2013)

I don't follow Michael Voris and generally avoid his stuff, but I learned of this video from another blog (which has taken the post down for some reason) and since it features Bishop Athanasius, I am posting the interview.

John Creech's Summary of a Lecture by Robert George

The Imaginative Conservative: The Persuasiveness of Natural Law by John Creech

Fr. Brian W. Harrison on Saints Cyril and Methodius

RT Forum: SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS: ICONS OF EAST-WEST CHRISTIAN UNITY

Even though no formal rupture had yet occurred between East and West, the two brothers’ determination to maintain in practice the unity that still existed in principle proved very difficult and costly for them. The harassment and suffering they had to endure resulted partly from political expansionism of German princes seeking dominion over the Slavic peoples, but it was due even more to a heretical aberration that was then circulating among quite a few highly-placed German and Latin churchmen. This was the theory that became known as ‘Trilingualism’. (If you have never heard of this early heresy, don’t feel bad, because hardly anyone else today has heard of it either – probably because it was rather easily refuted and so quite short-lived.) Trilingualists exhibited a classic example of the pharisaical mentality that our Lord reproved so severely in the religious leaders of first-century Israel. But now it re-surfaced in Christian rather than Jewish garb. Elevating merely human, and in this case, geographically local, traditions to the level of divine revelation, they insisted vehemently that only three of the world’s innumerable languages were noble and ‘sacred’ enough to be used for divine worship or for translating the Sacred Scriptures: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Some extreme Trilingualists apparently even insisted that all teaching and preaching be done in one or other of these languages. (Their God, it would seem, was imposing some pretty stiff linguistic requirements on most of the world’s inhabitants as a condition for citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.) Rather curiously, for people who appealed loudly to Sacred Tradition, the Trilingualists’ favourite authority was a gentleman whom few would have included among the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church: none other than Pontius Pilate! After all, had not the Roman procurator himself ordered the words above the crucified Saviour’s head to be written in these three languages, and no other?

I see this sentiment on the internet from time to time - the author may not limit the language of sacred scripture exclusively to these three, but there is a preference for one of them to be used, either as the language of scripture or the language of the liturgy. Should these three languages be privileged above all others?

Georges de Nantes. The Mystical Doctor of the Catholic Faith.
8. FIRST CONTROVERSIES

IT WAS WITH FATHER CALLON THAT “ THE GREAT AFFAIR OF MY LIFE ” BEGAN

1946-1947 : “ Having almost reached my destination, my little boat came close to sinking. It all began in the first class of dogmatic theology ” taught by Fr. Callon, “ an experienced and universally esteemed professor, who had to teach us the difficult treatises on Grace, on Predestination, on the Supernatural, on Hell and on the Demon, all of which are dogmas that we must believe without seeking too much to understand, but which raise so many questions, so many objections. ”

As director of conscience of the “ late vocations, ” he preached to them renunciation of their right-wing convictions.

“ In two years the damage was done, and it was irremediable. He had raised them so high, so high that, when the wind blew towards the left, our mystical aeronauts, who had lost sight of the earth, let themselves all be carried, without the slightest attention or malice, to the furthest point from their conservative or reactionary ideas, into the left-wing follies and other Christian Democratic utopias that were in vogue at the time.

“ Later on, in the agitation of the purge in 1945, I learned that our Fr. Callon was a rabid old Christian Democrat, a disciple of Marc Sangnier, an enthusiastic admirer of Aristide Briand, a friend of Francisque Gay whose son had just left the seminary, and a participant in the Franco-German meetings of Bierville before the war. The dreadful thing was that this passion for Germany had persisted through the war and through France’s defeat and her occupation, which was only enveloped in silence. It so happened that, in June 1941, he even showed new issues of the German review Signal, taken from a cupboard at the bottom of his bookcase, to certain seminarians under his spiritual direction. In them, they saw magnificent colour photos of the young army of the great Reich in long columns of ochre tanks, plunging into the immense fields of ripened wheat in the invaded Ukraine. He was jubilant ! He had his spiritual sons admire this Teutonic chivalry of our magnificent new Europe !

“ Obviously, his tone changed at the Liberation, but he transferred his Sillonist fervour to Georges Bidault’s party in which all his Christian Democratic friends were surfacing, sharing power with the Socialists and the Communists, in a furious rage to take vengeance on the nationalist, Maurrassian and Pétanist right-wing that had plotted against the Republic, established its loathed ‘ National Revolution ’ and dominated the country by force for four years. The blood and tears of those people were flowing now. That was only right and proper !

“ Fr. Callon was, as I was to understand too late, a man of influence rather than of words. ” In other words : one could not trust a word he said ! Here is a gripping description :

“ A word, ordinarily dreadful but which in my head only had an entomological value, sprang to my mind after observing him. He was a big, black spider, huddled up in his hidden lair, with one foot on some strand of his web through which arrived information and from which his impulses were sent off towards all the vital organs of the seminary [...]. It was he, always playing secondary roles, who held and retained the essence, the secret tradition, the obscure and inviolable soul of the Society of Saint-Sulpice. If he was swarthy, hunchbacked, with a disquieting gaze, face and voice, that was how fifty years of Jansenist, Gallican, Mennaisian, Dreyfusard and Sillonist, and finally semi-Modernist passion had sculpted and jig-sawed him.

“ Was I going to attack this bastille, no, this temple, this influence ? Had I known, I would have been wary. I, however, imagined the spider to be without venom and I entered into his web like an innocent fly, curious about what I would learn there. ”

THE TREATISE ON GRACE

“ The introduction of his first lecture made us admire the importance of the immense subject matter that we had to study in this single year. It was brief. All of us, with fountain or ball-point pen held over new thick notebooks, were ready for this race and did not want to overlook anything. The first treatise was that on ‘ Grace. ’ The pens traced the title in big letters while Fr. Callon began his subject with a hazy voice, at a meditative pace. I heard him there, at that moment. He punctuated all-the-syl-la-bles, separating one-from-the-o-thers ; it was not disagreeable, it allowed for reflection, and we had the time to note everything leisurely :

“ ‘ Grace, ’ these were the first words, ‘ is-some-thing-or-some-one. It is not something like a knife that one might have in his pocket. Thus it is some-one. ’

“ I will spare you the rest of this speech that initiated us into the depths of the mystery of grace. It can be summed up in a few words. If grace is not an object set there, that is possessed, that can be lost and found again, it is therefore someone, someone invisible, elusive, who cannot be appropriated. This someone, obviously cannot be a man or an angel ; it is God. ‘ Grace ’, we wrote at his dictation, without astonishment or murmur, ‘ is God within us. ’

“ Then, he entered into the theological debate, taking us along, still copying his statements as though they were Holy Writ. This explanation of grace was that of the Greek Fathers, whom he admired with infectious fervour, while the Latin Fathers and, in their school, St. Thomas Aquinas, – oh, he said it regretfully, sorry for having to upset them ! – considered grace as an object, yes a thing, that they referred to by the abstract expression : the ‘ created gift. ’ In fact, for them, this thing was necessary and preliminary to the welcoming of God into ourselves, which they referred to as : the ‘ uncreated gift. ’ We had to accustom ourselves to these scholastic distinctions if we wanted to understand all the disputes, and finally the divisions, that would be caused in the West on these questions. From the Latin perspective, the main thing is to know whether one is ‘ in a state of grace ’ or not, if one has ‘ the created gift ’ or if he has lost it, for the divine life in us depends on it ! The Greeks did not enter into these insoluble quibbles and controversies. For them, grace is quite-sim-ply God. It is God-in-us, un-con-di-tion-al-ly ! Man becomes God. Perhaps scholasticism achieves greater clarity and infinite precisions, ‘ but I think, ’ he admitted to us with a tone of trusting abandon, almost of complicity, ‘ for me, the view of the Greeks is more beautiful and consoling. ’

“ Thus the first class went by peacefully, and others followed likewise. We copied down, then learned ; we recited and were graded accordingly. For the thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth year, Fr. Callon would have once again led his sixty or so students to the subdiaconate and to the happy end of their stay at Issy-les-Moulineaux, had I not, unfortunately, stumbled over his first words that I would have really liked to understand : ‘ Grace is some-thing or-some-one. ’ What goddess Reason or what rebellious spirit had whispered to me, as we went along, this mocking counterpoint that would put the course off the track : No, it is not something, but it is not someone either, and above all it is not God ! For if I am in a state of grace, – easy does it, my dear fellow ! – I am not for all that in a ‘ state of God ! ’ The Greeks were undoubtedly right. God is not far from a man in a state of grace, but we know that God is everywhere [...].

“ For a good fifteen days I ruminated over it. Finally, I had the idea of going to verify Fr. Callon’s teaching in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Theological Summa, and the light was cast on me in words so simple that, first, I was brought back forever to the Angelic Doctor, and secondly, I was filled with the most total contempt, not affective but intellectual, towards this pathetic Callon who was abusing our ingenuous imbecility. Grace, St. Thomas taught, is obviously neither a thing nor a person. In philosophical terms : it is not of the order of substance ; thus it is of the order of accident. It is a manner of being added to our natural being, and furthermore, it has this peculiarity, that it is not only a perfection that fortifies or enhances some specific power or faculty of the spiritual being, but it is an ‘ entitative ’ gift, i.e. a perfecting of the very substance of the being, which affects it in its nature, in its radical principle of action, in its roots. Thus, in the end, by means of this ‘ created gift, ’ the man or the angel finds himself even capable of taking advantage of and enjoying God Himself (uti et frui), Who has become for him in this way such a mysterious and magnificent ‘ uncreated gift, ’ to be known and loved by him in time and in eternity.

“ These streams of light were too much happiness for me alone ! I said it and it was repeated. Before the month of October was over, it had thrown the seminary into quartan or quintan fever, the development of which no one was able to foresee. The tragedy had opened and, at the account of this first scene, I shudder with anxiety at the thought of what I must now relive. May God forgive me ! I was twenty-two years old and totally rash. ” 6

NRO: Letter from Ukraine by George Weigel
A Church of martyrs confronts the cultural iron curtain.

Dominican Friars: Dominicans and the Renewal of Thomism by Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, O.P.

The post has a link to some photos on flickr. No summary of the talks/presentations from the conference, though.

Thomistica.net: The evolution of Maritain's later political thought by Joseph G. Trabbic

A reference to his review of Jacques Maritain e i diritti umani: Fra totalitarismo, antisemitismo e decmocrazia (1936–1951). Italian book; maybe I'll ask someone to pick it up for me if he is happening to visit Rome.

Christopher Smith on Traditionalism

His original essay, at Chant Cafe (posted at NLM): Sacra Liturgia 2013 and the Transformation of Traditionalism

And the follow-up (also posted at NLM): Has Traditionalism Really Been Transformed

But now there are many people, who are perhaps a bit more open to certain insights outside of the pre-conciliar manualist theological tradition, such as those of Ratzinger, who now find themselves engaging the same critiques of the traditionalists, but from within the desire of a hermeneutic of continuity. Such a school of tradition is no mere reincarnation of Ultramontanism in its neoconservative Amerophilic form. It is embued with the classical liturgical movement, with an eye to the Patristic age, the East, as well as certain insights of the nouvelle théologie. One thinks of a Ratzinger scholar like Tracey Rowland as perhaps more of an example of this type of thought.

They may be more willing to renew sacramental theology; for example, in light of current discussions and decisions on the Liturgy of Addai and Mari. But would they re-evaluate the magisterial standing of certain council documents and of the councils themselves?

Sacra Liturgia 2013

Images - flickr, Recordings, and Lectures.

Jeremiah Hackett Article on Duns Scotus

Medievalists.net: Duns Scotus: A Brief Introduction to his Life and Thought

Off the grid until the weekend

A short respite from virtual reality.

Jeffrey Tucker Interview

Vatican Radio: Sacra Liturgia Conference: the liturgy in the internet age (mp3)

A Fallacy for Some of the Pious

Or, attributable to others by them - denying the antecedent?

An example:
kneeling --> showing reverence
not kneeling --> not showing reverence

I say it is attributable to others, those they wish to protect from liturgical changes, because it may be that even though this is fallacious reasoning, some of the "simple faithful" may erroneously infer that because we do not need to kneel because of a bishop's directive, that no sign of reverence is necessary and that the Divine Liturgy is wholly "horizontal" rather than "vertical" in orientation.

Rome Reports via Vatican Insider: Delegation from the Orthodox Church meets with Pope

Chant Cafe: CNS Interview with Cardinal Ranjith at Sacra Liturgia Conference

Eastern Christian Books: Developments in Byzantine Chant

I don't think I will change all of the "chant" tags to "plainchant" even though it would be better to do so... removing tags used to be easier.

Anyone Know Ukrainian?

An essay by an Ukrainian [Catholic] bishop emeritus "On Uniatism" - ЄПИСКОП ВАСИЛЬ ЛОСТЕН. ПРОБЛЕМА "УНІАТИЗМУ"

Zenit: Pope's Address on 50th Anniversary of Paul VI's Election
"Jesus is more necessary than ever for the man of today"

NLM: Do the Clothes Make the Priest? Some Debate on Clerical Garb in Greece

Ascending Mount Carmel: The Greatest Forgotten Catholic Theologian of the 20th Century

Dom Alcuin Reid on Sacra Liturgia

Vatican Radio: Liturgy Conference opens in Rome (mp3)

Sandro Magister: The Hundred Days of Francis and the Enigma of the Empty Chair
His sudden refusal to listen to the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven offered for the Year of Faith is the seal on the beginning of a pontificate that is difficult to decipher. The success that he enjoys in the media has a reason and a cost: his silence on the crucial political questions of abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage

The Catholic Apologetics Academy turned out to be more enjoyable and educational than I had expected, and it was definitely a good opportunity for Catholics to meet and socialize with other similar-minded Catholics living in the Bay Area. I wish I had taken greater advantage of that opportunity. There were a few parents there who were aware of the state of Catholic schools in the diocese of San Jose. May they receive wisdom and strength as they seek to bring about change. The talks by Ken Hensley on sola fide and sola scriptura were very informative. He doesn't write much as he prefers teaching (live); his contrast between the two models of faith was one I had not heard before.

faith-->obedience-->blessing (a pattern found in the OT and repeated in the preaching of the NT) [the Catholic model]
faith-->blessing-->obedience [the Protestant model]

Luther, A Nominalist?

Luther’s Doctrine of Imputation: Nominalism vs. Aristotelian Realism by Joshua Price

Or Voluntarist?

Related:
MARTIN LUTHER AND SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY
Is Luther's Doctrine of Justification Compatible with Orthodox Catholic Theology?
Was there a Lutheran Metaphysics?

Attending the Catholic Apologetics Academy put on by the Envoy Institute. It will probably do a good job of covering some of the basics, but I wonder if the 3-day program isn't a bit ambitious.

Cult? Or the Legitimate Preferences of the Founder?

Creating his own "brand."

Chiesa: Kiko Argüello, Painter, Musician, Architect

Liturgy Doesn’t Mean Work of the People by Richard Barrett

Chiesa: Benedict Wanted a "Poor" Church, Too

Latin Mass Study - Fr Justin Nolan, FSSP

How Accurate Will the History Be?

Ecumenical, but truthful? Or will it obfuscate in the interests of being "nice"? Lutherans and Catholics agree to a common narrative on the Reformation

Stratford Caldecott recommends this new book from Angelico Press: The Power of Four, written by Eduardo P. Olaguer, Jr.

Press Conference with Marcel Peres

From April 2013: 11 MARCEL PERES καλλιτεχνικός διευθυνής Ensemble Organum & CIRMA .


The info for this clip says it's Ensemble Organum singing; I have not heard it before.

Fr. Elias Rafaj on Reconciliation

Rorate Caeli: Mystici Corporis at 70 - I
The true Church of Christ is the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church

Yesterday's Address at the General Audience

On the People of God
Pope Francis: Christ Calls you to be the People of God
Pope Francis Says Upcoming Encyclical on Faith is Nearly Complete

Pope Francis: Only the Holy Spirit leads us forward


Pope at Mass: The grace not to speak ill of others

Vatican News: Cardinal Koch in Ukraine: Goal of Ecumenism "Visible Communion"

(Vatican Radio)The President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, gave a lecture at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, on June 10 on “Prospects of the Ecumenical Dialogue Between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches."

According to the Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU), Cardinal Kurt Koch focused on the discussion of one of the most painful and key issues of Orthodox-Catholic relations – the primacy of the bishop of Rome.Cardinal Koch explained that "from the Orthodox point of view, the church is present in every local church that celebrates the Eucharist, so each Eucharistic community is a complete church. Instead, from the Catholic point of view, a separate Eucharistic community is not a complete church. Therefore, a basis of the Catholic Church is the unity of separate Eucharistic communities with each other and the bishop of Rome. That is, the Catholic Church lives in the mutual intersection of local churches in one universal church.”

According to the cardinal, “the most important thing is not to lose sight of the goal of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which, at least from the Catholic point of view, can consist only in the restoration of a visible communion of churches.”

Two Perspectives on Rights

Cardinal Angelo Scola: Rights-in-Relation by Stratford Caldecott

Thomas Jefferson on Rights and Duties by Paul Crimley Kuntz

Fr. Cessario to Be Conferred With the Degree of Master of Sacred Theology

Along with two other Dominicans - MASTERS OF SACRED THEOLOGY by Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, O.P.

Cappella Romana - First Ode of the Canon - LIVE IN GREECE: From Constantinople To California

Romeyka, A Dialect of Greek

Endangered language opens window on to past (w/ Video)

Dr Ioanna Sitaridou - Cambridge - Language Sciences



Related:
How correct is this presentation?


Part 2

The author's website.
Amazon page.

The World: Chanting in Bodbe, Georgia

Byzantine Sacred Architecture

Nicholas Patricios, The Sacred Architecture of Byzantium: Art, Liturgy and Symbolism in Early Christian Churches (I.B. Tauris, September 2013), 384pp. (via Eastern Christian Books)

Vatican Diary / The scourge of divorce between bishop and diocese

Can't a case be made that much of this careerism (and the possibility of transfer upon which it relies) is due to the centralization of the Western Patriarchate?

Vatican Insider: Claire, the woman who became a Christian in Pol Pot’s Cambodian killing fields


The book about the story of the Cambodian exile is being presented at the Vicenza Bible Festival

Some relative inexpensive copies (less than $50) of Fr. Taft's Divine Liturgies: Human Problems in Byzantium, Armenia, Syria and Palestine (Hardback) available through ABE.

The Light of the Desert (Documentary on St Macarius Monastery, Egypt)

A Pricey Volume

113 pounds

I had forgotten that there was a Centre for Eastern Christian Studies at the International Theological Institute. I was looking through the news section and found this from From February of last year:

On 16th February the Eastern Centre hosted Dr Judith Ryder of Wolfson College, Oxford. She addressed the ITI and a number of other visitors from the wider academic and ecclesiastical communities on the topic 'Demetrius Kydones: Statesman and Thomist in the Twilight of Byzantium'. Demetrius Kydones and his brother Prochorus were amongst the most prominent of the Byzantine Thomists of the fourteenth century. Kydones also served as Mesazōn (Prime Minister) to three Byzantine Emperors. Personally in communion with theHoly See, he worked to accomplish the (canonical and intellectual) reunification of Byzantium and Rome and to obtain the assistance of a Crusade for the Empire ever more threatened by the rise of the Ottoman Turks. Dr Ryder persuasively argued that for Kydones the key to his task was the effort toconvince his fellow Byzantines that they must remain in dialogue not just with each other but with both the Latin Fathers and their Western contemporaries. Dr Ryder is currently working on eleventh century Byzantium. Her study of Kydones "The Career and Writings of Demetrius Kydones" (2010) is published by Brill.

Has anyone done a review of her book on Demetrius Kydones?

The Installation of Bishop Borys Gudziak

From February 2012:

Rome Reports: Benedict XVI: 'I'm fine. I live like a monk'

Rome Reports: Pope Francis: Idolatry is dangerous. God is the one true Lord

Thomistica.net: Taparelli's magnum opus available from La Civiltà Cattolica

Taparelli is perhaps best remembered (if at all) for his contribution to the concept of subsidiarity and for coining the term “social justice” (giustizia sociale). His understanding of social justice is not exactly the same as our contemporary notion of it. Thomas Burke (one of the few people who write about Taparelli in English — Thomas Behr is another) has this to say about Taparellian social justice:

It is one of the ironies of history that the quintessentially “liberal” idea of “social justice,” as it was to become (in American terminology), should have been originated by an ardent conservative … Unlike the conception of social justice generally accepted in our society at the present time, which is socialist and difficult, if not impossible, to harmonize with our ordinary conception of justice, Taparelli’s conception 1) is simply the ordinary and traditional conception of justice applied in a new area, namely the constitutional arrangements of society, 2) does not apply to states of affairs in society that could exist independently of human actions, 3) constitutes a defense of societal inequality, and 4) is conservative.

I will have to read Thomas Burke's paper.

Communio: Milan Lach nominated auxiliary bishop of Presov

Some photos of the ordination: Vysviacka pomocného biskupa Milana Lacha.

I am curious as to what Anthony Rizzi does with Newtonian Mechanics in his textbook but as it is priced like a textbook I won't find out for a while.

Turns out he was on Coast to Coast AM back in 2004.

An Interview with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk

From 2012: The B.C. Catholic interviews Major Archbishop Shevchuk

Something at Zenit.

A liturgy from last year, I believe:

Nothing new at Four Causes, the blog for the Society for Thomistic Natural Philosophy.

But there is the 2013 West Coast Meeting of the Society for Aristotelian-Thomistic Studies being held at TAC on June 13 and 14. The organization's website has a new look and all of the materials are probably accessible to members only, as I don't see them on the website. It's been a while since I paid membership dues, as very little was being done with the website.

Pope Francis on the Culture of Waste

Today's General Audience - Asia News: Pope: counter the culture of waste, man not money must "cultivate and care” for Creation
Vatican Radio
Zenit text.

Rome Reports:

Another Book from Matt Levering

A Sure Guide to St. Augustine’s Thought and Theology by Jared Ortiz
A review of Matthew Levering’s new book, The Theology of Augustine: An Introductory Guide to His Most Important Works

(via Insight Scoop)

Inertia

Had a brief discussion about physics and science with a "professional" phyisicist yesterday on Facebook; I had to dust off the cobwebs in the attic of my mind. I was thinking about inertia (especially as formulated by Newton). How would one go about questioning or even refuting it as a postulate or axiom? By looking at the explanation of change? Does anything non-living move itself? And should we not take into consideration natural versus violent motion?

If simple bodies do not move themselves but are moved by another... and if it is the First Mover that moves them when the motion is natural, then the end or purpose of that motion is determined by the First Mover as a part of their nature.

It may be natural for some things to persist in changing place (locomotion) until they come to rest for some reason. But is it possible for other things to be in perpetual motion for a reason that we cannot readily discern? The end of motion is not rest but some perfection extrinsic to the thing? (example: the celestial bodies? - motion in a 'circular' path) At the moment I cannot think of a reason to rule out this possibility outright.

On the other hand, I do not have any a priori reason yet to claim either that all instances of natural locomotion must be of the second kind either. (As the principle of inertia would seem to entail.)

[Various forms of 'rectilinear' motion are due to attractions proper to the natures of certain things? Are there any exceptions?]

One who has been instructed in modern physics will assume inertia is an uncontroversial or evident truth, on par with the fact of the earth being round. How would awaken him from such a dogmatic slumber? (He did subscribe to a form of scientism, saying that the only valid knowledge of physical reality was obtained through the scientific method. And he claimed that teleology was pseudoscience.)

Mass of Ordination & Installation of Michael Barber - 5th Bishop of Oakland

Saint Anthony Coptic Orthodox Church: Sham El Neseem Liturgy & New Deacon Ordination

Saint Anthony Coptic Orthodox Church
Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States

Stanford University: Vatican II: Catholicism Meets Modernity

Led by Paul Crowley, SJ - you can find videos for the course here.

Upholding the Legacy...

Pope Francis remembers Bl Pope John XXIII (full text)

Asia News: Pope: John XXIII, the good pope's daily abandonment to God's will is a lesson for the Church of our time
John XXIII’s providential decision to hold Vatican II is hailed as a milestone in the Catholic Church

Healing in the Parish and the World: Let Us Go Forth in Peace by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)

Notre Dame: Cardinal Dolan delivers the Commencement Address

Zenit transcript

Misc.
Catholic Vote: SIX GREAT GIFTS FOR THE NEWLY ORDAINED. (AND FIVE THINGS TO SHY AWAY FROM.)

Modern Questions, Ancient Answers: Defining and Defending Human Dignity in Our Time

Prostopinije

The plainchant of the Ruthenians; according to the wiki entry, it is closely related to Znamenny chant. I've heard some Znamenny; the two forms of plainchant don't sound that similar. Maybe it's because the Znamenny I've heard primarily comes from Valaam, and I haven't really heard pure Znamenny. (Or is it because it's an all-male group?)


Paschal Ode 1 - Prostopinije








Palm Sunday Vespers 2011

Znamenny Chant?
Valaam - this example seems to be more like a mix of Byzantine and Znamenny - Valaam chant?




In English:




Not Valaam:











Related:
The Znamenny Chant of the Russian Church--Part I; Part 2 [alt]
Church of the Nativity page
Znamenny Chant by Fr. Simon Pimen Pt.1 (Parts 2 and 3)

Cappella Romana has a blog.

"Error Has No Rights"

The Last Laugh of Alfredo Ottaviani by George Weigel
Cardinal Ottaviani Responds to George Weigel by Peter Crenshaw

MosPat: Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem venerates the shrines of Valamo Monastery’s Cathedral of the Holy Transfiguration

Sandro Magister: Even Peter Puts His Money in the Bank

The objectives of the Holy See in the financial field and the future of the IOR, in an address by Pope Francis and in a report by the Vatican supervisory authority

The Common Good and Scale

Thaddeus Kozinski and James Chastek respond to the Robert George-Michael Hannon debate on the common good. Maybe I will eventually write my own post, which will be a rehash of things I've already written before...

Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait

Yale University Press

Thomistica.net: Denys Turner on Aquinas the materialist

I hope a [prominent] Dominican will write a book review. Aidan Nichols's Discovering Aquinas uses the same painting for its cover as well; someone should be drawing icons of St. Thomas Aquinas, whether in imitation of Fra Angelico or not.

The Telegraph: Pope Francis shunned official papal apartments to live 'normal life'

Cappella Romana - Lament for the Fall of Constantinople

Symposium: THE NATURE AND ROLE OF DEACONS, OR THE FULLNESS OF PRIESTHOOD

The author advances the following:

"The bishop possesses the fullness of the priestly ministry, while those he ordains priest act vicariously on his behalf – analogous to being his hands at the Altar – and the deacons something more like his feet, as they go into the highways and byways in search of the poor and those in need."

So - is the diaconate distinguished by its ministry of works of mercy? Or, is it distinguished rather by their preaching? (the thesis advanced by another author)