Thursday, September 08, 2016

In Good Shape or Bad Shape?



An Icon of the Theotokos

The 12 Great Feasts

The Nativity of the Theotokos

Adam's Sin

What of Cardinal Parolin?

How will history judge him when this pontificate is a memory?



Not a Latin!

Metaphysically Problematic



If he's not speaking literally, it's very sloppy.

Then again, perhaps we should blame the one who is doing the tweeting for Pope Francis. The Latin version seems better:

Previews of Benedict XVI's New Book

Benedikt XVI. bricht sein Schweigen (English translation at Catholic Conclave)

"SZ": Benedikt XVI. kritisiert in neuem Buch katholische Kirche in Deutschland (English translation)



The Catholic Thing: Pope Francis in Conciliar Context by Howard Kainz

OAJ Interview with Seraphim O'Keefe

Religious Freedom and the Security State

Wednesday, September 07, 2016

Guardian of Scripture

Chiesa: Ecumenists Out of the House. But Inside It’s a Melee

Big smiles with Constantinople and Moscow. But a heavy hand with the Byzantine oases in the West. The emblematic cases of the Italo-Albanian dioceses and the monastery of Grottaferrata

Eastern Christian Books: Between Sanity and Sanctity

Eastern Christian Books: Between Sanity and Sanctity

Tuesday, September 06, 2016

CWR: Pope Francis, Henri de Lubac, and the Decentralizing of Church Authority
The Holy Father wants to enhance the authority of episcopal conferences. But one of his theological lodestones warned of the dangers of such an approach—dangers come to fruition in countries such as Germany.
By Dr. Samuel Gregg

Monday, September 05, 2016

Mother of God

Saw a print of the archangel "Uriel" hanging on the wall of the parish residence yesterday; I didn't think it had been sanctioned but maybe it's an older print.

From 2002: Vatican bans rogue angels

Saint Hermione

Neo-Gothic FSSP Temple in Denver

NLM: Completing the Gothic Aesthetic of a Parish Church by Peter Kwasniewski

I like the sketches; the interior looks like it will be colorful... but I can't still identify with neo-Gothic.

Sunday, September 04, 2016

For the Record



How much (supernatural) prudence is required for the discernment of whether someone has entered into the glory of God or not, as opposed to the movement of the Holy Spirit? It makes sense to me for this to be left in the hands of the local bishop, who might have more of a familiarity with the person in question, or at least with the local cult of that person, as opposed to using a bureaucratic means of assessing that person's holiness. It also makes sense for that person to be adopted into the local liturgical calendar first, and then adopting that feast in the universal calendar of that rite, after the cult has spread, etc. But do bishops no longer have that "authority" to change the local liturgical calendar? Or is it a right that they can reclaim for themselves from the bishop of Rome?

Does a patriarch have sole authority over the liturgical calendar for his region or "particular Church" or rite?

How much of the average Latin Catholic's judgment concerning the sanctity of a person is shaped by that person's exposure through the mass media, a form of "marketing" as it were, rather than by personal familiarity with that person, or knowing someone who is familiar with that person? Should the opinion of someone shaped solely by mass media be taken into consideration in assessing the state of the cult? What role does faith play in the private or public judgment of individuals of someone else's sanctity? Plenty were told Fr. Maciel was a saint and believed it.
Ecclectic Orthodoxy: Prayer of Saint Aidan

MacIntyre Has a New Book

Cambridge University Press: Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity

Thinker Behind the “Benedict Option” Appears to be Taking a Neo-Marxist Turn

Friday, September 02, 2016

Too Much?



St. George Orthodox Church in Sydney, NSW, AUS?

Following Francis and Bartholomew




Pravmir: Praying Without Ceasing by Priest Ernesto Obregon
Praying without ceasing - how on Earth am I supposed to do that?
Prvamir: The Church-Slavonic Text of the Service to St Jonah of Hankow is published (ROCOR)
The "subjective turn" or the "interior turn" -- what distinguished devotio moderna and successive trends in Western spirituality from classical and patristic forms of prayer?

Can we really begin learning about prayer with mental prayer, skipping over vocal prayer? How can mental prayer be separated from a formation in lectio divina and liturgical prayer? (Would that be an accurate characterization of the emphasis of much of popular, contemporary Latin spirituality?) Meditations divorced from the liturgical cycle?

A Beginner’s Guide to Mental Prayer

Published by Ignatius Press at the beginning of this year: The Contemplative Hunger by Fr. Donald Haggerty. (Introduction at Insight Scoop.)








The Remnant: World Youth Day: Vatican Venue for Sex Education by Michael Matt
Tuesday, August 30, 2016

So the Vatican has ramped up its preoccupation with sex. As has been widely reported here and elsewhere, they've now got their very own sex-education program up and running. Published by the Pontifical Council for the Family, “The Meeting Point: The Adventure of Love,” purports to bring young people up to speed on the question of sex and chastity. And who better to do that than those paragons of virtue over at that Vatican.

Byzantine New Year

NLM: Byzantine New Year by Gregory DiPippo

Related: On Behalf of All



CWR: Cardinal Raymond Burke on Life, Truth, Mother Teresa, Islam, and Cardinal Sarah
Speaking to reporters from Rome about his new book, the American prelate goes on record about Christians and Muslims (they don't worship the same God) and Cardinal Sarah (“I agree with him completely...").
By Carl E. Olson

In a wide-ranging international teleconference call on Monday with media members, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke spoke in detail about many timely topics. These included the priority of standing up for life in addressing poverty and other social ills, the witness and message of Mother Teresa, essential differences between Christianity and Islam, and the recent controversy over remarks by Car...

Eastern Christian Books: Images of Deification

Eastern Christian Books: Images of Deification

Thursday, September 01, 2016

“Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development"

Fr. Z: Pope Francis creates a one new Dicastery out of four, which will be suppressed



Rorate Caeli

More lecturing of civil governments and states to come. Though some might think that the consolidation of 4 into one might mean that the output would be less. But don't underestimate what can be done in a bureaucracy?

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Salvation by Faith




The Myth of Religious Violence





And another lecture at SCU:
Chiesa: Double Friendly Fire Against the “Pope Emeritus”

First Cardinal Brandmüller, then Bishop Sciacca. The one an illustrious historian, the other a luminary of canon law. Both of the circle closest to Ratzinger. But both absolutely opposed to his continuing to have himself called pope

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Eastern Christian Books: Passion and Compassion in Early Christianity

Eastern Christian Books: Passion and Compassion in Early Christianity

Ordered passion/emotion? Or some variation of the care ethic?

Contemporary Byzantine Painting

What's the point?



Should these meetings just be discontinued? If there are to be such meetings, they should be done with local bishops.

A Painting of Benedict XVI

Monday, August 29, 2016

Papal Message to Catholic-Orthodox Symposium

I Ought to Get a Copy of The Beginning of the Gospel

Will SVS Press publish the English translation?

DECR
Pravmir: Metropolitan Hilarion: I Owe Everything in My Life to the Church by Anna Danilova, Ph.D.
(via Liturgical Notes and The Moynihan Letter

If That Was His Primary Reason for Resigning

Then he could have cancelled WYD 2013. If that wasn't an option because too much had already been invested, then could he not have delegated to another bishop? But then WYD would not have had the same drawing power.

All the reason more for it to be done away with now.

The Moynihan Letter: Letter #52, 2016: Why Benedict Resigned

Two New Books on the Theology of Louis Bouyer

One in French, the other in Italian:

L'humanisme eschatologique de Louis Bouyer de Sœur Marie-David Weill

Alessandro Scardoni:
Louis Bouyer: itinerario di una teologia mistica tra dossologia e sofiologia



Saturday, August 27, 2016

Blueprints for the Little Church



the book
announcement
Faith Encouraged Live with Fr. Barnabas Powell

Fr. Cassian Folsom



Repetition But Not Mechanical

An Unfamiliar Title

On Liturgical Customaries for Seminaries: An Example of Mutual Enrichment from the Anglican Patrimony by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

I am told that nowadays some seminaries have attempted more precise handbooks of behavior in church and seminary, general rules of life. I have not seen any of them myself. In my day in the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary, everything from etiquette at table to liturgical decorum and expectations of clerical dress were all kind of an oral tradition that was passed from superiors to seminarians in the form of peer pressure to conform, rather than in any manual.
Pray, Tell: Conclusions Regarding the Female Diaconate

Friday, August 26, 2016

Fr. Hunwicke: The Roman Rite of 1965
Chiesa: Bergoglio Too Has His Nonnegotiable Principles

They are the four postulates with which he continually inspires his governance of the Church, the first of which says that “time is greater than space.” The trouble is that they do not hold up. An erudite Benedictine monk explains why

The Theotokos of Vladimir

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Monday, August 22, 2016

Tumane Monastery

Chiesa: Farewell, Poland. Buttiglione Triumphs in Chicago. And Rodrigo Guerra Counter-replies

They were both scholars of the thought of Karol Wojtyla. But now they are in favor of communion for the divorced and remarried. The former garners the applause of Archbishop Cupich. And the latter duels with his Polish friend

William T. Cavanaugh, "Secularism and Idolatry"

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Including Some of My Favorite Byzantine Catholic Churches

NLM: Assumption Photopost

I hope St. Michael can gain some new members.

Roots of Christianity

Assuming that it did exist, what remains of the pre-Christian Jewish oral (or written) tradition(s) of interpretation and commentary on the Old Testament? Was there something more authoritative or separate from the Oral Torah? How much of the tradition of early Jewish exegesis has been preserved?

Friday, August 19, 2016

Deaconesses and the Dangers of Antiquarianism by Christian Browne

Separation of Seating by Sex at Mass
It seems that, in the early Church, men and women sat apart at Mass, in separate areas of the church building. The practice is noted in the Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome and written around 215, wherein women are instructed to “pray in another place in the church, by themselves, whether faithful women or catechumen women.” Hippolytus also restricts the “kiss of peace” by sex, so that men were prohibited from the exchange of the greeting with women.

This should be of particular interest to the enthusiasts of the Novus Ordo, for one of the grounds for demoting the once untouchable Roman Canon and adding the new Eucharistic Prayers was to recover the “anaphora” prayer ascribed to Hippolytus, now set down as the ubiquitous Eucharistic Prayer II.

In addition, major Church Fathers Saints Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem and John Chrysostom endorsed the separation of the sexes as fostering modesty and as a safeguard against impure thoughts creeping in during Mass. The ancient and enduring nature of the practice is evident from the fact that it was strongly commended in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. “It is desirable that, in harmony with ancient Church order, the women in church be separated from the men.” (Canon 1262, § 1)

Thus, since the separation of the sexes was a practice of the ancient Church, praised Church Fathers, and because many of the foundations of the Novus Ordo are rooted in the attempt to recover these early practices, it would make sense to study segregation by sex along with the study of the revival of the female diaconate.
Crisis Magazine: An Apology for Catholics of the Past by Timothy J. Williams

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

More from Fr. Hunwicke on the Assumption

Why was she assumed? A Patrimonial answer
NCReg: Melkite Eparchy Celebrates 50-Year Milestone of Evangelizing in America by Peter Jesserer Smith
The Eastern Catholic traditions rooted in the ancient Church of Antioch have blossomed in the U.S. since the close of Vatican II.

One aspect of liturgical renewal that the bishop plans to initiate is an adaption of the parochial Byzantine office from the eighth century, so that Melkite Catholic men and women can gather to pray the Church’s morning and evening prayer with each other. The office currently is geared toward monks, but the new “parochial office” will enable the laity to integrate these prayers in their lives and reap their Church’s rich spiritual tradition through the week.

[Roman] Catholicism: The Pivotal Players



A slick production but it does seem to have a rather limited perspective on Church history. I may be enjoy Chesterton's writing but does he merit inclusion here? Similarly, the place of Michelangelo is debatable...

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