The Francis Reformation by Dr. Douglas Farrow

We will not get far by asking whether the Church is to be a Church of the poor and a Church of the merciful. Of course it is. We must ask instead whether it is to be a Church of all the beatitudes.

The Church is Not a Business

And yet George Weigel thinks that it is one, and that a national Church can be turned into mission territory with proper oversight by Rome. Papal maximalism plus a bad model of the Church. Where is Avery Dulles to offer a comment?

Rethinking “mission territory” by George Weigel

Michael Lucas

Some News about Orientale Lumen 2018

New ICEL Translations

The True Vine and Its Branches by Rev. Edward Leen, S.J.

Another Opponent of Ostpolitik

Rorate Caeli: De Mattei: opponents of Ostpolitik: Monsignor Pavol Maria Hnilica (1921-2006)

Will fears of a new ostpolitik, an ostpolitik chiński, prove to be justified?

The Church

That Frank Built Destroyed

Sandro Magister: New Appeal From Fr. Weinandy To the Pope: With This False Mercy the Church Is Destroyed

Catholic World Report: The Four Marks of the Church: The Contemporary Crisis in Ecclesiology
We need to mount a robust defense and clear advocacy of the Church’s four marks, for without such an apology, the Church’s identity – what she truly is – will become disordered, and so will enfeeble her ability to live and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Comment: Whatever what one thinks of Roman Catholic ecclesiology as explained here, nonetheless one can ask if the crisis affects the whole Church or just the patriarchate of Rome, and whether the essay could still stand as it is written if we take the crisis to be of the patriarchate of Rome only, or if it would have to be written substantially.

Has the Life of Jorge Bergoglio

map on to the history of the Jesuit order after Vatican 2, especially in Ibero-America?

How Bergoglio Is Rewriting His Life. The Years of the "Great Desolation"

God bless Fr. Rutler.

The Mathematical Innovations of Father Antonio Spadaro by Fr. George W. Rutler

Nearly fifty years go, my parish secretary, who was elderly even then, kept the parish accounts using an abacus. I gave her the latest kind of electric adding machine, which [...]

Rorate Caeli: All Hell Breaks Loose - German Bishops officially open up Holy Communion to Non-Catholics

Interview with James Matthew Wilson

Too Bad the Full Text of Fr. Aidan Nichol's Lecture for the English Fellowship of Ss Alban and Sergius Isn't Available

Fr Aidan Nichols, and the Amoris laetitia Crisis UPDATED "Fr Aidan reminded his hearers that Vatican I in fact limited the papacy; and surmised 'it may be that the present crisis of the Roman magisterium is providentially intended to call attention to the limits of the papacy [in regard to teaching]'"

Fr Aidan Nichols and the people "who ought to know better" UPDATED "It is not the position of the Roman Catholic Church that a pope is incapable of leading people astray by false teaching as a public doctor. He may be the supreme appeal judge of Christendom ... but that does not make him immune to perpetrating doctrinal howlers. Surprisingly ... this fact appears to be unknown to many who ought to know better."

Aidan Nichols, Amoris laetitia, and Tucho

The Catholic Herald article from August 2017.

The Ancient Liturgy of Jerusalem

OCA: Holy Synod of Bishops Issues Liturgical Instructions (Byz TX)

Fr. Paul Nadimi Tarazi

Apparently he is not free from controversy in E. Orthodox circles.

website
SVOTS faculty page
news of his retirement
bio
a discussion thread at orthodoxchristianity.net

Orthochristian: Met. Onuphry consecrates Kiev’s oldest wooden church on feast of Meeting of the Lord (+ VIDEO)

Eastern Christian Books: The Problems with Orthodox Mysticism

Eastern Christian Books: The Problems with Orthodox Mysticism: Tarazi repeatedly decries the "perversion" that theology--East and West, Jewish and Christian--has wrought to the scripturally revealed God, introducing terminology that is not just unhelpful but unscriptural (ousia, physis, etc)

comment: But what of the Ecumenical Councils?

Crisis: Cardinal Cupich Misreads Vatican II on Conscience by Richard A. Spinello

Just a few short weeks after the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, spoke about Amoris Laetitia as a paradigm shift for the Church, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago [...]

Ὦ γενεὰ ὑπερήφανη καὶ διεστραμμένη, ἕως πότε μεθ’ ὑμῶν ἔσομαι; ἕως πότε ἀνέξομαι ὑμῶν?

Pope Paul the Sad to Be Canonized?

The Roman saint-making machine keeps rolling, for political ends.

Rorate Caeli: The Canonization of Vatican II: The case for Pacelli, revisited

Crisis: Cardinal Cupich’s Modernist View of the Family by R. Jared Staudt

The accusation of modernism gets thrown around a lot, especially in traditional circles. As a descriptor of heresy, modernism is a vague term. Modernism can refer to a movement of

More on Cardinal Cupich

On Cardinal Cupich’s problematic, convenient conscience by Carl E. Olson

Conscience is not the ground of moral authority; nor is it the final judge when it comes to what is actually moral and true....

Related:
Those Cupich seminars: Why now? by Christopher R. Altieri

An Overhaul of the Aristotelian Sciences Is Needed?

Do the categories need to be reconsidered in a way going beyond the phenomenologists (e.g. William Marra)? What about the predicaments? Are the predicaments and attributes/properties confusing to the neophyte to Aristotelian philosophy? While the categories seem to be integral of the Metaphysics, are they so important to the Physics? Can one limit a discussion of change, generation, and corrruption to substance and accident? No, Aristotle does mention alteration of quality, quantity, and place. Out of those three, it seems that the category of quality is the one that may need to be revised in light of a better understanding of the natural world, even if it itself is a rather broad category that includes both color and thought?

Pope Francis Appealing to Vatican II for Cover

Catholic Conclave: Pope- "Do not read blogs that call me a heretic" - source

«¿Dónde es que nuestro pueblo ha sido creativo?» Conversaciones con jesuitas de Chile y Perú

Related:
China en la mirada del papa Francisco

Russell Shaw on Germain Grisez

CWR Dispatch: The quiet, wide-ranging influence of Germain Grisez by Russell Shaw

The late moral theologian, who died on February 1st at the age of 88, had a profound impact on moral theology over the past sixty […]

Couldn't Be Bothered

So the Melkite had to concelebrate with the bishop of Rome in the Roman rite. Understandable. But the bishop of Rome couldn't celebrate Mass ad orientem just this once out of respect for Eastern sensibility?







CNA: Pope of Rome, Melkite Patriarch concelebrate mass

Forgiveness Sunday

Fr. Rutler on Cardinal Cupich

Crisis Magazine: The Clarity of Cardinal Cupich by Fr. George W. Rutler

Does Fr. Rutler have to worry about Cardinal Dolan and the New York chancery?

Ordinariate Study Missal

Catholic Truth Society (thanks to an alert from Fr. Hunwicke)

Reprinting of Christian Initiation by Louis Bouyer

Rorate Caeli: Fine new edition of Bouyer's Christian Initiation - Cluny Media

30% off any order from Cluny Media that includes Christian Initiation

The Spirit of AL

CWR Dispatch: “The Greatest Sin is losing the sense of Sin” by Eduardo Echeverria

Related: CWR/CNA: Cardinal Cupich launches “Amoris Laetitia” seminars for US bishops

The Mystery of Repentance

Equivocation on "Evil"?

Curious.

Repentance

Sanctification Through the Sacrament of Marriage?

Interview with Wesley J. Smith

Macedonia

Crisis: What the Macedonian Church’s Fight for Autonomy Signifies by Ines A. Murzaku

Bishop Schneider to be in San Jose

Eastern Christian Books: Bp. Seraphim Sigrist on the Tapestries of Life

Eastern Christian Books: Bp. Seraphim Sigrist on the Tapestries of Life

More on the Maneuvering around Humanae Vitae

Sandro Magister: The "Disloyal" Maneuver of Those Who Want To Rewrite "Humanae Vitae." A Letter

Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem

(via Byz TX)

Marc DeGirolami Reviews Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed

libertylawsite.org

Eastern Christian Books: Copts in Context

Eastern Christian Books: Copts in Context

Echeverria on the Douthat-Faggioli Debate

CWR: Douthat-Faggioli debate highlights two key, contested issues of Francis’ pontificate by Eduardo Echeverria

Two major issues—the meaning and significance of Vatican II and the doctrinal implications of AL’s moral logic of pastoral reasoning—will continue to present the Church with challenges until such time as the Magisterium makes clear where the Church is headed.

Crisis Magazine: Germain Grisez’s Defense of Orthodox Faith by John M. Grondelski

Germain Gabriel Grisez, 88, died February 1, 2018. Philosophy and Catholic theology in the United States lost a giant in his passing. After Karol Wojtyła, I probably owe my greatest [...]

Is the language of Jesus Christ endangered?

From 2008:

CNA: Debate IRL: Douthat/Faggioli debate moves from Twitter to Fordham campus

Germain Grisez Has Passed

Eternal memory.

In Memoriam: Germain Grisez, Great Defender of Humanae Vitae (1929-2018) by Matthew E. Bunson
The Christian ethics professor, called ‘a towering figure in contemporary Catholic thinking about morality,’ died Feb. 1 at the age of 88.

Aramaic Syriac Chant at Mor Shmoni Telkaif

Mar Behnam and Mart Sarah Monastery

CNA: Cardinal Marx endorses blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples

CWR: Cardinal Marx openly promotes false news about blessings and “homosexual unions” by Carl E. Olson
Will Pope Francis correct the German Cardinal, who has stated that Catholic priests can conduct blessing ceremonies for homosexual couples and says “we have no sets of rules”?

Moves Against Humana Vitae?

Sandro Magister: Goodbye, "Humanae Vitae." Francis Liberalizes the Pill and "Humanae Vitae" Under Siege. But It Will Have To Go Over Wojtyla and Caffarra's Dead Bodies

La Croix: Louis Bouyer, l'homme complet

Byzantine Rite of Ordination for Minor Orders

Orthochristian: “WE CANNOT RE-CHRISTIANIZE EUROPE BY JOINT RESOLUTIONS ONLY”
An English Orthodox priest on the UK, Anglicanism, and Orthodoxy
Sergei Mudrov, Archpriest Gregory Hallam

Orthochristian: MIRACLES OF ST. MARK OF EPHESUS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

If Excommunication Is Not a Remedy, Then What Is?

What ecclesial punishment exists for the senators who voted against the bill to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy?

CWR Dispatch: The Bloody 14 and the question of excommunication by Edward N. Peters

Preparing for the Great Fast

CWR: “Exceeding glad shall he be of thy salvation”: On Handel and preparing for Lent in the East by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille

Given that our Lord and His Apostles and Evangelists transmitted very little about political life and political arrangements (beyond the importance of obedience), would it be erroneous to conclude that political life is not important? Yes. It would also be erroneous to think that Catholic Social Teaching is not subject to change or correction, as its moral theology is only as good as the one doing it.

How useful for a discussion with the Orthodox?

Subdiaconal Ordination at St. Peter

Psychological Impediments to Marriage

What would be considered as such in the Byzantine canons?

In the west there is a consideration of factors that would eliminate consent or voluntariness. But what of broader psychological impediments to contracting marriage, i.e. moral or spiritual impediments?

And deception is not the same as the lack of good judgment on the part of the person who doesn't really know the other person.

Is lack of moral maturity (which is different from emotional maturity but may include it?) sufficient to nullify the marriage? If one of the parties is selfish or narcissistic and cannot make a real commitment despite a verbal willingness to state that intent, can that party truly marry? Or can the law only limit itself to cases in which one deliberately lies about making a permanent and stable commitment to be with the other person?

What of other personality disorders?

How would one prove that a party never had the properly intentionality with respect to marriage? The mere fact that the party left the marriage? But someone could just change his mind and break his vow. It seems to me that it is psychologically possible for someone to merely mouth the vow without intending it; saying the words in order to attain some goal other than a true marriage. Would that be a conscious lie? Perhaps.

And what if the parties are psychologically or morally unable to fulfill the roles in marriage; i.e. the male is unable to lead and care for the other, or the female is unable to follow/obey and care for the other?

Latin Sacramental Theology

Were there any alternative explanations by the schoolmen for the Real Presence in the Sacred Species, other than that offered by St. Thomas? Or was his the "standard" explanation?

Is it possible to formulate an explanation of the Real Presence without relying on Aristotle's metaphysics, and at the same time acknowledging that the Sacred Species is a sign (sacramentum) and a symbol, but not a symbol that refers to something else completely apart from itself? The Sacred Species conveys or signifies the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, localizes and realizes this Presence. Can the Real Presence be explained through participation? It is more than the causal presence of Christ in the natural matter or artifact of bread, nor is it the accidental conjunction of two different things.

Can the Real Presence be explained by other than an analogue to the Hypostatic Union?

It does not seem that if bread is not a substantial unity but an accidental unity that this would pose a problem for a "Aristotelian" explanation -- we would hold that the Real Presence is in all of the parts of bread which are substances.

NLM: Announcing the 2018 Norcia Summer Theology Program by Peter Kwasniewski

More info.

Making Books During the Middle Ages

Rorate Caeli: The Franciscans of the Immaculate: A courageous voice speaks out by Father Paolo M. Siano

St. Agnes

Carrie Gress

CWR Dispatch: The East, the West, and Simon Leys by Gerald J. Russello

A new biography and a new collection of essays provide details into the fascinating life and wide-ranging thought of author Simon Leys, who may have been the last great Catholic man of letters.

What does the pope mean by casuistry?

CWR: The Pope’s misuse of “calumny” distracts from deeper, more troubling questions by Christopher R. Altieri

The problem with Pope Francis’ defense of Bishop Juan Barros is not just that Francis has a poor grasp of technical legal terminology or that he misuses certain words, but that he thinks he knows better and refuses to listen to the people who do.

This would not be the first time Pope Francis’ lexical idiosyncrasies were cause for confusion. I still have not met anyone trained in the sacred sciences who can tell me what Francis means when he speaks of “casuistry” – or “abstract casuistry” – though it is clear he does not mean what is generally meant by the term, i.e. the resolution of moral problems by investigation into the specifics of the case and careful application of the general principles of moral science to the specific case, from within the specifics of the case, themselves.

CWR Dispatch: An evening with William Lane Craig by Bishop Robert Barron

CWR: Cardinal Burke: It is a “source of anguish” to hear suggestions “that I would lead a schism”

“The truth of the matter is marriage is not an ideal. It is a reality,” says Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke in a lengthy new interview with Chris Altieri. “What frightens me a great deal about the present situation of the Church,” he adds, “is what I would call a politicization of Church life and of Church doctrine.”

podcast

What is going on at the OSC at Fordham?

British Council Awards Grant to Orthodox Christian Studies Center for LGBTQ Research

Both faculty members in question are Greek Orthodox, I believe, solidifying the impression that their jurisdiction is the laxist in the U.S. Even if they weren't sincere believers in their project, this would still be scandalous to the faithful.

Cardinal Müller on Papal Authority

First Things: By What Authority
The pope's words are at the service of the whole Tradition of the Church, and not the other way around.

Some Reactionary Orthodox May Agree

Patriarch Athenagoras was a modernist or a heretic? Just because he didn't think there were significant (i.e. Church -dividing) theological differences between Roman Catholics and Byzantine Orthodox. I would guess that his understanding of the theological differences would be greater than that of Pope Francis.

Sandro Magister: Athenagoras, Orthodoxy's Bergoglio

Sun of Justice Preview

Exactly

Ed Peters on what seems to be the latest publicity stunt for the "populist, pastoral" pope: Thoughts on a Mid-Air Marriage (original)

In his update, Peters reports that this may have been a planned event. If that is the case, did the same person who got this to happen also have the conscience necessary to make sure the necessary vetting of the couple was done? Even if that were the case, the fact that this was publicized as a spontaneous event and to maintain a certain image of the pope speaks volumes about the papacy.

Hagiographical Skepticism

Where are the Bollandists now?

RTE Program on the Dominicans

Byzantine Blessing of the Great Waters for Theophany

Rorate Caeli: Mariawald Trappist Abbey Closed Down -- Summorum Undone by Current Vatican Regime

Eastern Christian Books: Nicholas Denysenko on Theophany and Chrismation

Eastern Christian Books: Nicholas Denysenko on Theophany and Chrismation

Eastern Christian Books: Syriac and Ethiopian Christianity

Eastern Christian Books: Syriac and Ethiopian Christianity

Alexander Lingas Interviews Marcel Pérès

Concept: Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann on the Common and the Personal in the Divine Liturgy by V.V. Pechatnov

article

Except the Patriarchate of Rome is not the Church Universal

In other news, Latins still infected with latinocentrism.

Eastern Christian Books: Holy Rus'?

Eastern Christian Books: Holy Rus'?

Communion and Liberation

Cyril O'Regan on Ratzinger

But Very Little Overt Resistance in the Form of Affirming Traditional Discipline

CWR: “Ecclesial reception” in the Era of Francis by Peter M.J. Stravinskas

Out of more than 5,000 bishops in the universal Church, I don’t think we can consider supporters of the problematic practice of permitting divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion as constituting “reception”.

Understanding the Diaconate

Nicholas Denysenko on the Theophany

Theophany, Blessing Waters, and Conversion by Nicholas Denysenko

μωραίνει Κύριος ον βούλεται απολέσαι

German bishop wants to make 16 years the minimum age for the reception of Confirmation: German Bishop Suspends Confirmation For Four Years

Lectoring in the Roman rite in the US

The Byzantine rite does have instituted lectors but it also does allow for non-instituted lectors, who should chant the reading as well. And, there is also a question here of whether the artchitectural feature of the "sanctuary" reflects a good and proper understanding of the temple as a place for the Eucharistic assembly.

The Past of the Patriarchate of Rome

CWR: The Jesuit Pope and the problematic reform of the Roman Curia by Christopher R. Altieri

2017 was a year in which the micro-fissures in the structure began to be visible to the naked eye. 2018 is likely to be the year in which it becomes clear that major structural reform cannot be postponed.

CWR: Pope Francis and Ideology by Eduardo Echeverria

It is unfortunate that the Holy Father’s overall emphasis on legalism is such that he never addresses the antithesis of legalism, namely, antinomianism, leaving us with a lopsided picture of contemporary culture.

Francesco Arzillo Defends Ratzinger

Sandro Magister: Why Ratzinger Is Not a Heretic. The Defense Speaks. See also Antonio Caragliu.

Fr. Lamb Has Passed

Eternal Memory. Thomistica.net