NCReg: Father Jacques Philippe Outlines ‘Blessed’ Path to Happiness by Andrea Picciotti-Bayer
BOOK PICK: The Eight Doors of the Kingdom: Meditations on the Beatitudes

A Proper Use of Ricoeur?

Liturgical Theology after Schmemann: An Orthodox Reading of Paul Ricoeur by Geoffrey Ready

The Origin of Two Byzantine Paschal Customs

CWR: Female ordination advocates ignore theological truth, focus on power by Nicholas Senz

Those who insist that women ought to be ordained as Catholic priests do not simply want to serve the Church—they want to change the Church. […]

Unirea Canton

(via Byx TX)

But Islam Will Never Embrace Historical Criticism

What If Muhammad Didn’t Write the Qur’an? by Will Jones

In Trust Feature on SVS Press

here

Greek Chauvinism

Does it exist today within Chalcedonian Orthodox circles? Do non-Greek clerics who can speak ecclesiastical Greek feel welcome among Greeks as equals? (And what if they don't speak Greek?)

Greek is no longer a universal language or lingua franca of the Church Universal, but of a minority of Christians. Is the language used as a barrier to entry to certain ecclesial networks?

I was thinking that it should be an ideal quality, if not a qualification, for the bishop of Rome to be be fluent in ecclesiastical Greek. But would this just reinforce Greek chauvinism, if it exists? Perhaps it is not meant to be for the Church to have a universal language (despite the historic pretensions of Greeks and Latins alike).

Liturgical Scholar, Not Theologian or Bishop

Byz Tx: Sr. Vassa: There's no ontological impediment to priestesses

Is the rationale for the prohibition against women receiving Holy Orders (setting aside the claim by Byzantine Christians that deaconesses are a major order) merely that it has been prohibited by God or the Church? Or is there something more? Is Christ a male for a reason? Could the Second Person of the Trinity have become Incarnate as a woman? Could the Second Person of the Trinity exercise authority over men as a woman?

Fotx XI International Liturgical Conference

Eastern Christian Books: Tradition and Transformation in Christian Iconography

Eastern Christian Books: Tradition and Transformation in Christian Iconography 

Eastern Christian Books: Christos Yannaras

Eastern Christian Books: Christos Yannaras

Leonardo Polo

Learning Polo: An introduction to the Spanish “metaphysician of freedom” by Alvino-Mario Fantini

The late Spanish philosopher’s works encourage us to remain faithful to the constant, rigorous questioning required by the philosophia perennis.

On the Conversion of the Western Roman Empire

It would not be surprising if Latins think first of all of the persecution of Christians in Rome in connection with its eventual conversion. But in considering the historic relations between Christians and their pagan neighbors, and to what degree they co-existed, does Rome give us a representative picture of what was happening elsewhere in the Roman Empire? And was it truly the case that Rome converted because the blood of martyrs is the seed of faith? Or because of the rise of the "Constantinian Church" and the subsequent declaration of Christianity as the official religion of the empire, along with the outlawing of other religions? Is this pattern of apparent conversion replicated elsewhere, with the conversion of tribes and kingdoms? And should we really consider that a viable model of evangelization? After all the persecutions (and martyrdom) of Christians in China, Korea, and Japan, for example, has not had similar results yet; and Christians not having the reins of state in these polities is not an insignificant difference. Even if we think of Mexico converting not because of the prestige and power of the Church under the Spanish but because of the intervention of Our Lady of Guadalupe, what about the rest of Ibero-America?

A Church of the Many or a Church of the Few? Louis Bouyer's question remains relevant today, especially with the latest Apostolic Exhortation repeating the calls of previous pontificates for a new evangelization.

Not Mutually Exclusive

Hell: punishment or self-inflicted? What if it is both, especially if we keep more than the sense of poena in mind -- that it is a privation. Secondly, God's judgment is not a distinct act from His being or His love.

The Heresy of Hell as Self-Inflicted by Charles Robertson

I also note that while the title calls it a heresy, there is no evidence that it is so, other than that the position that Hell is self-inflicted seems to go against Scripture. And this only if we hold that Hell being self-inflicted contradicts it being a punishment. But more likely than not supporters of Hell being self-inflicted can offer an explanation of how it is still a punishment, or harmonize it with the words of Christ.

English Translation of the Psalter

For Latins --- what is available?

Magnificat, Give Us This Day: do they use the same English translation of the Psalms?

I don't think Word Among Us provides a version of the Divine Office for laity. I don't think Living With Christ does, either.

Then there is the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham, which uses a version of the Coverdale translation.

How good is the Grail translation for private devotion and singing? (I should ask, is it a faithful translation of Scripture? And how about the Revised Grail Psalms?)


Revised Grail Psalms

I need to do some research on Psalm tones too...

Interviews with Ulrich Lerner

Rod Dreher

‘God Is Not Nice’: Speaking with Ulrich L. Lehner about his new book

No God But Santa

Meeting of a Working Group for the Dialogue between Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches (via Byx TX)

Venice in the East

Not Really an Assessment

But a gathering of opinions from different people.

NCReg: ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’: An Assessment by Edward Pentin
Cardinals Daniel DiNardo and Gerhard Müller praise holiness document; others express concern about content regarding sanctity of life, heresies.

The "Conversion" of St. Paul

OAJ Interview with Ioan Popa

A Decree from 1847

During the peak years of papal maximalization?

If there is to be a patron of the Church other than the Bridegroom Himself, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, why would it not be the Theotokos? Of course this is linked to the growing cultus of Holy Joseph in Roman Catholic Christianity. Still, if he is not accepted as the designated patron of the Church Universal by the Church Universal, does the decree really mean anything? It is just an example of the pretense of the patriarch of Rome to be a universal pastor.

And yet, he still went through with it.

Too nice to say no? Or too indecisive to reject a bad reform? A lack of leadership. A worthy candidate for canonization? No.



Rorate Caeli: Don't whitewash history: Paul VI was front and center the creator of the New Mass of Paul VI

Sandro Magister

May God Grant Him Many Years

Fr. Andrew Louth on the Greek Schism

Theological Casuistry

Re: Ott (and similar manuals) weighing or attempting to weigh the certainty or probability of theological opinions -- upon what crtieria is one opinion deemed to be merely probable versus being of common consensus? (It's been a while since I've picked Ott up so I probably have the exact terms wrong.) Does the author look not just across space but across time? Is there any evaluation of the strength of the opinions themselves other than authority or number of adherents?

Byzantion Choir

Fr. Thomas Hopko on Priesthood

What is a Priest? An Orthodox Statement by Thomas Hopko

You Were Created for Pascha

Fr. Spadaro on “Gaudete et Exsultate”

Sandro Magister: Little Joy, and Great Invective. Francis Explained By Fr. Spadaro

"Voice of the Faithful"

Sandro Magister: In a Church With No Leader, Two New Protests From Bishops and Faithful

Sandro Magister: Francis, Spin Doctor To Himself. His Latest Exploits

Finally, the third modality of communication dear to Francis had as its “partner,” in recent days, a Benedictine monk and psychologist among the most widely read in the world, the German Anselm Grün.

Last February 15, in conversing behind closed doors with the priests of Rome, as he does every year at the beginning of Lent, Pope Francis recommended that they read a book by Grün - whose affectionate reader he is too - describing it as “modern” and “close to us.”

So then, Grün is the one who in an interview with the “Augsburger Allgemeine” on March 30, Good Friday, said that "there are no theological reasons that speak against an abolishment of priestly celibacy or against female priests, female bishops, or a female pope." It is an “historical process” that “needs time” – he added – and ‘the first step has to be now the ordination of women as deaconesses.”

An ordination, this last, that turns out to be among the short-term objectives of Francis, on a par with the ordination of married men to the priesthood.

While on the subsequent steps of the “historical process” delineated by Grün, that of women priests, bishops, and pope, Francis has not yet gone off the rails, either in public or in private (*).

But meanwhile he has recommended listening to someone who enunciates them as goals to be reached, no matter if these are in stark contrast with the “non possumus” of all the previous popes.

Fr. Hunwicke: Women Bishops. Here we go again. (1) and Women Bishops: boredom part (2)

The Sense of the Sacred

Dom Karl Wallner

Panel Discussion on Freedom

Patrick Deneen, "The Conquest of Community"

Carl Olson on Gaudete et Exsultate

Pope Francis “takes aim” in “Gaudete et Exsultate”—and misses? by Carl E. Olson
The many good qualities and substantive passages in Gaudete et Exsultate are often overshadowed, or even undermined, by straw men, dubious arguments, and cheap shots.

CWR Dispatch: The temptation and the challenge of reading “Gaudete et exsultate” by Christopher R. Altieri

Whatever else there is to say about the document and regardless of one’s personal, spiritual, or intellectual disposition toward Pope Francis, it is fair to say the Holy Father has touched a nerve.

Patrick Deneen on Liberalism

The End of Liberalism: Why the World is Falling Apart

Byzantine Music for Holy Saturday

The Ethics of Authenticity

Inescapable Horizons by Mark C. Henrie

Cradinal Burke Interview

Cardinal Burke: Pope Francis is 'increasing the confusion'

Related: Cardinals Burke and Zen to address confusion in the Church this week

Rome and Constantinople

Amazon’s New Co-Headquarters: A Cautionary Tale by Kevin T. DiCamillo

Some Latin triumphalism in this article.


Two Romes: Rome And Constantinople in Late Antiquity

Oriente Cattolico

Crux/CNS: All in the family: Vatican book focuses on Eastern Catholic churches by Cindy Wooden

It Will Probably Be a Mixed Bag

CNA: Pope Francis to issue apostolic exhortation on holiness, “Gaudete et exsultate”

Sacrifice

CWR: Martin Luther’s flawed understanding of natural law: A response to Dr. Korey D. Maas by Timothy J. Gordon

Voluntarism denies the Catholic teaching that logos constitutes—rather than delimits—God’s nature, and Luther was a voluntarist.

Legalism

Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide

Eastern Christian Books: Pope Pius IX and the Emergence of Modernity

Eastern Christian Books: Pope Pius IX and the Emergence of Modernity

Eastern Christian Books: Creation Ex Nihilo

Eastern Christian Books: Creation Ex Nihilo

Eastern Christian Books: Come, Let Us Eat Together

Eastern Christian Books: Come, Let Us Eat Together

Eastern Christian Books: Eastern Orthodox Divorce and Remarriage

Eastern Christian Books: Eastern Orthodox Divorce and Remarriage

But Byzantine Christianity is not the only tradition besides the Latin or Roman one.

Sandro Magister: Two Popes, Two Churches. The "Fake News" of Francis and Benedict's Big No

Who is Reading Jordan Peterson to Learn about Christianity?

As opposed to find a way for self-improvement?

Jordan Peterson’s Jungian best-seller is banal, superficial, and insidious by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille
The real danger in 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos is its apologia for social Darwinism and bourgeois individualism covered over with a theological patina.

Liturgy Outside Liturgy

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ Πέτρος ΓΑΪΤΑΝΟΣ

Related:
It's Not Liturgical So I Guess It's Ok...

What is Salvation?

Did Hans Urs von Balthasar teach that everyone will certainly be saved? by Mark Brumley
Whatever Balthasar’s position is, and whether or not it is correct, it isn’t universalism.

Music for Great Lent

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon on Atonement

CWR: Pope Francis believes in hell—and he needs to stop talking to Eugenio Scalfari by Christopher R. Altieri

Our Lord also told His disciples, “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple...

That He Said This... Believe It or Not?

Pope Francis: 'There Is No Hell' by Michael W. Chapman

Rorate Caeli

Reaction from Pat Buchanan

Why the Cross?

Thomistic Institute: Liberalism and Christianity Conference

audio (via MoJ)

Priest Stephen Freeman: Running on Empty in the Abundant Life (English)

Acquired Mental Handicaps

If overuse of the internet and other electronic media leads to some sort of mental impairment with respect to attention and focus and other acts of the mind, then might it be the case there will be consequences on a person's ability to participate in liturgical prayer? How many of our young people can sit through the praying of a Psalm, or the Anaphora/Roman Canon, without being distracted? Has modern technology exacerbated our natural weaknesses or deficits?

With a Psalm least one can prayer/sing the Psalm and that will help one regain focus. But with an anaphora? One should be listening attentively, and not praying. Though perhaps repeating the words silently might be permissible.

GREAT DOC: American Orthodox Christians and Their Connection with Russia Through Music - PATRAM

Articulation entre théologie et anthropologie dansl’œuvre liturgique de Louis Bouyer: Une introduction à la question by Laurent Penot

More on the Viganò Affair

Settimo Cielo: Far From Continuity, Here There Is a Chasm. The True Story of the Eleven Booklets

Priest Stephen Freeman: Becoming Human in a Secular World

I Have Believed: Christ and the Psalms

For those Orthodox scandalized by the Pauline reform of the Roman rite, are they scandalized that the patriarchate of Rome is planning to canonize Paul VI? Do they see this act as something more than approval of that reform?

Fr. Bouyer and the Pauline Reform

Sacred Music 141.4: "Louis Bouyer and the Pauline Reform: Great Expectations Dashed" by John Pepino

Settimo Cielo: The Devil in the Convent. An Original Memoir of the Catholic '68

But Will a Robe Be Associated with Masculinity?

Or will the cassock fall into disrepute because of negative associations with unmanly clerics?

A Reset of Sorts

NCReg: Youth Leader: Traditional Latin Mass is 'Progressive' by Edward Pentin
Bertalan Kiss says the extraordinary form of the Roman rite is not stuck in the past but rather draws on the treasures of the Church’s heritage and attracts young people because it ‘challenges them.’

Should Be: "Patriarchate of Rome, Where Are You Going?"

Settimo Cielo: "Catholic Church, Where Are You Going?" A Conference. That It Not Lose Its Way

Finally

CNA/EWTN via NCReg: Top Vatican Communications Officer Resigns After ‘Lettergate’ Fiasco
On Wednesday Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò.

Related:
More on the Letter of Benedict XVI. There's Another Paragraph, in Which He Writes…
Like getting blood out of a stone

The Devil and Father Amorth

‘The Devil and Father Amorth’ Trailer: Witness ‘Exorcist’ Director William Friedkin Filming a Live Exorcism by Zack Sharf
What happens when the director of “The Exorcist” shoots an actual exorcism? Let's find out.

The Dictator Pope Now in Print

Author of “The Dictator Pope” revealed (officially) and book format now available

Related: Pope Francis' modus operandi

"Old-school Jesuit"? Doesn't seem like it.

CNA: The theological formation of Pope Francis

More from Fr. Hunwicke on Canonization

CANONISATION (2)

The rites of Canonisation have tended ... this will not surprise you ... to vary in the last seventy years. The most recent changes before this (PF) pontificate, which took place under Benedict XVI, seemed designed to impose on the rites a theological meaning which they previously had not so explicitly expressed. As Pope Benedict left the rite, before the singing of Veni Creator Spiritus the Pontiff asked for prayer that Christ the Lord would not permit His Church to err in so great a matter. And, in the Third Petition the Cardinal Prefect for the Causes of Saints informed the Pontiff that the Holy Spirit "in every time renders the supreme Magisterium immune from error (omni tempore supremum Magisterium erroris expertem reddit)".

These phrases, added by Pope Benedict, were in formulae cut out by PF when he canonised a number of beati in 2014; and subsequently.

It looks to me as though Pope Benedict's additions were intended to confirm the view that acts of canonisation are infallible and require acceptance de fide. I wish now to point out that, if the formulae introduced by Benedict XVI did affect this debated theological question, then, surely, so does the action of this Pontificate in removing them. In the gradual accumulation of evidences and precedents which gradually build up an established judgement of the Magisterium, surely phrases which were introduced into rites by one Pontiff and, very soon afterwards, removed by the next, have less auctoritas than established and immemorial formulae which have been used by successive pontiffs for centuries.

See also this blog entry at ccwatershed.

A Reform of the Reform?

The version of Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas: Liturgical Vision vs. Liturgical Visions: Vatican II, Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Sarah
Why I believe that the loss of the sense of the sacred is the primary reason why we have lost millions of Catholics to faithful worship.

Much of it a Latin traditionalist could agree with.

Over and above that, for a universal Church (in an age of high mobility), the ability to worship in a common language is most important. How many of you have gone on a business trip to Tokyo, for example, finding yourself attending Sunday Mass in Japanese (which I presume most of you do not know)?

So why should the Japanese have to suffer through Latin just so that a few tourists and legal residents can benefit from hearing something familiar?

Also, the patriarchate of Rome is not the Universal Church. And there is no reason why the patriarchate of Rome should have just one language, when it has jurisdiction over such a disparate group of ethnic groups and cultures. Latin could be a lingua franca for clerics, or bishops, but all of the faithful?

There should have been a greater move towards inculturation for peoples who did not speak Latin or Latin-derived language/Romance language, and this should have been part of the initial missionary effort. (To the Germanic tribes, for example.) Even if the project to develop a native hieratic language took some time as the local Churches discerned for those gifted with the intellectual ability and calling to undertake such a task, it still should have been a priority prominent in the minds of missionary bishops.

What is the significance of kneeling? It is at one and the same time the posture of humility and adoration. Benedict was fond of quoting St. Augustine who declared: “Let no one receive who has not first adored.” The external sign of kneeling helps to safeguard the sacrality of the action of receiving. Admittedly, the Churches of the East (both Catholic and Orthodox) receive standing, however, so much else in their liturgies emphasizes the transcendent that there is little danger of obscuring that dimension.

One can ask whether in the Latin psyche adoration has been separated from liturgical worship due to the rise of Latin "Eucharistic devotion."

Interesting Marketing?

Ignatius Press: Confessiosn of a Traditional Catholic by Matthew Arnold

The book features an oil lamp (or candle holder) that is typically used in Byzantine temples or homes, especially hanging in front of an icon, but not in Latin temples. Roman Catholics, even traditionalists, prefer their bleached candles, which generally go with their statues. Rarely will they put candles in front of a religious paintings. Though perhaps I may have seen this in Rome, but was the candle for the painting or the altar? So why was this particular image used for book? It was probably the decision of the publisher and not the author. To add a greater sense of ritual or piety or mystique that would be missing with a candle?

Ivan Moody on His Setting of the Akathist Hymn

"A conference on ‘Thomas Byzantinus’: Hope for increased dialogue between East and West"

L'Osservatore Romano

"Liturgy, Orality, and Rubricism"

Luther and the Natural Law

Law, Liberalism, and Luther: Beyond the Myths by Korey D. Maas

Contrary to the popular, tidy narrative repeated by Robert Reilly and others, neither Luther nor his colleagues and heirs “abandoned” natural law. Nor did they recast it in a voluntarist mold. They embraced and defended it along entirely traditional lines.

Eastern Catholic Bishops Meet in St. Louis

Romanian Catholic (via Byz TX)

Educating in Christ

First Things: Is There a Saving Truth? by Gerhard Cardinal Müller
Does our eternal salvation depend on the concrete acceptance of the truths of faith?

CWR Dispatch: What to make of Benedict XVI’s letter about Pope Francis’ theological thought?

The brief and perfunctorily courteous note from the Pope emeritus was just that, and there’s no reason to try and make the letter say what it does not say.

Related: The Double "Foolish Prejudice." The Complete Text of the Letter by Benedict XVI

R.J. Snell Reviews MacIntyre's Latest

Power, Preference, and Morality: On Alasdair MacIntyre’s Latest by R.J. Snell

Despite the frustrating sense that much of its argument is asserted rather than demonstrated, there can be no doubt that those involved in the cultural disputes of our day ought to know Alasdair MacIntyre’s new book.

Canonization and Papal Infallibility

Fr. Hunwicke

Again the question needs to be asked as to whether the bishop of Rome canonizes as the first bishop of the Universal Church or as the patriarch of Rome. Was his authority to canonize on behalf of the Universal Church ever been recognized in the first millenium? I would think the answer is no.

A Premature Defense?

Has evolution really been proven as fact?

In Defense of Thomistic Evolution: A Response to Chaberek by Nicanor Austriaco, O.P.

Why did God choose to work via an evolutionary process rather than will a special creation? Because it better reveals His glory and His power. Because it reveals better that He is God.

Ryan T. Anderson on Sex Change

Sex Change: Physically Impossible, Psychosocially Unhelpful, and Philosophically Misguided by Ryan T. Anderson

Modern medicine can’t reassign sex physically, and attempting to do so doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially. Here is the evidence.

The Sacred Divine Liturgy

(via Byz, TX)

She Has Her Fans

Catholic Theology by Tracey Rowland


Fr. Z is one. BOOKS RECEIVED and a strong recommendation and a new liturgical rites manual