Saturday, July 11, 2020

For the Feast of St. Benedict on the New Roman Calendar

NLM







CWR Dispatch: The original vision and attraction of Saint Benedict by Peter M.J. Stravinskas
Benedict’s dream of communities of holy men became the motive force for a Christendom to replace the corrupt and desiccated old Rome.

A Discussion of Usury

Friday, July 10, 2020

St. Sophrony



Holy monks should be venerated. But I have to ask, given certain developments within Greek Orthodoxy in the US -- do the Greeks have a crisis of holiness among the laity? Has activism replaced holiness? Who was the last lay person recognized as being worth of veneration by the Greeks? Are the monastics all they have? (And not even their "secular" clery, including their bishops who were once monastic, qualify?)

Thursday, July 09, 2020

The Seal of the Prophets

Leaving Boston?

Alan Fimister Responds to Plaza's Review of Integralism



Reality Journal

Luis de Molina, Latin Integralist

Catholic Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights



Cambridge University Press

Tuesday, July 07, 2020

40 Years in the Desert



AFR

More on Co-Responsibility

The Will as Rational Appetite

Zoroastrianism

Sovereignty RIP by Don Herzog

Yale UP



EJIL: Talk

Global Byzantium at Ankara

Monday, July 06, 2020

Kwasniewski on "Mysterium Fidei"

NLM: The Displacement of the Mysterium Fidei and the Fabricated Memorial Acclamation by Peter Kwasniewski



For centuries, going back into the mists of time, the priest has said the words “Mysterium fidei” in the midst of the words of consecration whispered over the chalice. These words powerfully evoke the irruption or inbreaking of God into our midst in this unfathomable Sacrament. The consecration of the wine completes the signification of the sacrifice of the Cross, the moment when our High Priest obtained for us eternal redemption (cf. Heb 9:12), the re-presentation of which, together with the application of its fruits, is the very purpose of the Mass.
and
Even if the words mysterium fidei are not necessary for signifying transubstantiation (and thus, the consecration can be “effective,” and the Mass “valid,” without them), the removal of the phrase from its age-old position exudes the attitude: nothing is sacred.
Does this use of "mysterium fidei" match what St. Paul means by the Mystery, Christ becoming Incarnate so that we may be incorporated in Him? If that is what St. Paul meant, then why would "mysterium fidei" be used before anyone had actually received Holy Communion?

With Latin in the Service of the Popes





Fr. Z: GREAT BOOK: With Latin in the Service of the Popes: The Memoirs of Antonio Cardinal Bacci (1885?1971)



Rorate Caeli

HAGIA SOPHIA: SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS by Phil Dorroll



Progressives within Greek Orthodoxy?

A New Explanation

Friday, July 03, 2020

I See the Word Liturgy in the Title

Worth the time to read?

Another Scandal

Magister: Father Master. The Founder of the Apostolic Movement of Schönstatt Abused His Nuns

Personnel et Societe

Thursday, July 02, 2020

A Response to Latin Trads

But still making use of a Latin notion of sacrifice.

CLJ

Shaun Blanchard on the History Behind Vatican I

CLJ





This is more a history essay than a theological one; I presume the author is a Latin and so is unable to critically evaluate Rome's claims regarding the authority of the pope. Certainly the claims of hours
Isdiction have been recognized as being serious by the Eastern Orthodox for quite some time, and rejected as not being of Apostolic Tradition.

JD Flynn on the Latin Problem Who Is Archbishop Viganò

CNA



To be sure, few theologians or bishops would argue that Vatican II’s documents are above reproach, in terms of their style, their language, or their presentation of the faith. And scholars continue to disagree about how to interpret some key texts of the council. But accepting the legitimacy and authority of the Second Vatican Council is a necessary component of maintaining communion with the Church herself.

Latins can go on believing Vatican II was an ecumenical council; they need a Divine Rebuke.

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

Eternal Memory





Orthodox Evangelism



AFR

More from Milbank on Empire

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Scotism

The Sun

Magister Reacts to Archbishop Viganò's Latest

Sandro Magister: Archbishop Viganò On the Brink of Schism. The Unheeded Lesson of Benedict XVI

Cajetan, Integralist

Liberalism as a Felix Culpa

Not really, since it merely precipitated the Latins solidifying their ecclesiology.

CLJ

Jacques de Monleon on Sharing

Monday, June 29, 2020

Hauerwas' Latest

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Friday, June 26, 2020

Common-Good Constitutionalism

Tom Hibbs with Bishop Barron

Phil Lawler Interviews Archbishop Vigano

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Alice Ramos on Reditus ad Deum

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Milbank on Empire

The State of (Chalcedonian) Orthodox Music in America



AFR

A Liturgical Education

Commonweal Interview with Jacques Maritain from 1938

Monday, June 22, 2020

More on "Co-Responsibility"




Thomas Royen

News from 2017: Retired German man solves one of world's most complex maths problem with 'simple proof'
Thomas Royen found the solution at the age of 67 while brushing his teeth

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Part Two of Icons of Sound

Bishop Schneider on Latin Interfaith Dialogue



Saturday, June 20, 2020

Interview with Joseph Bottum

Bishop Robert Barron on the Sacred Heart

Political and Ecclesial Authority

Europa

Apostasy? Maybe Just Heresy

Elder Sophrony on the Three Stages of the Spiritual Life

Friday, June 19, 2020

A Free Political Theology Course

Lex Regia



The Who Report?

Accomodation to the State

The Christian Vitalist International: A translation of “Rescuing the Political” by Catholic philosopher-priest Romano Guardini.



But what is the meaning of the state? You say that it should support and protect the wellbeing of individuals and the whole, that it should regulate and develop economic life, support cultural work. You say it’s everything that corresponds to the laws that the state gives, which it grasps by stimulation and creation through people and agencies. And everything is right. The political designates the economic and cultural significance of the state. But that’s still not the political in the special sense of the word.

To me the political meaning of the state actually appears to be sublimity [Hoheit]. It is the incorporation of majesty for its own sake. But sublimity has at its essence God alone. Thus, the political meaning of the state seems to me such that, since it is itself given by God, it demonstrates and validates His majesty among the natural matters and realities of life. Not in moral and religious matters. For those responsibility lies not with the state, but the church. The state has to represent the majesty of God in the matters of natural life.

It does this most of all by way of its presence. It is legitimate. It does not simply exist, but it exists “with right,” by the grace of God, and this rightful existence demands recognition from other states and from individuals. And it does this by way of right in the life of its citizens: it makes right. It does not have a political character insofar as it pursues goals, provides benefits, facilitates commerce, or seeks to bring welfare, but insofar as it carries its meaning within itself. That means that just “being right” is beyond every goal. Said more precisely: the state is the right that God affirms, and that is the essential order itself. It is right, then, as a natural revelation of divine sublimity. It is on this right that the state stakes in its entire legitimate existence, the intellectual brunt of its sublimity, i.e. the state is “authority.” At the end every law proceeds “in the name of God.” The state, however, even stakes its power on right. It coerces obedience to right.
It is a naive judgment of the state, common to Roman Catholic intellectuals, considering it to be a valid or legitimate form of political organization as what preceded it in history. On this they are in error.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Lord Have Mercy

More on the New Prefaces

Part 6

FOTA XIII Postponed

A Latin Psalter

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Dr. William Diem, Dr. Matthew Dugandzic, and Fr. Dylan Schrader Discuss Usury

Joshua Hochschild Reviews Three Books

The Intellectual Vocation

Princeton University Press: How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education by Scott Newstok

Princeton University Press Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz

Penguin Press: Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind by Alan Jacobs

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Diligence

Byzantium and the Steppes



Don't Start Where Communities Don't Exist

Most people can't relate to the common good or imagine it, because they don't live in a community.

The Public Discourse: Where (Not) to Begin with the Common Good by Mark Hoipkemier

Monday, June 15, 2020

Can. 747 §2



LSN: Abp Viganò on the ‘roots of deviation’ of Vatican II and how Francis was chosen to revolutionize the Church
In a historic text, Archbishop Viganò agrees with Bishop Athanasius Schneider in his criticism of the Second Vatican Council.

In his new statement, Archbishop Vigano clearly distances himself from the controversial Abu Dhabi statement. He says: “we know well that the purpose of these ecumenical and interreligious initiatives is not to convert those who are far from the one Church to Christ, but to divert and corrupt those who still hold the Catholic Faith, leading them to believe that it is desirable to have a great universal religion that brings together the three great Abrahamic religions ‘in a single house’: this is the triumph of the Masonic plan in preparation for the kingdom of the Antichrist!”

Now it is possible that the pope may not be promoting some sort of indifferentist humanism but rather, this is just a logical consequence of Can. 747 §2 and the desire to foster good "interfaith relations" in the name of Christ as a part of exercising that "duty" under Can. 747 §2. Would the archbishop be critical of the canon and the Latin ecclesiology that supports it?

From the letter:
Some may remember that the first ecumenical gatherings were held with the schismatics of the East, and very prudently with other Protestant sects. Apart from Germany, Holland, and Switzerland, in the beginning the countries of Catholic tradition did not welcome mixed celebrations with Protestant pastors and Catholic priests together. I recall that at the time there was talk of removing the penultimate doxology from the Veni Creator so as not to offend the Orthodox, who do not accept the Filioque.

Here he speaks more like a Latin traditionalist, though I've never read anything that would confirm him as such (an overt preference of the EF to the OF), and he may lose the sympathy of non-Latin Catholics who would read this. Maybe he and non-Latins could come to an agreement on ecclesiology that would allow for a critique of the council though I don't see anything to show that he does not consider Vatican II to be a valid ecumenical council.

John Paul II and Vatican II

CWR: A Saintly View of Vatican II by Douglas Bushman
For St. John Paul II, Vatican II is a concrete, historical realization of Christ’s promise to be with His Church through the work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, it makes a claim on his faith.

It's another essay by a Latin about a Latin council, which may exaggerate certain Latin pious beliefs about the relationship between the Holy Spirit and a supposedly valid ecumenical council (but really a synod of the Patriarchate of Rome).
To view the Council in faith, with St. John Paul II, is to see that at Vatican II the apostolic Church experienced anew the fulfillment of Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit, Who “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). For this reason, “Obedience to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council is obedience to the Holy Spirit…. Obedience to the Holy Spirit is expressed in the authentic carrying out of the tasks indicated by the Council, in full accordance with the teaching set forth therein” (Address to the College of Cardinals, November 9, 1979).
One cannot make historical judgments about a council without the exercise of faith, and Latin critics of the council, such as Latin traditionalists, have their own starting points which are held in faith.

Just as the pope may have been canonized in part for "ecclesial" reasons, to promote the credibility of Vatican II, so his judgments concerning the council are perceived to have more weight because he has been canonized.

In the Pope's Backyard

CNA/CWR: In Italy, new book suggests changes to Catholic doctrine on homosexuality by Alejandro Bermudez

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Christian Platonism: A History



Cambridge University Press

Related:
Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism
The Cambridge Platonism Sourcebook
Platonic Cabbalism in Cambridge Platonism

Friday, June 12, 2020

Libertas scholastica



CLJ

Logic as a Liberal Art: An Introduction to Rhetoric and Reasoning by R. E. Houser.

CUA Press

A recview:

Edward Baring, Converts to the Real

HUP



Related:
What Is Continental Philosophy? An Interview with Edward Baring
Phenomenology’s Influence in the West by Graham McAleer

A Vaticanista Book



Sophia Institute Press

An Icon of St. Sophrony the Athonite by Sister Gabriela

Orthodox Arts Journal

Eastern Christian Books: Liturgical Mysticism

Eastern Christian Books: Liturgical Mysticism

Emmaus Academic

Thursday, June 11, 2020

What Future for the State?

Charles Taylor's Liberalism, Again

Stefan Bauer, The Invention of Papal History: Onofrio Panvinio Between Renaissance and Catholic Reform.

OUP

The New Prefaces of the EF, Part 5

NLM

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

The Mazza Hypothesis

Fr. Z: The Mazza Hypothesis: Benedict resigned as Bishop of Rome but not Vicar of Christ. Wherein Fr. Z ponders with a heavy heart.

In the podcasts, Mazza brings up the fact when Christ conferred on Peter what was clearly intended to an office that was to be handed down, when Christ gave Peter the “keys” and clearly made him head of the Apostles, earthly head of the Church built on his “rock”, when Christ at the Sea of Galilee confirmed Peter’s office, intended to be handed down, Peter had not yet been anywhere near Rome.

Peter was Vicar of Christ before he was Bishop of Rome.

When Christ takes the Apostles to Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:16-18) he gives people the “keys”. About a year later, the Apostles are ordained at the Last Supper.

Peter has the keys from Matthew 16 onward, but he is not a “bishop” until the Eucharist and Holy Orders were established by Christ.

Consider that when Christ gave primacy to Peter, there were no sees or dioceses. Peter later would found the Church at Alexandria and Antioch. Wouldn’t Antioch have been the primal see? But Peter left Antioch and went to Rome. So there seems to be nothing absolutely necessary about the one we now call “Pope” being Bishop of Rome.

This is a Latin interpretation of the proof texts used to back Rome's claims regarding the papacy. Non-Latins would interpret them differently. Those who hold to Latin ecclesiology are forced into interesting intellectual puzzles...

Three Scenes in Church History

Sunday, June 07, 2020

English Translation of Divo Barsotti's Spiritual Diary

CWR: The Motionless Flight: First English translation of Divo Barsotti’s spiritual diary by David Fagerberg, Ph.D.
Italian theologian Don Divo Barsotti (1914-2006), writes for the heart, not the head alone. He is concerned to present Christianity as new life, not simply a new philosophy or new politic.

Italian version?

Friday, June 05, 2020

Latins Should Take a Cue?

Dr. Alan Fimister on the Crusade Channel