Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Salvatore Natoli on Fratelli Tutti

If there is any charity to be applied, it is regarding Francis' intention -- one can believe he is not being deliberately ambiguous to confuse and obfuscate, but his theological habitus is just muddled. But given the clarity that often shows up in his tweets, even this interpretation may be tenuous.

Sandro Magister: All Brothers, But Without God Anymore. A Philosopher Judges the Latest Encyclical From Francis

Dr. Nicholas Didonato on Essence and Energies

More of Holy Kallinikos of Edessa




Tuesday, October 13, 2020

A Liberal Could Agree With This

At least the love part, and the consequence that we should not use capital punishment.
The Holy Father does not directly engage the long-established tradition that recognizes its legitimacy; he instead moves beyond, appealing to a tradition within the Church which transcends bare moral truth, to love beyond the minimal, especially when it comes to something that so cuts off the other.

This is not a “change” in Church teaching any more than “love thy neighbor” is a “change” from “the Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked.” Opposing the death penalty is to love despite and beyond any underlying moral truth, which by itself would be inadequate in expressing Christ’s unending outpouring of forgiveness and mercy.
It really isn't more than an attempt to side-step the clear theological problem for the sake of preserving Latin claims about Roman primacy.


The Josias

Michael Pakaluk on Fratelli Tutti



A a Roman Catholic, Pakaluk accepts Latin claims about Roman primacy. As for brotherhood, Pope Francis is addressing not only Christians but all of his brothers, those who are his brothers merely by being human and have some sort of affinity by nature and origin.

Again: A Questionable Use of a Parable for Moral and Political Theological Purposes

Cardinal Müller on Fratelli Tutti

CWR: Cardinal Müller discusses Fratelli tutti, Trump and Biden, Corona-virus restrictions, German “Synodal Process”
“In our love for the Church of Christ,” says the former Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, “we must interiorly overcome personal injuries, apocalyptic fantasies about the end times, and the impulse to resign ourselves…”

Kath.net: On Sunday, [October 4,] Pope Francis published his new Encyclical, Fratelli tutti. What is your initial evaluation?

Cardinal Müller: The Encyclical is quite comprehensible and is to be recommended for more in-depth study, insofar as it is addressed to all people of good will and even teaches with Veritatis splendor by John Paul II that intrinsically evil acts do exist, contrary to most German moral theologians. It would be wrong to say that it is consistent with the Freemasons’ or the United Nations’ talk about fraternity, because it emphasizes the transcendence of brotherhood in God the Creator and expounds God as Father and the Church in Mary as Mother of all mankind. Its argumentation can be situated along the line running from John XXIII to Benedict XVI about [the Church’s] social teaching and the non-negotiable values of human rights. The Christian message is not reduced to what is universally human, but rather the reverse: the human way of life that grows from the faith is recommended as a foundation for the coexistence of human beings of different religions and cultures in today’s global civilization.

Joseph Pearce on John Henry Newman

Will Look for an Archived Video of This

Holy Edward, Pray for Us!

Αρχιερατικός Εσπερινός Αγ. Καλλινίκου Εδέσσης Β



Related:





Monday, October 12, 2020

A Latin Essay on the Presbyterate

Crisis: What You Can Do to Help Our Priests by Fr. Peter M. Stravinskas

The priesthood of Jesus Christ, in which every Christian priest shares, is the source of holiness in the Church and the impetus for all evangelization. Through the ministry of the priest, Christ’s lay faithful are nourished with the Word of Life and the Bread of Life; their sanctification makes possible the sanctification of the world.


and

The reverence and respect of the Catholic faithful for their clergy is directed, then, not toward the man himself but toward Christ who is the Priest of the new eternal covenant and toward the priesthood any man derives from Him and shares with Him.


Latin notions of the presbyterate (and its conflation with the priesthood of Christ) and sacrifice, and some clericalism probably are sufficient to explain the resistance to the "priesthood of the faithful" as being "Protestant."

A Voice Recording of Holy Kallinikos of Edessa



Orthodox Times article on the canonization in July.

Mystagogy Resource Center

Will He Resign?

A Controversial Thesis

ByzanFest 2020

Greek City Times



The Crisis of the Abuse of Power and Christian Reconciliation

Catholic Herald Interview with John Finnis



Catholic Herald
He has recently written “A Radical Critique of Catholic Social Teaching”, a chapter in a new book on CST (published by Cambridge University Press) which aims to undermine the credibility of the whole concept of that teaching. I tell him that it will be explosive, and he laughs: “No, it won’t, because it’s in a book that costs about £150 … it has been largely ignored because of the cost.”

So, for those of us who can’t afford a copy, the gist is that much of what we understand by Catholic Social Teaching is tendentious, and bishops would do better to focus on teaching fundamental Catholic moral principles instead, leaving their application to laypeople who know what they’re talking about. He is especially irritated by bishops’ conferences that issue lengthy guidelines on, for instance, migration or global warming, which are matters of legitimate debate. On climate change, he thinks “the Pope goes beyond his remit – it’s a massively difficult question of fact”.

Most of what the bishops can usefully say on these subjects can, he says, “be put in a few pages”. The expenditure of energy on lengthy policy statements is “worse than a waste of time; it’s a misdirection of energy”. The bishops’ job is in his view to preach the moral norms because “the urgent duty to be informed by and genuinely respectful of these principles [is] scandalously neglected by many Catholics in public life”. He makes clear that negative rules – “thou shalt not kill,” for instance – are categorical, without exceptions, whereas positive ones, such as loving your neighbour as yourself, are far more nuanced.


I think he is correct regarding contemporary use of RCST in episcopal statements or even papal encyclicals.

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Chalices

I've Never Seen a Depiction of This Event in the Life of Christ as an Icon Before

Keeping Up Appearances

Nothing problematic in the recent history of the patriarchate of Rome at all... John XXIII probably doesn't deserve all of the criticisms he gets from some Latin traditionalists but I'd still like an impartial review of his life and pontificate.


A Recent Example of "Offering"



CNA Article

Daniel Fanous, Taught by God

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Rowman and Littlefield Participating in Cancel Culture

Bl. Carlo Acutis, Pray for Us!








EWTN Live


A Short Tutorial on Greek Paleography

St. Xenia of Petersburg

Friday, October 09, 2020

Restoration of Christian Mosaics in Milan



NLM

Chant Harmonization (Part 2)



NLM

The Foundations Series

The Fall of the Angels (now available)

Agape

Early Modern Aristotle



Penn Press

The Glories of the Romanoi



Today at 12 PM PST

Registration required.

The State of the Modern University

Cardinal Müller on the Duties of Roman Catholic Politicians

The German Churches Need to Be Purified

Newman as Philosopher

Bible Missal of St. Vincent Ferrer

Universal Teacher

Thomas Mirus observes the proliferation of documents from Rome, addressed not to the Church Universal but to the world.

Latin theologoumena regarding papal primacy in the second millenium has had some version of Latin integralism tied to it. So it's not surprising that the bishop of Rome should not only presume to exercise a spiritual authority over the Church Universal, but the world as well.

Thursday, October 08, 2020

Archbishop Viganò on Fratelli Tutti

LSN: Abp. Viganò on Pope’s new Fratelli Tutti document: Brotherhood against God is ‘blasphemous’ Archbishop Viganò criticizes 'equivocal' statements of Fratelli Tutti that 'are lacking clarity,' and he once more rejects the novel concept of religious liberty introduced by the Second Vatican Council and which Pope Francis once more now endorses.

Holy John of Damascus

Taking Possession of the Building

Trisagion, Galician Chant



Related:

Father Ștefan Buchiu speaks abouton Father Stăniloae

The Fall of the Angels

"Equal to the Apostles"

FWIW

What Sort of Problem?



Most of what is considered Roman Catholic Social Teaching is moral theology and not of "dogmatic" status. The problem is that opinions in moral theology are not acknowledged as such in papal encyclicals.

Ancient Greek Localism

What It Means to Be Human



HUP

UND Law School Announcement
CUA: The Institute for Human Ecology - WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN: A WEBINAR WITH CARTER SNEAD

Sir John Fortescue and the Ius Commune

Wednesday, October 07, 2020

Chant Harmonization (Part 1)

NLM


Ukrainian Catholics



How Theology Should Be Done?

Panagia Chalkeon

Holy Sergius and Bacchus the Great Martyrs of Syria

Still Primarily a Western Phenomenon?

Unfortunately, the charismatic movement has spread among Indian Catholics as well, probably more among those who were Latin-rite but who knows, there may be some Indian Syriac Catholics who have become "Charismatic." Has a renewed emphasis on Confirmation sufficiently addressed their claims about being baptized in the Holy Spirit?

First Things: Amy Coney Barrett and Charismatic Christianity by Dale M. Coulter

Expanding the Archive: Syriac Literature and the Study of Early Christianity Today

Cyril Hovorun. Public lecture on International Relations and Ecumenism



Patti Gallagher Mansfield

Peter Beaulieu on Vatican I

CWR: The 150th anniversary of Vatican I and the Church today by Peter D. Beaulieu
Has any and all harmony between Vatican I and the central thrust of the reconvened Second Vatican Council now been extravagantly jettisoned?
Back in 1870, Vatican I self-immunized against rapidly pandemic ideologies by affirming, clarifying, and circumscribing—neither modernist nor ultramontane—the dogma and reality of “papal infallibility,” as part of the living Tradition dating forward from St. Peter under the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (Mt 16:17) and Pentecost (Acts 2:1-31).
If what was written by Vatican I wasn't ultramontane (enough), what more would the ultramontanists have wanted? (For the pope to have the right to exercise political authority over the whole world and not just a "spiritual" authority?) What was actually written by Vatican I (and Vatican II) is already too ultramontane for the rest of the Church Universal. I'll have to dig out my copy of The Gift of Infallibility.

Related:
CLJ: The Twists and Turns That Led to the First Vatican Council by Shaun Blanchard

A Depiction of the Crucifixion

That is not so bloody or painful as later depictions in Western art. Would we say that Christ is serene in this one? Or just dead? The missal is dated to a period after the Black Death, but maybe the trend of more gory depictions of the crucifixion had not spread to England yet?



NLM

School of Byzantine Music

Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Which Way, Latin Man?





Have Dominicans Ever Not Been Ultramontanes



Metropolitan Kallistos Ware on the Beauty of Orthodoxy

First Thomistic Circles Conference of the New Academic Year

St. Kallinikos of Edessa

Memorial House of Fr. Dumitru Staniloae

Benedict Sheehan's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

How Should One Understand Parables?

As a revelation of a truth about the Mystery? Or should parables be reduced to a supposed "literal" moral or political meaning, which serve as the theological basis of a papal encyclical on "love" (or "charity")? I think the latest encyclical does bring into relief a difference between Latin (or Jesuits) exegesis of parables and the Christological (or properly mystical) exegesis that one finds in the East.


Virtual United States Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation

Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch

David Bentley Hart - That All Shall Be Saved

Sunday, October 04, 2020

Saturday, October 03, 2020

Eastern Christian Books: Christos Yannaras: Philosophy, Theology, Culture

Eastern Christian Books: Christos Yannaras: Philosophy, Theology, Culture Routledge: Christos Yannaras: Philosophy, Theology, Culture by Andreas Andreopoulos, Demetrios Harper

Cobra Kai Season 3 Trailer

Will Have to Look Up Illich on This



It would certainly be useful for an anti-Latin polemic.

Friday, October 02, 2020

A Quest for the Historical St. Francis



CLJ

SCO Update

Online Conference on Orthodox and Latin Monasticism in the Eastern Mediterranean, 13th-16th c.

Byzantine Music of the Italo-Albanian Tradition



NLM

Thursday, October 01, 2020

Michael Pakaluk on Social Origin

Unfortunately he writes under the influence of liberalism and statism, and distorts Aristotle accordingly.


The Catholic Thing

2020 Ratzinger Award

Venerable Carlo Acutis



Wednesday, September 30, 2020

The Menaia

In Honor of St. Jerome

Who ghost-wrote this? Of course it is very Roman in perspective.
APOSTOLIC LETTER SCRIPTURAE SACRAE AFFECTUS

John C. Ford, SJ

Equivocation on "Nationalism"

And why cherry-picking things from Elders when what they were saying wasn't intended to be moral theology is a mistake. An effect of gerondism?




My desire was to establish a monastery in the spirit of Saint Silouan [the Athonite]. But to this day, I hear that my attempt is purely utopian. People tell me: "It is impossible to overcome nationalism in oneself." But then, I think, salvation is impossible. If I am a nationalist and Christian by faith, then I narrow Christ down to this concept - "nationality." You see why it is impossible for me to accept this narrowing down and why it is a great consolation for me that, although we are a small group, we are eleven nationalities! In the prayer of Silouan, who always calls us to pray for all mankind, from beginning to end, there is, of course, no nationalism. All these national divisions were the result of the Fall into sin. Nowhere do we see a Christian preaching of hatred. This means that the Christian faith doesn’t talk about the rejection of other nationalities, but about overcoming this limitation by ascending to the prayer of Gethsemane.
If ethnonationalism meant loving only those of one's ethnos the exclusion of all others then it would be a sin. But that is not how it is used by those who use it in an identitarian context.

Made to be an Apologist

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Thomas Reid's Natural Philosophy

Uh Oh

Monday, September 28, 2020

Mount Athos Experiences an Earthquake

Ravanica

Usury

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Who Has Made Atonement?

Machairas Monastery

Pravmir: Movie-Documentary: Holy Royal and Stavropegic Monastery of Machairas “Journey to Heaven” by Father Prodromos Nikolaou