Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Advertising New Wine New Wineskins

Church Life: How to Do Moral Theology Today by Alessandro Rovati

But what future for Roman Catholic academia in the United States? And for academics living in the ivory tower?

More on Offering and Sacrifice

CWR: Priest diagnosed with brain tumor offers his sufferings for abuse victims by Bree A. Dail

Last week, Father John Hollowell announced to readers of his blog and followers on Twitter that he has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and that he will be offering his sufferings for the victims of the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis.
 ...
CWR: When you announced your diagnosis, you said that after the revelation of clerical sex abuse scandals in the summer of 2018, you asked God to let you share in the sufferings of the victims. This self-offering is not one that is taken lightly—were you afraid of what God would send as a cross?
Father Hollowell: That day I did it, yes. I was in the rectory saying Morning Prayer. It was clear, this calling. There was a part of me that—looking back on it now makes me smile—even then a part of me knew I was in trouble…in a good way. It’s not something to enter into lightly. I guess everything that I have read, and come to know—all the theological studies I was able to take in the seminary, reading St. John of the Cross and being really formed by him, and Mother Teresa’s autobiography—all of these seem to have gotten me to this point, being totally comfortable making that prayer. I said, “Lord, if there is something I can suffer to bring healing to the Church, I would do that willingly with great joy.”

Byzantine Music



OAJ

Latin Notions of Sacrifice

Holy Mass: You Cannot Do Anything to Glorify God More by Peter Kwasniewski

Jesus Christ delivered us from the abyss of sin and death by the mysteries of His life and, above all, by His death on the Cross, when He offered Himself to the Father as an infinitely pleasing sacrifice of love.

Faith and Reason

TAC: Call for Papers: College to Host
First-Ever Thomistic Summer Conference

Joshua Hochschild: True Friendship: Insights from the Classical and Christian Traditions

Pope Francis on Tradition

The pope who is "not a theologian" and apparently it shows.

CWR: The Idea of Tradition in Querida Amazonia by Eduardo Echeverria

Pope Francis leaves unspoken the relation of Tradition to the normative Scriptures, the Sacraments and Liturgy, creeds and confessions, councils, the theological exposition of the Church’s dogmas and doctrine, and the magisterium of the Church.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Ed Peters Responds to Adam DeVille

Ignoring law is not remedied by ignoring it even more

The crux:
According to canon law, the Roman Pontiff (nb: a human being) “possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely.” 1983 CIC 331. Surely some indication from DeVille that he is aware of this law, and of the doctrinal values behind it, is owed lest he seem to imply that, in establishing Peter as the one Rock, Our Lord invited disaster upon his Church.

Further according to canon law, the College of Bishops (nb: a small group of people) “is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church.” 1983 CIC 336. Again, no indication is given that DeVille sees how Our Lord’s vesting supreme and full power in this tiny group of believers passes muster under DeVille’s supposedly foundational maxim.

But these claims that I have underlined are theological or ecclesial, particular to the patriarchate of Rome, and not "canonical" and certainly not reflecting the canons of the Church Universal.

But the solution to unenforced canon and civil law is not the further and complete ignoring of those laws and the fashioning of new, institutionally unsound procedures resting on fantastical histories and flimsy logic. The solution is the enforcement of laws by Church and State officials and the visitation of harsh penalties on the perpetrators of wicked crimes.

New laws may be necessary. Is the logic flimsy? I don't think so -- more likely than not, they are logically sound with respect to DeVille's ecclesiological principles. One can debate whether those principles are sanctioned by Tradition, but the ecclesiological principles as held by the patriarchate of Rome may be dear to Rome but they are not universally accepted.

Eastern Christian Books: Divine Guidance

Eastern Christian Books: Divine Guidance

OUP: Divine Guidance: Lessons for Today from the World of Early Christianity

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Friday, February 14, 2020

Magister Returns From Hiatus

Sandro Magister: Francis’s Silence, Ratzinger's Tears, and That Never-Published Statement of His

It Would Be in Opposition to Scripture

but I am curious if there is a theological argument to be made that a baptism that is not immediately completed by chrismation is not a complete baptism and therefore not valid. It is unlikely that this is the justification used by some Chalcedonian Orthodox to rebaptize Latins who decide to become Orthodox, but could they make such an argument? (I say it would be in opposition to Scripture because the New Testament records that many were baptized and received the gift of the Holy Spirit only later through the laying on of hands by the Apostles but they did not have to repeat Baptism.


Perhaps it is just incomplete, then, even if the consequences of this cannot be immediately elucidated.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

An Interesting Reference

Here:
There is no evidence for the alleged apostolic obligation of perpetual continence until the third century, and that is contradicted by contemporary patristic evidence, e.g., Clement of Alexandria.

Furthermore, as Vogels notes, ‘… present-day canon law teaching has to regard the fourth century law as void, since the Codex Iuris Canonici regards “the conjugal act which by itself is apt to produce offspring” (conjugalis actus per se aptus ad prolis generationem), as belonging to the enduring “essence of marriage” (ad quem natura sua ordinatur matrimonium), which is guaranteed by “divine law” and i co sewuence, cannot be removed by tbe ecclesiastical lawgiver (canons 1061 s 1; 1057 s 2; 1059 CIC/1983)’ Vogels, Celibacy – Gift or Law?, Kansas City, 1993, p. 42.

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

"Ordinary Magisterium"

If the synod is not a real synod but a rigged one, then of what value is it, and of what value is the opinion of the pope on the synod, when he has no infallibility with respect to the judgment of particulars? The defenders of Rome's claims may go as far as to say that the pope's judgment about what is a legitimate synod and what is not falls under his authority and may even be "infallible" but is that true?

Vatican officials: ‘Querida Amazonia’ is magisterium, Amazon synod’s final doc is not

The text of the Post-Apostolic Exhortation.



CWR: Pope Francis’ Amazon exhortation calls for holiness, not married priests
Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis’s much-anticipated post-synodal apostolic exhortation, presents the pope’s “four great dreams” for the Pan-Amazonian region’s ecological preservation and “Amazonian holiness.”

5 things to know about ‘Querida Amazonia’
America Magazine: Five Takeaways