Brother André Marie’s Theology Weblog

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Sandro Magister: The Pope Theologian Says: The Proof of God Is Beauty

The beauty of art and of music. The wonders of sanctity. The splendor of creation. This is how Benedict XVI defends the truth of Christianity, in a question-and-answer session with the priests of Brixen

A question regarding the theological virtue of faith

I remember writing a paper on the question of theological faith for a class at the seminary; in it I believe I wrote that it is possible for a non-Catholic to possess the virtue of theological faith and yet also hold to certain errors (on the basis of his own will and not through faith). I don't remember the details of that essay. I was reading through the Summa tonight on faith, and came across II II 5, 3. But is it not the case that a sincere Protestant believes that his church is the One True Church of Christ, and assents to the teachings of his church accordingly? A Protestant who does not knowingly and culpably reject the Catholic Church as the true Church, and is unaware that it is the Catholic Church which teaches the truths of the faith.

Through imperfect faith, he can believe in the more important truths (as embodied, for example in the Nicene Creed), which can sustain charity and a Christian spiritual life, and at the same time be ignorant that other 'less important' truths, which he rejects as being 'non-Christian,' actually have been revealed by God?

Faith is not the same as infused knowledge, but is mediated through human beings who have the divinely-given authority to teach. One must believe in God and that He has given authority to His Church to hand on what He has revealed... the error is not in his believing that there is such an authority, but in his identification with a particular person or group of people?

But perhaps the conclusion of this speculation is wrong. I will have to think of some objections when I have time.

What has caused the crisis?

At this thread over at NLM, Pontifical High Mass, Merton College, Oxford, "anonymous" has cited Geoffrey Hull's The Banished Heart in defense of his assertion that the Counter-Reformation was bad for the Church: "The direct chain of causation between the corrosive aspects of the counter-reformation and the current disaster are well-documented: The Banished Heart, G. Hull."

He goes on to write later:

the counter-reformation was merely the latest episode in the runnning battle those manichean/neo-platonist forces in the church (including, unfortunately, many of the church fathers - which does not mean that absolutely everything St Jerome wrote, for instance, was corrupted by these errors), usually but not exclusively comprising members of religious orders, have been waging against the secular clergy for centuries. It is important to note that the flashpoint is usually related to the fact that we are humans rather than angels (i.e., sex), and specifically the issue of clerical marriage amongst the diocesan clerics. The counter-reformation was merely by far, courtesy of the seminary system, the most successful attack by these forces.

Dr Hull notes in The Banished Heart how this radical change in spirituality in the latin church - which I would argue is essentially an attempt to monasticise the entire latin church to the extent possible - helped lead to the apostasy of complete nations - the latin countries of Europe. Then, we in the English-speaking world had to put up with Jansenism imported from Ireland. The net result of this was that by the 1950's, the church was ready to explode.

THe abuses in religious houses and seminaries that the corrupt spirituality of the c-r precipitated are well documented in many accounts of life in those institutions. In Australia, one can refer to "Cassocks in the Wilderness" and "The Priest Factory" by Christopher Geraghty, or with regard to England, "Seminary Boy" by John Cornwell. These two authors might well be lapsed catholics, but their accounts of pre-conciliar seminary life rang chillingly true when compared with my own (and others')largely appalling experiences in a post-concilliar traditionalist seminary, where I was refused medical treatment, and was rushed to hospital only at my insistence, when it was almost too late. I suppose, I was meant to "offer it up", and "exercise heroic virtue" or some similar nonsense.

The attempt to meld orthodoxy with heteropraxis which was the c-r was foredoomed to fail. Grace builds on nature, it doesn't destroy it. This is a reality that church of the c-r forgot, with the direst consequences.


Some forther reference works for those interested:

Married Priests and the Reforming Papacy: The Eleventh-Century Debates by Anne Llewellyn Barstow

(Good for the purposes of bibliography, and primary sources. Her attempts to seem to argue for a changing dogmatic theology in relation to the priesthood at the time of the Gregorian reforms are flawed. One thing that reading the primary sources should do is convince people that even saints - here St Gregory VII and St Peter Damian - are capable of making mistakes, and quite disastrous ones, too. But that's NOT in relation to the question of the emperor v. the pope).

Celibacy: Gift or Law? Heinz-Jurgen Vogels.

The theological and legal underpinning of the case for clerical marriage. The by-product is the undermining of the spirituality of the c-r. Very Thomistic in approach, without even citing St Thomas Aquinas.


A comprehensive study on this question, even exploring the connexion between the mediaeval heretics such as the Cathars, and the spirituality of the c-r is waiting to be writing by some student attempting a doctorate in theology.

The above is only the most rudimentary scratching of the surface. I haven't even dealt with the role of the Jesuits both for good and bad, and particularly with regard to the latter, the exaggerated and abusive notions of obedience propagated by them (also a significant cause of the current crisis).

A provocative narrative, but where is the evidence? How do we explain the Church's discipline on clerical celibacy, which goes back to the first millenium? And what is the "spirituality of the Counter-Reformation"? As for what happened to the Catholic countries of Europe--should we not focus instead on the conflict between the Church and the state and other forces opposed to the Church?

RORATE CÆLI: Authority and Recognition
Traditional Anglican Chaplaincy in France

International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy

International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy

Abstracts for the 2nd annual conference. I hope Michael Baur's paper will be published somewhere. Information on the third international conference. (Whoa! Dr. MacIntyre is turning 80!?! Wiki confirms it--he looks very good for his age!)

The special issue of Analyse & Kritik with the revised papers for this conference, Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, has been published.

Google Books: Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre (Polity)

Fr. Lev Gillet, “The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church”--Parts 3 and 4

Are Organ Transplants Ever Morally Licit?

A commentary on the address of Pope John Paul II to the XVIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society

By Bishop Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz, Bishop Robert F. Vasa, Walt F. Weaver, Paul A. Byrne, Richard G. Nilges, and Josef Seifert


Thanks to Sarge for bringing this to my attention.

Ordination of deaconesses

From EWTN, author unknown: Women Priests?
A Brief History of the Permanent Diaconate

Then there are these developments:
Church of Greece votes on female diaconate
Female Diaconate restored by Greek Holy Synod
Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Theological Consultation
Introduction to Liturgical Theology
Women in Orthodoxy, Past & Present: A Conference - The Byzantine Forum
A Chronology of the Diaconate
OrthodoxNews: Women
St. Nina Quarterly: "Orthodox Women and Pastoral Praxis"
The Historical Orthodox Deaconess
Orthodox Women's Network

see Canon 15 of the Council of Chalcedon: The Council of Chalcedon - 451 A.D.

So there's a claim that women were actually ordained at the altar, with the imposition of hands, and so on. (Or there are texts with such rituals.) But can there be an ordination without sacramental orders? (What is the word used in Latin and Greek to refer to the Sacrament of Order in the early Chruch? Do the Latins speak of Ordo?)

From Miriam-Webster:
ordain
1: to invest officially (as by the laying on of hands) with ministerial or priestly authority

So one can ordain in the sense of giving someone the authority to act in a certain ministerial capacity. But are deacons just ministers, or do they participate in the priesthood of Christ? (There is also a claim that the diaconate is regarded by [some of?] the Eastern churches as being a ministry only, and not a sacramental order. Trent on the Sacrament of Order.) Speaking of women's ordination can be misleading--what we should be focusing on is the Sacrament of Holy Orders instead. (Even if those women who are attempting to become priests and failing understand them to be linked.)

Female diaconate in the early church - Monachos.net Discussion

And some reaction from the Orthodox Information Center:
Women in the Orthodox Church
Deaconnesses

We also hear the claims that deaconesses carried the Sacrament of Holy Communion to many outside of the temple. Let us also remember that, in the early Church, all of the people took the Body and Blood of our Lord to their homes to commune during the week. The fact that records show deaconesses having a type of "ordination" was specifically to enable them to carry Holy Communion to women who were "shut-ins". Since, as we have made clear, it was forbidden for a male to go into a single womans home, there was an obvious need for this holy service to be done by a woman, hence, the deaconess. The ordination, or blessing, was to allow her to carry Holy Communion to those women who could not attend the Liturgy.

Hmm... Christian Dress and Grooming

Eirenikon has posted two parts of Fr. Lev Gillet's “The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church.” Part 1 and Part 2.

AGORA METAPHYSICA

Was Einstein Wrong?
hmm

PB edition of Jesus of Nazareth coming out on Sept. 15

along with a study guide from Ignatius Press: "Jesus of Nazareth" study guide

Msgr. William B. Smith on finis operis and finis operantis

Msgr. William B. Smith on finis operis and finis operantis

Monsignor William B. Smith, STD by John Janaro

Université Thomiste

I haven't really explored the website...

Cosmos Liturgy Sex: Not to Beat a Dead Theologian, But…

Fr. Guy Mansini on 5 theses of Henri De Lubac, S.J.

Thesis One: Attention to the order of pure nature, which began in the 16th century, has had a malign impact on the Church both speculatively and practically. This is so because of the way that the doctrine of pure nature has developed historically. Either a) nature was conceived of in such a way that it needed grace (as with the theologian Baius) or b) it was supernaturalized. This latter way of thinking about pure nature postulated a natural intuition of God or a natural friendship with God. This latter position is the cause of “extrinsicist” accounts of grace, for which it is thought that human nature can have perfect contentment in its own order.

Thesis Two: God has never ordained for man anything more than a supernatural end. There is an intrinsic unity to the economy of salvation, and modern theology was not always sufficiently attentive to this fact.

Thesis Three: Human nature is what it is because it is ordered to a supernatural end, and would not be what it is if it were otherwise ordered.

Thesis Four: The fourth thesis, as Mansini presents it, is complex. It is a thesis in three parts. First, the natural desire to see God must be foremost in our attention in speculative theology, otherwise we do not recognize the unity of the economy of salvation, and we get mixed up on the relationship between philosophical anthropology and theological anthropology, between knowledge and faith, and between philosophy and theology. Second, the natural desire to see God is both sign and effect of our being ordered to possession of beatific vision. Third, because the human “natural desire to see God” is inherently of the supernatural order, it must be understood to be a necessary and absolute ordination and not conditioned – yet, we must not deny that grace is truly gratuitous.

Thesis 5: There follows from theses 1-3 a prohibition: it is useless to consider in the speculative order the condition of our nature aside from its supernatural ordination.

“Henri de Lubac, the Natural Desire to See God, and Pure Nature” from the 2002 Gregorianum (vol. 83, 1): 89-109.

See also these other posts at the same blog:
Nova et Vetera Contra Henri De Lubac
An Essential Difference Between Thomism and Augustinianism

Magister, From the "New World" Symphony of Benedict XVI. An Anthology

From the "New World" Symphony of Benedict XVI. An Anthology

In Sydney, at World Youth Day, Joseph Ratzinger preaches a "new age" of the Spirit to renew the face of the earth. Three years ago, to the young people gathered in Germany, he had proposed a "revolution." The historic hope of the pope theologian

IEP entry on St. Thomas's moral philosophy

I could write an evaluation after I've finished my own work, but what would the point be? How many people consult the IEP entries?

Zenit: Water More Than an Economic Good, Says Pope

Water More Than an Economic Good, Says Pope

Sends Message to International Expo Under Way in Spain

VATICAN CITY, JULY 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is calling for solidarity and responsibility in national and international policies on water, saying water is a right and profit should not be the only reason to protect it.

There is a "right to water," based on the dignity of the human person, and it is not simply an "economic good" the Pope affirmed in a message to the international exposition on "Water and Sustainable Development," under way in Zaragoza, Spain.

The Holy Father sent his message through Cardinal Renato Martino, the Holy See's representative at the expo.

"Because of the […] pressure of multiple social and economic factors, we must be conscious of the fact" that today "water must be considered " a good that must be especially protected through clear national and international policies, and used according to sensible criteria of solidarity and responsibility," the Pontiff exhorted.

"The use of water, which is regarded as a universal and inalienable right, is related to the growing and urgent needs of people who live in destitution, taking into account the fact that limited access to potable water has repercussions on the wellbeing of an enormous number of people and is often the cause of illnesses, sufferings, conflicts, poverty and even death," the message added.

In regard to the right to water, the Holy Father also stressed that it is "a right that is based on the dignity of the human person." It is "from this perspective that positions of those who consider and treat water only as an economic good must be carefully examined," Benedict XVI continued. "Its use must be rational and solidary, fruit of a balanced synergy between the public and private sector."

Religious meanings

The Pope went on to mention that water is not just a material good, as it also has "religious meanings that believing humanity, especially Christianity, have developed, assigning it great value as a precious immaterial good, which always enriches man's life on this earth."

"How can one not recall in this circumstance the thought-provoking message that has come to us from sacred Scriptures, treating water as a symbol of purification -- cf. Psalm 50,4; John 13:8; and of life -- cf. John 3:5; Galatians 3:27," he noted. "The full recovery of this spiritual dimension is the guarantee and implication for an adequate approach to the ethical, political and economic problems that affect the complex management of water on the part of so many interested individuals, both in the national and international realm."

A concert was held in homage to the Pope on Monday night in the Mozart Hall of the expo auditorium, which was attended by some 1,000 people.

Proceeds from the sale of tickets will be allocated by "Manos Unidas," a Catholic charitable institution, to water management projects for agricultural purposes in India.

Eirenikon: Zizioulas on Love for Unity and the Russian Church

The Ecumenical Patriarch on the Eastern Fathers and Theology

The lecture by the Ecumenical Patriarch at the Pontifical Oriental Institute.

Chiesa: The Encyclical on Hope Commented by Two Non-believing Thinkers
They are the professors Aldo Schiavone and Ernesto Galli della Loggia, on the front page of the newspaper of the Holy See. Pope Joseph Ratzinger knows them, and has read them. Will he respond?

A new puzzle

Regarding equality and justice--just when I thought I was making progress, I find that I need to find the basis for making a return or requital--the precept to make a return or requital when one receives a benefit seems to be more than just the precept to love others, no? But does Aquinas explicitly discuss how the former is derived from the latter?

Just when I thought I had gone as far as I needed, something pops up that I had not considered before. While this may be good philosophically, it's not so good for getting a dissertation done as soon as possible...