Dominicans visiting Chevetogne several years ago: The Sacraments as Liturgy

Rorate Caeli: Saint Hildegard and Saint John of the Cross, Doctors

Chant Cafe: "To chant, to sing, engages one's whole being, really." - NPR

Choeur des Moines de Chevetogn - Pentecôte

Simonopetra Manastir!

Insight Scoop: The uniqueness of Saint Philip Neri, the "Apostle of Rome"

Byzantine, Texas: French documentary on Valaam to be subtitled in English


Related:
Valaam "Step to the Skies" part 1 of 7 (English Subtitles)



Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Grand canon pascal, choeur des moines de Valaam


Archimandrite:

Rome Reports: President of the Vatican's Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, ousted by board



Is the bank in need of reform? Is it involved in usury in any way?

FSSP ordinations vid

(via Rorate Caeli)

What is Natural Law Like? by Jeremy Waldron (via MoJ)

Abstract:
“The State of Nature,” said John Locke, “has a Law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one.” But what is “a law of nature”? How would we tell, in a state of nature, that there was a natural law as opposed to something else — like positive law, a set of customs, natural morality, natural ethics, a set of natural inclinations, the truth of certain prudential calculations, a widespread but perhaps false belief in some transcendent law, the voice of God, or just a natural disposition on the part of some pompous people to make sonorous objective-sounding pronouncements? What form should we expect natural law to take in our apprehension of it? This paper argues three things. (a) John Finnis’s work on natural law provides no answer to these questions; his “theory of natural law” is really just a theory of the necessary basis in ethics for evaluating positive law. (b) We need an answer to the question “What is natural law like” not just to evaluate the work of state-of-nature theorists like Locke, but also to explore the possibility that natural law might once have played the role now played by positive international law in regulating relations between sovereigns. And (c), an affirmative account of what natural law is like must pay attention to (1) its deontic character; (2) its enforceability; (3) the ancillary principles that have to be associated with its main normative requirements if it is to be operate as a system of law; (4) its separability form objective from ethics and morality, even from objective ethics and morality; and (5) the shared recognition on earth of its presence in the world. Some of these points — especially 3, 4, and 5 — sound like characteristics of positive law. But the paper argues that they are necessary nevertheless if it is going to be plausible to say that natural law has ever operated (or does still operate) as law in the world.

Vatican launches competition to promote the Social Doctrine of the Church



Centesimus Annus
Catholic Social Teaching in Action

For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristeros

Fr. Michael Sherwin informs us that Fr. Bedouelle has passed away. May he rest in peace.

L'Inquisition, Dominique et les dominicains
fr. Guy Bedouelle, o.p.

Edward Feser, Oerter on universals and causality and Oerter contra the principle of causality and Review of Krauss

Rome Reports: Jesuits celebrate 500th anniversary of Diego Laínez, successor to St. Ignatius of Loyola

Gregory B. Sadler, Yves Simon on Moral Virtue (part 1 of 2)
Yves Simon on Moral Virtue (part 2 of 2)

Orthodox theologian to visit Stamford church

James Chastek, Lecture on Thomism and Molinism

The Province of St. Joseph: Preparing for Ordination

Augustine Di Noia, The Vision of Dominican Theological Education (I've posted this link to his page at the DHS Priory before, no?)

The Traditional Mass Is Not a Spectator Sport by Steve Skojec

What this does is create a sense of community – something that I have found to be lacking in many traditional parishes I’ve attended or visited. Often times, the Traditional Latin Mass is attended by people from every far corner of the geographic area, creating a loose federation of individuals that know each other by face or even by name, but have little in the way of a sense of real common bond. It’s a lovely thing to have coffee and donuts in a Church basement as a means of socializing with your fellow parishioners, but it’s a different thing entirely when a priest and his confrères make you feel as though you’re a part of something more cohesive and organic.

This communal aspect is almost familial, and is rooted first and foremost in the liturgical experience. The CRNJs believe in a participatio actuosa that is neither the frenetic, hand-holding around the altar experience of many post-Vatican II parishes, nor the austere, entirely interior participation of those more inclined to chapels of the Society of St. Pius X. It is a human, natural, anthropological form of worship, where one is engaged but not coddled, involved but never given the sense that it’s all about them.

I think the difference in impression is due more to the difference in the size of the congregation than anything objective (other than the members of the congregation living in closer proximity to one another than those attending the EF elsewhere). It is true that many traditionalists have a low Mass mentality, but one will not [usually] find it among the priests of the Institute of Christ the King or the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. I think the biggest weakness in the parish life for traditionalist Catholics is the geographical spread of the personal parishes. The faithful live so far apart that one cannot really say that they are living with one another.

My Beef with ‘Religion in General’ by Andrew Haines

CNS: The Appeal of Eastern Christianity


In Rome: MASS AT THE ALTAR OF THE TOMB OF ST PETER
"Here are some of the photos I took yesterday morning in St. Peter’s Basilica when I attended Mass presided over by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental churches, with U.S. bishop of 8 different oriental rites as they start their “ad limina” visit."