Benedict XVI on Rights

Zenit: Benedict XVI's Address to Plenary Assembly of Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
"The Rights and Duties Do Not Have as their Sole and Exclusive Foundation the Social Conscience of Peoples, but Depend Primarily on the Natural Moral Law"

The ITC Document on Theology

Rome Reports: Pope welcomes document published by the International Theological Commission
http://www.romereports.com/palio/pope-welcomes-document-published-by-theinternational-theological-commission-english-8460.html#.UMJuhYNlWeA

THEOLOGY TODAY: PERSPECTIVES, PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA

Zenit: Pope Benedict's Address to the International Theological Commission
"Without Openness to the Transcendent [...], Mankind becomes Unable to Act in Accordance with Justice and Work for Peace" [2012-12-07]

Pope Benedict XVI: 'Christianity and Monotheism is of Vibrant Relevance'
Pontiff Addresses International Theological Commission

Rome Reports: Georg Gaenswein, named Prefect of the Papal Household and Archbishop

Fr. Z: Promoter of women “deacons” can’t speak in Archdiocese of Philadelphia

What if certain Orthodox Christians (and Eastern Catholics) began advocating the "restoration" of deaconesses? I think Fr. Z is too dismissive of the historical data, which needs to be addressed properly.

John Haldane interview

3:AM Magazine: aquinas amongst the analytics (via Edward Feser)

A lecture he gave for the Iona Institute - Love, sex and marriage in liberal societies.


Q&A

Insight Scoop: New: "Enchiridion Symbolorum" (a new edition of "Denzinger")

"The New Testament in Byzantium"

Dumbarton Oaks: 2013 Byzantine Studies Symposium, April 26-28, 2013, Symposiarchs: Robert S. Nelson, Yale University and Derek Krueger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

tentative program (pdf)
poster (pdf)

Patrick Brennan Responds to Jordan Ballor

The catholicity of subsidiarity

Edward Feser: Gonzaga lectures online

The 650th Anniversary of the Venerable English College

Rome Reports


Pope: audience with Venerable English College (full text)
Zenit

Archbishop Nichols' Homily at Venerable English College Anniversary Mass
"Today We are Very Conscious of Wanting to Deepen in our Church and in our Lives a New Spirit of Evangelization" [2012-12-03]

Gallery

Rome Reports: St. John Damascene, according to Benedict XVI

Does God Want Us to Be Happy? by Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko

How does he define happiness or happy? A definition is not offered at the beginning of the interview, but we do find a hint later:

Helen: So, the main confusion is that people look at their problems from a secular attitude, saying to themselves, “My life should be happy here on earth” rather than looking toward the life after this one. Is that so? 

Fr. Thomas: Yes. I would also say that not only do people look at life secularly – which I guess would mean with no relationship whatsoever to God – but I think it’s also true to say, especially nowadays, that many people look at the world in a falsely religious way. Not necessarily just secularly. People think that God exists to make our earthly life “happy,” to take away all suffering and pain, to do whatever we want Him to do, that all we have to do is “name it and claim it” and God will give it to us, no matter what it is — health, a good job, a good sex life or, for example, how the human genome project is described. I read it recently on the front page of the New York Times. The director of the project said: “Our purpose is very clear: it is to live a longer, happier, more pain-free, healthier human life before we inevitably die.” Well, many people think that’s a good program. Many religious people think that’s what God is trying to do, too — to make us live a longer, happier, healthier, better, and easier life…

The accumulation of various goods, but not the eudaimonia of Aristotle or Aquinas.

The full interview.

Related:
Something on those happiness studies. [Subjective] satisfaction vs. fulfillment based on objective meaning?

"Confession: The Path to Renewal of the Heart" ‒ A Lecture by Archimandrite Irinei (Steenberg) at the Joint Pastoral Conference in Nyack

This morning at a sale at a local Catholic bookstore, I looked through a copy of Married Priests? I don't think any new arguments are advanced regarding clerical celibacy as an ideal, and it relies on much work already done by Cochini and Heid and the like. It is unlikely, then, that this new book would successfully persuade Orthodox (and Eastern Catholics).

Related:
SACERDOTALIS CAELIBATUS
Priestly celibacy in patristics and in the history of the Church by Roman Cholij (who has since then repudiated his original position, iirc)

He has also written Theodore the Stoudite: The Ordering of Holiness.

From earlier this year: Rome to US Eastern Catholics: New Priests Should “Embrace Celibacy”

Biopic of Joseph Ratzinger to be Made

Vatican Insider: Ratzinger’s life becomes a film
An international production on the life and works of the Pope has been announced in Munich. The film is due out in 2014 and will be based on the written biography by Peter Seewald

Some Events at the DSPT Next Year

From the Events Calendar:

Natural Law - an Evening with Russell Hittinger, Jean Porter and Lloyd Weinreb
Thursday, January 31, 7 pm
Save the date to learn more about natural law from leading scholars: Russell Hittinger , William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa; Jean Porter , John A. O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame; and Lloyd Weinreb , Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University. More details to come.

According to his brother, Dr.  Hittinger's book on Catholic social teaching (long-awaited by me) is finished and will be published soon. I haven't seen any information on it yet.
And the 2013 Aquinas Lecture:

The 23rd Annual Aquinas Lecture - Baptismal Theology and Practice in the Age of St. Thomas Aquinas
Fr. Augustine Thompson, OP
Wednesday, February 27, 7.30 pm
Fr. Augustine will examine new discoveries about the liturgical and social significance of baptism in the cities of thirteenth-century Italy and compare them with the development of the theology of baptism from the 12th century to Thomas Aquinas in the late 13th.

Metropolitan Tikhon Visits St. Vladimir's Seminary
Metropolitan Tikhon’s Inaugural Visit to Seminary Includes Guest Cardinal Dolan

FB album


Related:
SVOTS Dean Lectures in Toronto, and Serves in London at Anniversary Liturgy

For the Feast of St. Andrew

For Bartholomew, the ecumenical journey is "irreversible"


Pope: Catholics and Orthodox, witnesses of the Gospel to the world that has lost faith in God

Contemporary Monasticism, God’s Will, and Everyday Life: A Conversation with Archimandrite Tikhon

Subsidiarity in the Tradition of Catholic Social Doctrine by Patrick Brennan (via MoJ)