St. Volodomyr

NLM: St Vladimir the Great by Gregory DiPippo

In which he recounts:

The ancient Slavic chronicles record a famous episode that, when investigating which religion he and his people ought to embrace, Vladimir judged Islam altogether undesirable because of the prohibition on drinking alcohol, saying “Drinking is the joy of all Rus’. We cannot exist without that pleasure.” The envoys sent by him to visit the temples of various neighboring peoples reported that the Bulgar Muslim “bows, sits down, looks hither and thither like one possessed, and there is no happiness among them, but instead only sorrow and a dreadful stench. Their religion is not good.” Their report of the Latin Rite among the Germans was that “we beheld no glory there.” But they described the Divine Liturgy celebrated on a great feast in Constantinople in these terms: “(T)he Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty… If the Greek faith were evil, it would not have been adopted by your grandmother Olga, who was wiser than all other men.”

Attention, Latin traditionalists: the Byzantine rite, not the Roman.

Eastern Christian Books: The Greek New Testament

Eastern Christian Books: The Greek New Testament

Fr. Gignac's book (no CUA Press page yet) should be a good resource for those wishing to learn koine Greek.

Meanwhile, at CUA...

Icon of St. Bonaventure

At Mr. Janaro's blog - Saint Bonaventure's Journey.

Another Attempt to Reconcile DH

Vatican II Followed Ottaviani on Church and State by Joseph G. Trabbic

What is the "Penitential Way"?

Chiesa: Synod. The Preparatory Document’s Arabian Phoenix
by by Sandro Magister

Everybody says there is one, what it is nobody knows. It is the “penitential way” to communion for the divorced and remarried. The Dominican theologian Thomas Michelet lays bare the contradictions

And how is the notion of "penance" here related to metanoia?

Ninth Annual Summer Patristic Studies

Check this out!

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Friday, July 10, 2015

"The Chapel at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology"

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Friday, July 10, 2015

As It Should Be

Beautiful photo sent to us with this caption: "From Romania with love!"

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Tuesday, July 14, 2015

George writes: Hello! This is the Altar of my church, in Milcoveni, Caras-Severin, Romania. God bless all of us!

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Monday, July 13, 2015

St. Nicholas of Japan on Buddhism

St. Nicholas of Japan on Buddhism by Deacon Giorgi Maximov (print)

A New Understanding of Anselm

Silverio Rebelo, Le Sacrifice du Christ chez Saint Anselm de Cantorbery, Le noveau visage du Cur Deus Homo, Irenikon, LXXXVII, 2014, 5-46

Summary of Silverio Rebelo:
"The Sacrifice of Christ according to Saint Anselm of Canterbury - A New Look at the Cur Deus Homo." According to the current interpretation of the Cur Deus Homo, Anselm explained the redemptive function of the sacrifice of the Cross in accordance with the basic perspective of the theory of vicarious satisfaction, the classic design of a legal-term replacement of the work of Christ. However, a closer examination reveals a theology of redemption of a very different type, deeply rooted in the patristic tradition, whose basic idea is that the sacrifice of Christ is a life-giving event. According to this interpretation of the mediation of Christ, faith allows believers to share in the perfection of his obedience unto death, which becomes the basis of their life of obedience to God. This leads to a veritable revolution in the understanding of the relationship between God and humanity: the sacrifice of Christ is not a condition of the grace of God for humankind, but a work that renews their way of living, and is an expression [of] God's unconditional will to save."

The article contains a discussion of merit in CDH 2.19 - is this the source of Aquinas's teaching on merit re: Christ's redemptive work in ST III? Or is it mediated by other sources? From a completely unrelated work? Wholly "original"?

The dominant understanding of Anselm's teaching among Latins, transmitted in academic settings, is probably familiar to those who have studied Latin theories of atonement. It is a representation put forth even by Joseph Ratzinger and Louis Bouyer. I assume that both read Anselm's CDH, either in Latin or in translation, so that their representation is confirmed by their reading of the primary source and not based solely on secondary sources. So why did the theological giants of yesteryear fail to get Anselm right (assuming this revised understanding of Cur Deus Homo is the correct one)? Did they lack access to the requisite scholarship for properly understanding how the terms satisfaction and honor were being used by Anselm, definitions that could not be uncovered until they were situated within the historical and theological culture in which they were used? Was it a problem of translation (and the interpretation that precedes translation)?

Carl Olson on Deification

His response to a perhaps well-meaning but rather ignorant Latin (or a troll):

Not only is it not new, divinization is a key concept in the New Testament, in both implicit and more obvious forms. In addition, it is a huge, huge theme in the entirety of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The most obvious example is par. 460:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only–begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

Another great example is in the section on "grace":

Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

Taking cues from the CCC, I think it is usually best to describe divinization as partaking in the divine nature (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4), or being made children of God, drawing on the teaching of the Apostle John: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are..." (1 Jn. 3:1).

But this isn't simply a matter of "mystical theology"; it is Catholicism 101. Which is probably why it is mentioned explicitly in the very first line of the CCC: "God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. ..." Which continues by stating: "To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life."

In the Eastern Churches (both Catholic and Orthodox) the theme of divinization is very clear and upfront, especially in the Divine Liturgy. And yet Eastern Christians, in my experience, don't fall into pantheism or monism or polytheism, in large part because the reality of divinization is clearly articulated within an Incarnational and Trinitarian framework, in which the distinction between God and man is very confused [sic -- I suspect this is a typo], even while the union of God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ is continually proclaimed and articulated. One problem, it seems to me, is that far too many Catholics view Catholicism as a religion of morality and works rather than appreciating that those things flow first from the reality of Who God is and what he calls us to be.

I say it is a theme that needs to be emphasized far, far more often, which is why I am the co-editor, with Fr. David V. Meconi, SJ (editor of HPR), of a detailed study of divinization that will be published by Ignatius Press early next year, and will include chapters by Dr. Ortiz, Dr. Fagerberg, Fr. Hofer, and several others, with a Foreword by Dr. Scott Hahn.

Edit> The corrected paragraph:

In the Eastern Churches (both Catholic and Orthodox) the theme of divinization is very clear and upfront, especially in the Divine Liturgy. And yet Eastern Christians, in my experience, don't fall into pantheism or monism or polytheism, in large part because the reality of divinization is clearly articulated within an Incarnational and Trinitarian framework, in which the distinction between God and man is not confused, even while the union of God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ is continually proclaimed and articulated. One problem, it seems to me, is that far too many Catholics view Catholicism as a religion of morality and works rather than appreciating that those things flow first from the reality of Who God is and what he calls us to be.

Catholic Academia Run Amok

In more sane times, would we give much attention to those who had just left their apprenticeship? One person's networking is another person's conspiracy. Given the age limits, it could never be a professional guild, but should there be one for academic theologians?

New Wine, New Wineskins
Young Catholic Moral Theologians
2015 Symposium

The blog to which members of the above organization contribute, along with others, still publishes heterodox pieces like this: On Naming God: Gendered God-Talk in Laudato Si’ by Emily Reimer-Barry, who is apparently a member of good standing in Catholic Theological Society of America and the Society of Christian Ethics.

If you don't police your own, don't complain if your own orthodoxy is called into question (or more importantly, your ability to stand up for it -- that is to say, your credibility and character). Guilt by association? "We're just trying to make a living." Or, "We don't have tenure yet, so we can't doing anything about it?" Rationalizations for cowardice?

If the extremists at Mount Athos saw this article, it would be more evidence why pan-ecumenism is a heresy, since the Latins have fallen into heresy and their bishops do nothing about it or support it. If they do nothing, they show themselves to be emasculated academics hiding behind academic freedom and false charity (aka niceness) who have no moral standing to lecture on moral theology. Return the teaching of theology to saints.

Sister Vassa, Spirituality and Organized Religion

Related:

The Lake Garda Statement

Rorate Caeli

What version of the Catholic Third Way do they posit between liberalism/capitalism and socialism/collectivism? Hard to say, since they don't say much about it, or the errors to which they are opposed (though some of the signatories have done so in their books). How many of them have tried to run a farm that is as closed an ecological system as possible? Or have examined the foundation of Western economies, cheap energy? Maybe if they had a sufficient knowledge of economics and politics they would not be inveighing against "sustainable development" as if the only understanding of sustainable development was being given by secular humanists who seek population control.

Michael Davies Memorial Lecture

Rorate Caeli: Exclusive for Rorate: Michael Davies Memorial Lecture by Roberto de Mattei - "From the Second Vatican Council to the Synod: The Teaching of Michael Davies"

Fr. Andrew Louth: Love in Dionysios the Areopagite and Maximos the Confessor

Let Us Not Confuse the Goal of the Modern Nation-State with the Common Good, Either

A problem that has yet to be addressed by the bishop of Rome, who remains unaware of it. To make the goal of the modern nation-state the common good, as it is understood in the best of classical and medieval thought, is to justify statism and trespass the limits of political authority. (Because the limits of scale are thereby ignored and justice, which depends upon scale, violated.)

Pope: Let us not “confuse the ‘common good’ with ‘prosperity’”

And the Assyrian Church?

Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako: The unity of the Church of the East
The Church of the East: There can be only one (Pro Unione)
Chaldean Patriarch gambles on re-establishing “Church of the East”

And a response by Bishop Mar Awa Royel of the Assyrian Church of California: Authenticity in Unity: A Personal Reflection on Present-Day Questions Concerning the Unity of the Church of the East

Cardinal Herranz on Bishop Alvaro del Portillo

Bishop Alvaro del Portillo and the Second Vatican Council by His Eminence Cardinal Julián Herranz

Interview with Fr. Andrew Louth

John Senior on the Thomistic Revival

A good counterpoint to Dr. Dennis McInerny's essay. From The Restoration of Christian Culture:

A few uncommon and relatively unknown, and old, theologians still study and teach St. Thomas, but he is no longer received as the Common Doctor of the Church. The Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas himself says in the Prologue, is a book "for beginners"; but we have few real beginners anymore. Our schools and colleges turn out advanced technicians in what are called the arts and sciences, but none has the ordinary prerequisites to traditional philosophical and theological study, none with the famous mens sana in corpore sano of the ancients, that is, disciplined in the perception, memory and imagination of reality. To compensate for our failures, seminaries in the decades preceding Vatican II tabulated maxims based upon the Summa as texts for easily testable courses run on principles remotely traceable to Descartes, full of method, and having little to do with reality, less of memory and nothing of imagination or the spirit of St. Thomas. In the great Catholic universities at Rome and elsewhere, the grand old Dominican and Jesuit masters went on lecturing in Latin to students, many from America, who had to get laugh-signals from the graduate assistants when the master cracked a joke because none knew Latin well enough to tell a joke from a scholastic formula. It is hardly surprising that in such universities scholastic formulas became jokes. The only unusual skill you had to master at the Roman colleges, they say, was to read the easy Latin upside down because on oral examinations the professor would read aloud a question from the manual--holding it right there in front of him. If you had the trick of reading upside down you could give the answer word for word to pass with high distinction. Through a gross misunderstanding of docility, students sat on their disengaged intelligences through hours of what to them was gibberish, at the end of which they received gilded Italianate certificates in Canon Law and Theology certifying in reality an education in outlines, "ponies," and tests whose questions had been leaked in advance with answers right in front of them. And with these doctorates, as professors, rectors, and bishops, their graduates occupied positions of authority in Catholic universities and seminaries. Of course there were exceptions, but I think, brutal as it seems, this is a fair description of the general situation.

The results are still visible among the thinning ranks of priests formed before the Council. How else could the postconciliar failure have occurred? I heard a beloved example some weeks ago, whom I shouldn't disparage in any other way -- a good man of the type of whom in terms of piety it is said in the Common for Confessors, Euge serve bone, in modico fidelis! But, explaining the Eucharist to a parishioner who had been scandalized by uninstructed children secreting instead of consuming consecrated Hosts, he said, "Oh, St. Thomas teaches that only the accidents can be touched anyway, not the Body of Christ, which is the substance."

It is better, as Socrates repeatedly said, not to know and know you don't than not to know and think you do.... Theology and philosophy are difficult, exacting sciences; there are few vocations to such studies in any given generation; and even for those with special gifts of intelligence and will, there are still twelve years of prerequisites in elementary and high school.

John Senior, The Restoration of Christian Culture (Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2008) 73-5.

I think Dr. Senior is probably correct in his presentation of the historical and cultural factors that made Leo XIII's project mostly a non-starter. That period of the the history of the Latin churches deserves a more extensive, scholarly treatment.