An Excerpt from Fiedrowicz’s Book

Something not included with Krwasniewski's recommendation over at Rorate Caeli, a link to which I posted here.

NLM: Best One-Volume Scholarly Introduction to the Traditional Mass, Now in English by
Peter Kwasniewski

Law and Leviathan

In 2018, @CassSunstein and I published a piece connecting administrative law with Lon Fuller’s account of law’s morality. (For a valuable response: https://t.co/DnDCybyuHE). Two years later, our project is almost finished. Release date is September 15! https://t.co/dl8HbRz5FU

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 1, 2020

Another Opinion Piece Against Watching Televised or Livestreamed Masses

Rorate Caeli: Tired of Streaming Masses? An Alternative Option for How Families may worship in Spirit and in Truth in this time of Crisis. by Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla

Two points:
1. His recommendation is for people to not watched live-streamed Masses but do the following:

I offer here a suggestion as to what a family might be doing on Sunday morning without the Mass being available at this time. Gather the family together. Let a parent begin by reading the Introit of the Day, followed by the Collect of the Mass. Then let one of the children read the Epistle for that day, followed by the Alleluia verse by another child. Then a parent reads the Gospel of the day with all standing. This is followed by a brief silence and then a Family Rosary. And that is Sunday worship for that day, and it is fine and it is good and bestows grace.

I think they should instead start praying the liturgy of the hours, whether in its full form or something adapted from the domestic church, and they can start with Sunday, Vespers on Saturday, Morning Prayer on Sunday, and second Vespers on Sunday. But this may be difficult for many to learn on their own; why haven't parishes been promoting the liturgy of the hours? Well, we know it wasn't a priority for parish life in the so-called "reforms" that happened after Vatican II, though some EF parishes may celebrate them.

2. The author offers a perspective on the Mass that is predominantly Latin in its principles:

The Church has always understood the Mass as a supernatural event in which the priest, and the congregation assisting him, “bring down” the eternal, bring down heaven in some sense, in doing what Jesus asked us to do: in mei memoria. “Therefore with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven….” The precept of the Church to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days is of course based on the Commandment to worship God. And this worship in spirit and truth is the offering of the Holy Sacrifice that is the source of grace for the forgiveness of sins that makes possible eternal life in God.
...

What does this have to do with streaming Masses? The Mass is a supernatural event that takes place in a particular place and time. The priest and people are not mere observers of the event. They take part in this supernatural event that happens on Sunday in a certain time and place. Their real presence “enables” the supernatural event to take place that brings about the Real Presence.

It has the advantage of being readily intelligible to the average Latin. But it could be elaborated more in a catechetically useful way, with a discussion of the priesthood of the faithful, though "traditionalist" Latins might be loathe to do that.

More on the Reform of Palm Sunday in the Roman Rite

NLM: Bugnini on the Reform of Palm Sunday (Part 2) by Gregory DiPippo

Daria Spezzano, "The Burning Coal: Aquinas on the Eucharist, Eros, and Deification"

The Medieval Mind and Academic Bias - with Rachel Fulton Brown

Eastern Christian Books: Orthodoxy and Contemporary Thought

Eastern Christian Books: Orthodoxy and Contemporary Thought

Pickwick/Wipf & Stock: Theology and Philosophy in Eastern Orthodoxy: Essays on Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought edited by Christoph Schneider

Adam DeVille Reviews Eros Crucified

Routledge

CWR Dispatch:The Idolatry of Eros and the Corporeality of God by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille
Matthew Clemente’s Eros Crucified is philosophy of religion done by a young scholar in such a way as to give one great hope for the future not just of the discipline, but of Catholic letters and intellectual culture more generally.

Some thoughts:

DeVille writes:

One popular, and often dreaded, buzzword in the academy today is “intersectionality,” which is just a newer version of the idea Newman first demonstrated so winsomely: “all knowledge forms one whole.” Clemente, a young Catholic philosopher of religion at Boston College, lives Newman’s method in this book (without mentioning him). Clemente ranges freely across theology and philosophy, refusing to allow them to be forcibly separated via an act of what Paul Ricoeur famously called “controlled schizophrenia.” But Clemente’s point, and method, is not merely reflective of current academic preoccupations to bring things together. It is, in fact, the only method on offer to human thinkers, who cannot (and must not) be bamboozled into seeing the world as divisible, the end result of which is the creation of some “private” sphere labelled the “secular” from which God has been exiled into some other sealed sphere called “religion.” In philosophizing in this way, Clemente is reflecting some of the best insights of recent philosophers including Charles Taylor and one of Clemente’s mentors, the philosopher (and Greek Orthodox priest) John Panteleimon Manoussakis.

Is Clemente's book really philosophy of religion, as opposed to Christian theology? For an unbeliever who reasons accordingly, it might be philosophy of religion. But for a Christian who thinks thus? It is theology, even if the author's academic degree is in philosophy.

Clemente wants us to think about the corporeality of God and its nakedly erotic self-giving in the Eucharist (“this is my body”) as well as its implications for us as human beings in our quotidian living, desiring, and dying, our lovemaking and birth-giving. (Clemente’s one-and-a-half-page conclusion, a meditation on watching and waiting with his wife give birth to their first son, packs in more biblical theology than a year’s worth of homilies from your average preacher.) Clemente writes with verve and a wide sweep of philosophy and theology, ancient and modern. All this learning, including considerable insights from psychoanalytic thought, is rendered in a way that is at once lively and serious.

Might there be some truth in Freud's writings? Perhaps. Would it be better to rely upon sound philosophical psychology which is open to the insights of Christians with rich interior knowledge and wisdom? I would think so. But doesn't it depend on one's audience? What if one is reaching out to those who have been influenced by Freud? How many of those are left?

One does not have a conversation with the dead who can no longer answer for themselves, but with the living, and this is true even in the scholastic method. So how many committed Freudians are there who need an apologia of Christianity or of Christ?

Then there is the question of whether Freud's reasoning and not just his claims can be captured well in essay form... This does raise a question of what the best way of transmitting reasoning through the written word. Something for theologians and philosophers to consider, even if they reject the manualist approach.

Blackfriars 2020 Aquinas Lecture for by Russell Hittinger

"Tradition or Pottage: Reflections on Catholic Social Doctrine"

Lecture includes discussion of the notions of justice an the common good.https://t.co/lpIEkJ9xvi

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) April 29, 2020

Soundcloud

Fr. Simon Gaine, O.P.: "Did Christ See the Father?"

Eastern Christian Books: Searching for Sacred Images

Eastern Christian Books: Searching for Sacred Images

Gracewing: In Search of the Sacred Image by Aidan Nichols, O.P.

Eastern Christian Books: OCA's 50th Anniversary of Autocephaly

Eastern Christian Books: OCA's 50th Anniversary of Autocephaly

SVS Press: The Time Has Come edited by Ionut-Alexandru Tudorie

Related: SVS Press publishes volume commemorating OCA autocephaly

Eastern Christian Books: Old Believers in the Tsarist Empire

Eastern Christian Books: Old Believers in the Tsarist Empire


Bloomsbury: The Old Believers in Imperial Russia: Oppression, Opportunism and Religious Identity in Tsarist Moscow by Peter T. De Simone - hardback and paperback

An Article About the Benedictines of Norcia

CNA/CWR: Monks of Norcia praying with ‘greater intensity’ during coronavirus

That Will Be an Unpopular Post

among Latin traditionalists.

One of the points made by James Chastek in his post on Latin liturgical reform:

4.) The main problem of the TLM is that through historical accidents it lost a large part of its ability to symbolize the pascal sacrifice, which is essentially a sacrificial community meal presenting the sacrifice as a culmination of God’s fidelity in salvation history according to the scriptures. I wholeheartedly endorse the most strident traditionalist who insists on “the holy sacrifice”, but the claim that we have to choose whether the Mass is a sacrifice or a supper completely misses its nature. Passover is a sacrificial meal. If this is Protestantism, then the Protestants were right about something. So what?

I think I would agree with his post for the most part; it's good to know that not all Thomists are committed to the prevailing theologoumena among Latin traditionalists about the Eucharist. (I will have to review Levering's work on these questions.) I am not sure if the more "traditional" Dominicans themselves hold to such views.

Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P.: "Friendship and the Common Good"

Here is the video:

Pinkoski's Response to James Patterson on Latin Integralism

Law and Liberty: How Not to Challenge the Integralists by Nathan Pinkoski

A response to @McGillPatterson on integralism, its origins and ideas. https://t.co/Rcy2Cx6AuR

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) April 30, 2020

And one recommendation for the above by Michael Brendan Dougherty: Is Integralism Just Catholic Fascism?

The swift refutation of James Patterson’s smear tactics is *almost* enough to make me believe in the marketplace of ideas https://t.co/ZhnxS8xsHW

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) April 30, 2020

The author gives a history of the development of Latin integralist thought, starting with the Roman Catholic anti-liberals (not all of whom were strict monarchists, by the way). 

Although its theological claims go back further, Catholic integralism owes its politics to post-revolutionary Europe. The basic presupposition of integralism is that theology is prior to politics and must order politics. As Émile Perreau-Saussine observed in Catholicism and Democracy, this requires a strong demarcation between the spiritual power of the Church and the temporal power of the state. That demarcation was not visible in the Ancien Régime, as the monarch anointed at Reims mixed temporal and spiritual power. The cruel exposure of that demarcation came as the French Revolution’s newly secular state violently attempted to assert its temporal power over the spiritual power of the Church. Since Catholics could no longer rely on their monarch—a Christian head of a Christian state—to protect the Church’s liberties, early 19th century Catholic political thinkers sought a deeper understanding of the principles of authority. They looked to the Papacy—to spiritual power—as the ultimate guarantor of Catholic liberties. Hence Perreau-Saussine argues that integralism is post-revolutionary. Ultramontanist thinkers, such as Joseph de Maistre, helped develop the demarcation between Church and State. In distinguishing temporal authority from spiritual authority, spurning Bonapartist Concordats to revive the Gallican Church, and granting that the Pope was the ultimate authority, these thinkers sought to free the Church from the grip of the post-Revolutionary secular state and campaigned for regimes that would get the Church-State relationship right.

And Latin bishops today act with this sort of mindset, that they have a "spiritual authority" that enables them to lecture the state, even if the state does not recognize their authority. Integralism is a logical consequence to certain Roman claims concerning the authority of the bishop of Rome, and here is its first major weakness. Latin integralists will call their political theory "Catholic" as Latins are apt to label everything part of their ecclesial tradition, but it is particular to them alone, at least so far. Byzantine theory of symphonia may be reconcilable with some looser form of Latin integralism, but it will differ with Latin integralism in all forms in so far as integralism is tied to ultramontanism or a maximalist conception of the papacy. While symphonia developed within the context of empire, on the face of it I cannot see why a version of it cannot be harmonized with republican forms of government.

The rest of the essay is worth reading as the author discusses the relation of integralism to political movements in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is not a thorough history nor does he mention all of the Latin counter-revolutionary/anti-liberal thinkers, but hopefully Patterson will read it.

Carron on Giussani

Julián Carrón presenta "Il senso religioso" di Luigi Giussani - Comunione e Liberazione


Intervento di Julián Carrón al corso su Il Senso Religioso (versione corretta)


Julián Carrón presenta "All'origine della pretesa cristiana" di Giussani - Comunione e Liberazione


Presentación de «El Sentido Religioso» de Luigi Giussani por el P. Julián Carrón


Julián Carrón e Luciano Violante - Incontro sull'educazione al Teatro Dal Verme

Another Recommendation for Fiedrowicz’s Book

Rorate Caeli: The supreme literary vindication of Summorum Pontificum: Fiedrowicz’s comprehensive guide to the Traditional Mass — now in English by Peter Kwasniewski

"There is No Gnosticism"

CLJ: Historiography and the Demands of Theory: Did Gnosticism Exist? by Cyril O'Regan