Not Vatican II's Fault

Just systemic issues that weren't and couldn't be solved just by a synod.

Sunt lacrimae rerum https://t.co/gzuFFZQJyr

— Pater Edmund (@sancrucensis) August 29, 2020

Elsewhere:

Possibly the most painfully ironic photo ever taken: the dumpster of a liberal Catholic monastery, full of sixty copies of Our Latin Heritage. pic.twitter.com/YQASbmgySc

— Urban Hannon (@hannonregular) August 28, 2020

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist 2020

NLM

The beheading of the Forerunner became an act of divine dispensation, for he preached to those in hell the coming of the Savior. Let Herodias lament, for she entreated lawless murder, loving not the law of God nor eternal life, but that which is false and temporal (Kont., Tone 5) pic.twitter.com/l9DI75zPYv

— St Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary (@stvlads) August 29, 2020

St. John the Baptist in Deesis of Hagia Sophia, Bearing Witness in Chora, Baptism of Christ in Neonian Baptistery (Ravenna), Fresco at Museum of Byzantine Culture (Thessaloniki)
Today is commemoration of the beheading of the Holy and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John pic.twitter.com/4whJYFq1K1

— The Byzantine Legacy (@ByzantineLegacy) August 29, 2020

Integralism as Default

Timon Cline

This month @ConciliarPost I look at the utility of integralism as descriptive (if not normative): https://t.co/cgHjQZzNx2

— Timon Cline (@tlloydcline) August 28, 2020

My response: the problem is not that the state is just of the wrong confession at the moment; the problem is the state itself. Filling the state with believing Catholics or Christians will not eliminate this fundamental problem of scale.

Jeff Mirus on Latin Integralism

The return of “Integralism”? https://t.co/Zrf4XaZkQJ @FormTheCulture

— The Catholic Thing (@catholicthing) August 27, 2020

Recognizing that the Church is the arbiter not only of Divine Revelation but of what God reveals through creation in what we call the Natural Law, I am more inclined to want to get the natural law right, to study Catholic social teaching with great care, and to develop a political party that combines the best and most comprehensive recognition of the corresponding principles that ought to animate both the social order and government itself.

Latins claim this as a part of the authority of the Church (see CCC 2036 and Dignitatis Humane 14), but where is the warrant within Apostolic Tradition? Setting aside those secondary precepts which are not directly directly through reasoning but are determined by reason or are applications of reason in finding a convention to order some state of affairs (e.g. driving on which side of the road), there are several points to be made.

1. There are precepts of Natural Law that have nonetheless been revealed directly by God as well. These have been passed down as a part of Sacred Tradition. So bishops can be said to be arbiters of the Natural Law, in so far as they have received it as a part of God's revelation to Israel and in Christ. But does that revelation include all possible secondary precepts?
2. Knowing apart from Divine Revelation the "fullness" of the Natural Law requires not intellectual virtue but moral virtue. Do bishops have a special charism from the Holy Spirit that replaces the need for this and the habit of synderesis and the logical reasoning required as well? This is a more dubious claim.

That the Church possesses the authority to teach the precepts of the Natural Law is probably a long-standing Latin theological opinion. (Going back to Trent if not some time before, during the medieval period?) I'd like to read a treatise or manual that show some nuance in presenting this. Can the patriarchate of Rome cite one of its "ecumenical councils" as an authority espousing this opinon? I am doubtful, since the CCC makes no such reference.

See the old CE entry on the Natural Law.

Voluntarism? Nominalism?

OUP: Political Theology of International Order by William Bain

Defenses and critiques of modern politics will ultimately come back to the choice between a metaphysics of inherent order or divine fiat, so which should we choose? https://t.co/lgv4xL7DN0

— Richard Reinsch (@Reinsch84) August 28, 2020

Theological Roots of the Secular World Order by Nathaniel Peters

Did people with power and influence really believe in legal voluntarism? Or were they just acting in accordance with their appetites? Is this sort of genealogy, putting the blame on late medieval theology/philosophy for "modernity" really still useful, in comparison with a proper study of history?

The Future of ROCOR

The Future of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) https://t.co/AwoukvcDcC

— Russian Faith (@Russian_Faith) August 26, 2020

Orthodox Christianity

Sure

But what future for academic theology in an age of collapse?

"Like Narcissus, such a person can pursue the discipline of theology only to discover that they have not found God, but an image of themselves reflected in a cultural mirror."

a #mustread from @ccpecknold https://t.co/bTRRBhNRhH

— stephen brannon (@stephenbrannon_) August 27, 2020

St. Phanourios, Pray for Us!

We also celebrate the Holy Martyr Phanourios (Φανούριος Μεγαλομάρτυς)

The faithful pray to Saint Phanourios especially to help them recover things that have been lost. https://t.co/lfrZ8Wu3QK

— Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada (@GO_Metropolis) August 27, 2020

Saint Phanourius is considered as the pre-eminent saint who can help to find (“reveal”) any lost belongings#orthodox_times

https://t.co/gY9i7rZif8

— Orthodox Times (@orthodox_times) August 27, 2020

Fanouropita is a Greek fasting-appropriate cake brought as an offering to Saint Phanourius for helping people find lost things and not only#orthodox_times https://t.co/FiI3LmO0BM

— Orthodox Times (@orthodox_times) August 27, 2020

Orthodox Soteriology

"As separation from God, death—not physical, not physiological death, but death as sin and separation—has been abolished by Christ’s death." - Alexander Schmemann pic.twitter.com/1pnO570kKF

— SVS Press (@SVSPress) August 27, 2020

Who Needed Ressourcement to a Greater Degree than the Other Jurisdictions?

The patriarchate of Rome.

CWR : The Next Pope is an evangelical call to ressourcement by Eduardo Echeverria
George Weigel’s new book provides a balanced perspective on what the next pope should embrace in order to promote the radically Christocentric and evangelical imperative of the Church.

Yves Congar and the Future of the Church in its Past
by Charles Taylorhttps://t.co/AT5pehdjBY

— Church Life Journal (@ChurchLifeND) August 26, 2020

Church Life Journal

I'm not going to critique Taylor here, though what he says is worthy of critique, as his understanding of the problem of political life is flawed, and affects his understanding of the Church's mission as well.

I won't disagree that the patriarchate of Rome needed Ressourcement, not only to become familiar with the Fathers as models, but also as voices of the Tradition, and to be able to distinguish between what is directly pertaining to the Kerygma, theological propositions that have been found to have value in explaining the Kerygma and accepted by the Church Universal, theological opinion that is not yet accepted by all of the Church Universal, and so on. Was a Latin synod posturing as an ecumenical council the best or most effective means of bringing Ressourcement to Latin bishops? Or could this aspect of ecclesial reform have been done in a better and more cost-effective way? If the synod had just been an opportunity for bishops to gather, pray, study and have discussions, without feeling it necessary to issue documents to justify the calling of the synod, would the results have been better?

Saint Gregory Palamas on Pure Prayer and Its Benefits

Agia Sophia Cathedral in Warsaw

Agia Sophia Cathedral in Warsaw to be consecrated on eve of Nativity of Theotokoshttps://t.co/ZkHFmNbXtD

The foundation stone of the cathedral, the first new church in Warsaw in 100 years, was laid by Met. Sawa and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in December 2015, an... pic.twitter.com/hVdfOW1Ev9

— Orthodox Christianity (@Orthodoxy2019) August 25, 2020

A Useful Reference

Cappelli's dictionary of medieval Latin abbreviations is now a search engine on @Twittfontes: https://t.co/9pbm1y3hCr

— Anna Dorofeeva (@LitteraCarolina) August 24, 2020

Cappelli Online

Maybe Not Everything Jacob Did Was Praiseworthy

Indeed, especially in his life before receiving the name of Israel, which was not given in exchange for him overcoming God, but as a gift?

And our Lord is confirming this?

There is something odd (almost, dare I say, ironic) about our Lord calling Nathanael "a true Israelite, without guile" (John 1:47), since of course the original Israel (Jacob), was a man of preeminent guile, who tricked his brother Esau and his father Isaac to get his blessing.

— Pater Edmund (@sancrucensis) August 24, 2020

Lumen Christi Institute Fall Webinar Series: Eastern Catholic Theology in Action

More info.

Eastern Christian Books: Imperial Violence in and for Christian Constantinople

Eastern Christian Books: Imperial Violence in and for Christian Constantinople UC Press: Constantinople Ritual, Violence, and Memory in the Making of a Christian Imperial Capital by Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos

What About the Old Believers?

Dr. Brian Butcher does say that the Ukrainian Catholic recension is closer to the Greek and the pre-Nikonian Russian recensions... I'd like to see a video comparing the pre-Nikonian recension with the reformed recension.

Ukrainian Catholic Church preserved Byzantine rite liturgical customs lost by Russian Orthodoxhttps://t.co/hbvXoHPtKB@sosonkyrie @Frustratedatbe1 @snitsova @te_rowley @Irkutyanin1 @MaryShulika @lara_lazar @sumlenny @dalybeauty @JoEdward123 @DunsScottus @ValarVarda @niktwick

— Sheptytsky Institute (@Sheptytsky) August 22, 2020

Conquerors Do What Conquerors Do

A month after Hagia Sophia's conversion into a mosque, Turkey’s president Recep Erdoğan has now ordered the 700 year old Byzantine Greek Chora Church in Istanbul to be turned into a fully functioning mosque. The #GreekGenocide continues. https://t.co/xfujknTRG1 via @cnalive

— Greek Genocide RCen (@Greek_Genocide) August 22, 2020

"Pumped Up Kicks" in Old English

Pumped up kicks 1066 A.D Cover in Old English (Anglo Saxon) Bardcorehttps://t.co/H0T05nScWG

— Battle Beagle (@HarmlessYardDog) August 21, 2020

Related:

Fr. Andriy Chirovsky on Ukraine