Netflix’s Persuasion – There are ways to adapt Austen for a contemporary audience, but those ways are not this way, and I say this not as a purist. Everyone involved should be in prison: Netflix’s Persuasion reviewed (Spectator)
Hart’s fall into Hindu metaphysics and gnostic theology – He “was once the darling of postliberal theologians for his brilliant books on divine beauty and the illogic of atheism. But in his new book, Tradition and Apocalypse, he argues that the Christian tradition is bankrupt.” Hart’s Turn To Heterodoxy (First Things)
Bishops of China – The bishop of Xuanhua, Augustine Cui Tai, 72, since 2007 has repeatedly ended up in prison for shorter or longer periods and is again under arrest in an unknown location. At the Vatican the Game’s Afoot to Be the Most Pro-China. In the Lead is Sant’Egidio (L’Espresso)
The Left’s Agenda – Your child may be getting gender reassignment surgery without your consent. The Left’s alarming push to sever the parent-child relationship has hit the medical industry (Libs of TikTok)
Public Trust – The shift from ad revenue to the pursuit of digital subscriptions has turned journalism into post-journalism. How the Media Polarized Us (City Journal)
Applied Social Justice – Those opposed to the “Great Reset” tend to say, “Just don’t do it,” or they recommend alternatives ranging from returning to a past that never existed or urging the creation of a future as impracticable as the Great Reset itself. It’s Time for a Greater Reset (Crisis Magazine)
Starbuck’s CEO – “In my view at the local, state, and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors, and governors and city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental illness,” Starbucks CEO Blames Woke Elected Officials For 16 Store Closures In Dangerous Cities (The Federalist)
Instructions from the Vatican – Cardinal Cupich is apparently withdrawing the faculties of the priests of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) on August 1, so that they will not be authorized to celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments. Chicago archdiocese, Georgia diocese to shut traditionalist churches (Catholic Culture)
“Respect for Marriage” Act – The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on a bill that would enshrine into federal law the right to same-sex marriage. House set to vote on proposal that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law (Washington Examiner)
Teaching the Real Presence – Addressing Catholic educators at an annual national conference, Bishop Thomas A. Daly of Spokane, Washington, urged them to make sure their work was always rooted in the importance of the Eucharist. Bishop urges Catholic educators to see importance of the Eucharist (Catholic News Service)
Preventing Human Trafficking – As many as 26.065 women from Asia were prevented and rescued from human trafficking in 2021 by “Talitha Kum”, a Federation of Catholic nuns that is committed to combating and eradicating human trafficking. In one year the network of Catholic nuns saved 26 thousand women from human trafficking in Asia (Agenzia Fides)
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Bishop Daly and Teaching the Real Presence: ““A eucharistic vision sees the world as natural and supernatural, full of wonder and mystery.”
Yes, and the foundation for this sacramental vision is that the Incarnation is a real event, and the central event in human history which actually happened rather than not; and, further, that the self-disclosed nature of the Triune God is what gives real hope and distinguishes and even separates the Catholic “Faith” (more than a “religion”) from other world religions.
This pearl of great price from from Hans Urs von Balthasar, the theologian of transcendental “beauty” (My Work in Retrospect, 1993):
“The responses of the Old Testament and a fortiori of Islam (which remains essentially in the enclosure of the religion of Israel) are incapable of giving a satisfactory answer to the question of why Yahweh, why Allah, created a world of which he did not have need in order to be God. Only the fact is affirmed in the two religions, not the why. The Christian response is contained in these two fundamental dogmas: that of the Trinity and that of the Incarnation.”
Infinite and accessible goodness: “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:7-8).
“The ‘rational unity’ of the Christian tradition cannot be known with any certitude, and what we take to be apostolic is little more than the result of ‘political compromise’, ‘rhetorical evasion’, and ‘institutional expediency’” (McDermott on David Bentley Hart, Hart’s fall into Hindu metaphysics and gnostic theology, in First Things).
Hart perceives an inner destructiveness within Christianity, Hart separating truth of doctrine from actual historical practice. That of course a jaundiced assessment motivated not by reality, rather by a more personalistic comfortable idealism available in Eastern religion. Usually the outcome of the intellectualist favoring control rather than submission [to truth].
Key to Hart’s journey into darkness is his refutation of the divinity of Christ, adaptation of Arian argument Christ a mere creature with a special grace of divine purpose. A figure of the divinity. As such all else said in detriment follows. Gnosticism evident in Hart’s vision of Apocalyptic revelation expected to be totally radical, different from the Christian dispensation. Gnosticism, the ultimate worship of the intellectualist self. We may wonder whether this dark journey has similitude to the great Synod of synods. Like two distant cosmic events having dual causality.
This weekly collection of news items is such a blessing. Many thanks!
The article about the Starbucks CEO is pretty interesting. When the woke can’t find safe workplaces partly as a result of their own pandering to the culture, maybe it will lead them to sensibility. Maybe.
Crisis Magazine has Anthony Esolen’s
“A Conciliar Church on a Path to Schism With the Council Itself” on July 20, 2022.
Sharp and pithy. Sadly true.