The German Pope – “Pope Benedict XVI understood that Christ’s message is scandalous to the world.” “I do not recall ever having seen a pope so insulted by the media”: An Interview with José de Carvalho (The European Conservative)
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi – “In reality, the criticism from concerned bishops is not that the declaration explicitly denies Church teaching on marriage and sexuality. Rather, the criticism is that by permitting the blessing of couples who have sex outside of marriage, especially same-sex couples, it denies Catholic teaching in practice, if not in words.” Does Fiducia Supplicans Affirm Heresy? (First Things)
Avenging Wrongs – “Only legitimate political authority—the highest authority tasked with care for the common good of a political community—is authorized to use lethal force to punish.” Undermining Just War (First Things)
Vatican’s Financial Straits – “While some curial asset managers have begun to show modest-to-moderate returns in recent years, donations remain down and the Vatican is still operating with a runaway budget deficit.” What if the Vatican actually goes broke? (The Pillar)
Divine Ascent – “More than 1,400 years ago, a monk named John looked at a ladder and saw in it an image of the spiritual life.” Conversation With Luke Coppen (Coram Fratibus)
Tolkien’s Letters – “The revised and expanded edition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Letters reveals greater insight about his relationship to publishers, his family, and his faith.” A Life Well Lived (Law & Liberty)
Persecuted Christians – “Iranian Christians continued to face harassment, arrests and imprisonment last year for practicing their faith, according to a report issued on Monday.” Persecution Against Christians In Iran Continues To Worsen (Religion Unplugged)
More Wakes, Less Woke – “[A]s the funeral industry has become more commercialized and personalized — and less sacral and ritualized — wakes are beginning to disappear.” The commoditization of the funeral industry is quickly hurting the Catholic Church (Our Sunday Visitor)
It’s Islamic Terrorists – “Two Nigerian clergymen have run out of patience with Western assessments of the violence being experienced by Christians in Nigeria, informed one time too many that the conflict is an outcome of herder-farmer tensions or ‘eco-violence’ driven by climate change.” Nigerian bishop: Islamic jihad, not climate change, behind mass killing of Christians (America Magazine)
Banned Synodal Council – “Germany’s Catholic bishops may be preparing to defy the Vatican, despite Pope Francis’s efforts to rein in the heterodox prelates.” Germany’s Bishops Are Approaching Schism (The American Spectator)
Do the Speed Limit – “I thought of giving up speeding. Not only that, I also would require myself to arrive at places on time. It was a game-changer.” Fasting by Slowing Down (Catholic Stand)
Misplaced Triumphalism – “Progressive Catholics would try and convince Catholics that Ex Corde Ecclesiae is obsolete. Don’t be fooled.” Ex Corde Ecclesiae Still Matters (Crisis Magazine)
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“675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576”
Choose Christ!
@ Banned Synodal Council
Bishop Georg Bätzing, the president of the German Bishops’ Conference, ignored the ban and requested negotiation with Rome. Kinda like Luther and Cajetan. These breakaway transactions get complicated. Is it schism? Or is it heresy? Is it apostasy? Is it simply disbelief?
Catechism 2nd ed 2089 states: Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. “Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him”. Already there’s question, why is Incredulity not parenthesized? The rest is taken from the Canons. Where are the Germans at this stage?
If we start by comparison to Martin Luther, let’s say Luther to Bishop George Bätzing – Then, Augustinian Fr Luther, initially was guilty of incredulity regarding the indulgences, you can’t buy your way into heaven, whereas the Church taught a sacrificial offering may be permitted by the Roman pontiff to gain an indulgence. Whereas at this stage Bätzing is way past that. At this point he’s engineering a separate, independent German council to determine what is right and what’s wrong, what is good and what’s evil. Germany’s scenario today is aeons ahead of what it took Luther years of negotiation to finally arrive at a virtual total heretical break with the Catholic Church. A Schism. And heresy. Heresy in his repudiation of the sacraments as taught by the Church.
At this stage Bishop George Bätzing and the German Bishops’ Conference is teetering on the dividing line of heresy, schism, and incredulity. Or are they de jure across that line? It took the Germans the length of this papacy’s tenure to get to this point. If they refuse, as they are now, to acquiesce to Rome, and nonetheless request negotiation, is negotiation merely a formality similar to settling property interests prior divorce?
It appears to this writer, as it does to a good number of others, that this process was tacitly admitted by Rome. That what’s occurring with the Synod on Synodality and imposition of agenda for discussion similar to what the Germans are adamantly proposing now, a womens diaconate, naturalization of homosexuality, a people’s parliamentary doctrinal structure is what Rome during this pontificate perceives for the future of the Church. Which is to effectively neutralize 2089 by repetitive psychological attrition.
As with the Titanic, really bad stuff can have very small beginnings…Wondering, here, about the similarity between the peddling of non-blessings today and the peddling of exaggerated indulgences in yesteryear.
So, how were things at the rery beginning with the Augustinian monk Martin Luther who in 1517 was still “a most furious papist [his words]”? As compared to, say, the Jesuit poster-child Fr. James Martin and Cardinal Fernandez…
From the Protestant record, this:
“…Many of the townspeople came successively, and confessed themselves guilty of great excesses. Adultery, licentiousness, usury, ill-gotten gains—such are the crimes acknowledged to the minister of the Word by those souls of which he will one day have to give an account. He reprimands, corrects, instructs. But what is his astonishment when these individuals reply that they will not abandon their sins?….Greatly shocked, the pious monk declares that since they will not promise to change their lives, he cannot absolve them. The unhappy creatures then appeal to their letters of indulgence; they show them, and maintain their virtue. But Luther replies that he has nothing to do with these papers; and adds: EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH [italics]. They cry out and protest; but the doctor is immovable. They must cease to do evil, and learn to do well, or else there is no absolution. ‘Have a care,’ added he, ‘how you listen to the clamours of these indulgence-merchants: you have better things to do than buy these licenses which they sell at so vile a price [“For polygamy it was six ducats; for sacrilege and perjury, nine ducats; for murder, eight ducats; for witchcraft, two ducats….For infanticide…four livres tourquois; and for paricide or fratricide, one ducat”].”
(Source: Protestant scholar J.H. Merle D’Aubigne, Geneva, “History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,” Vols. I-IV, 1850 with later reprints; 700 fine-print double-column pages).
SUMMARY, again, the blessing of the full range of irregular “couples” by word-merchant Cardinal Fernandez as compared to Luther’s withholding of absolution from those deceived by the “indulgence-merchant” Dominican Johann Tetzel. About marriage, Luther’s later excesses included approving—as “exceptions” only!—the still binary (!) bigamy of Henry VIII and the German elector Philip of Hesse.
A small beginning now in full tide today! A “development of doctrine,” it is said.
John of Climacus says, in Divine Ascent: ‘the soul is moulded by the doings of the body’.
Following Mueller’s “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi” this thought would not be banished: A church which assents to administer blessings such as FS asks, inflicts great harm upon herself. The soul of such a church will either beg God to help her undertake the penance of exorcism or the Physician Himself will heal His Bride.
@ Vatican’s Financial Straits
The Pillar discloses a structural and most dire financial future for the Vatican as a whole, with bankruptcy possible within the next five years…
After a century and a half dunked within the modern world of also-insolvent nation-states, the “prisoner of the Vatican” (post-1870) cannot print fiat currency, and therefore might recall how Christ sent his twelve into the world “two by two” and “without staff or money bag” (Mark 6:7-8).
One identified expedient, but with long lead time, is to convert real assets into leases for long-term economic development (the free market!) and new revenue streams. Oops! Microscale modernity which has turned much of the globe into a cash-flow machine at the expense, possibly, of supportive and finite ecosystems at all scales (Laudato Si). Once again, are we living in starkly true and “backwardist” Apostolic Times? Why are we reminded of St. Augustine: “…[the passions] are more easily mortified finally in those who love God, than satisfied, even for a time, in those who love the world” (?).
In any event, it’s probably not a good expedient to reword “two by two” into a fiat non-blessing “blessing,” for irregular “couples” that are not couples, in a universal Church that is becoming less than universal, and where ecumenical councils are possibly replaced by “synods” that are not really synods.
Mary Ennis Meo’s life in the fast lanes and in her church parking lot’s snail’s pace is simultaneously funny, deadly serious, and enlightening.
Now, Mary, if I could have your grace, I shall make your resolution my own–next year.
“More Wakes, Less Woke ”
***********
Yes, please. But even wakes have turned into something different from what they’d been intended.
We have a lovely, people-oriented deacon locally who really works hard at his vocation but from the thoughts he shares at funeral home Rosaries you come away with a distinct impression the deceased is already in the presence of the Beatific Vision. So it makes you wonder who you are praying the Rosary for if the deceased is good to go? Sadly, many funerals run in that direction also.
I’ve told my children if any of that nonsense goes on when I die I’ll come back to haunt them.
I tell my kids that while I’m getting bounced back and forth between St Peter and Mother Theresa until they decide what to do with me, I need prayers and not accolades!
I believe you would Mrscracker. As for me, the last best thing of all my efforts to convert my friends will be in the form of leaving them with the self-evident realization of how ridiculous it would be for them to be so certain that I could be in that “better place” without the intercession of many many many prayers from friends.
At the start of Ex Corde 1990 John Paul II speaks of the false proposition that “the search for truth, and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth” are in opposition. Land O’ Lakes’ 1967 statement defined the Catholic University mission as the open ended pursuit of truth, major contributor Fr Theodore Hesburgh CSC reaching his vision of higher education nirvana. What Hesburgh and company achieved in reality was the secularization of the Catholic University.
Jesuit Universities followed suit. Fordham was still noticeably Catholic as Wesleyan was Methodist, though neither seemed remarkably so. Georgetown took the lead in divesting itself of Catholicism, remaining Catholic in name only. If that was Fr Hesburgh’s dream academic agenda he succeeded.
While I admire Ms Hendershott’s defense of Catholic priorities in US Catholic universities, there isn’t evidence, basing that on reports of what’s being taught, selectivity by student orgs prohibiting prolife speakers that Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae has had serious impact on Catholic universities. What Pope Francis may say regarding what a Catholic university should be, and what he says elsewhere as regards the permanence of truth, its identity and practice leaves educators and students with a nominal Catholic mindset. They cannot help see the trend toward secularization in the Church.
Yes. The mentioned EX CORDE ECCLESIA (“…Norms for Catholic Universities,” 1990) addressed the very meaning of scientific and technical research, social life and culture. Not simply an intramural food fight over abstruse academic theories. The Introduction reads, “On an even more profound level, what is at stake is the very meaning of the human person.”
But how could such a moral compass compete with the ivory-tower appetite for favorable peer reviews from secular academia?
So, about today’s SECULARIZATION—the contradiction is between the ideology that whatever truth there is, is only an idea and the product of historical fluidity; versus the concreteness of the self-disclosing and Ultimate Reality made incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ, and the call to personal salvation.
Too much of the forwardist establishment remains hypnotized under the long shadow of KARL RAHNER, behind whom we find Emmanual Kant who said that even God is only an idea:
“The concept of God—and of the personality of the being represented by this concept—has some reality. There is a God present in the practico-moral reason, that is, in the idea of the relationship of man to right and duty. But this existence of God is not that [!!!] of a being exterior to man.” Today, the very nature of man, too, is now a fluid idea, subject to inevitable (!) evolution—what the luminary clericalist Cardinal Hollerich announced to a waiting world: that “the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching [sexual morality] is no longer correct.”
A so-called paradigm shift imposed not by directly contradicting received and formal teaching, surely; but OBLIQUELY, as in Cardinal Fernandez’s non-blessings conferred upon irregular “couples” of all stripes. “Time is greater than space!”
Mrs. Cracker above – I’m with you.
There is a huge need for some serious reflection on what the funeral is for. I suggest Fr. Scalia’s oration at Justice Scalia’s funeral as a model.
Yes, he caught many off guard, watching or listening when he said they “were all there because of one man.” and he went on to say, “..Jesus of Nazareth,” and not His Honor.
@ The German Pope
Great furor afflicts those faithful to the Chair of Peter, those to varying degrees question the legitimacy of its unfavorable occupants, and those who doubt the legitimacy of the Chair itself.
José de Carvalho, Portugal, research historian saw greatness in Benedict XVI, the pontiff most notable for his expositions of the faith, brilliantly articulated in accord with faith and reason. Most who love the faith, and the Church, the essential tandem of true belief. With our present pontificate we cannot elicit such favorable commentary. Arguments have ranged from ultramontanist, as we find in ultraconservative Where Peter Is, to liberal NC Reporter. Both adhere to the letter of papal documents, spoken words, both differing radically though ironically not always insofar of interpretation. Others find rationale to excuse submission to the Roman pontiff as did Archbishop LeFebvre. And ironically some have joined SSPX, others sympathize with LeFebvre, some seeking to justify his departure from the Church Christ instituted on the Rock that is Peter. Today we celebrate that embattled [at least of late clearly seen] Chair. Or is it the occupant that manages to foment that disparity?
An interesting question is the interpretation of Christ’s final words in declaring The Apostle Peter the Rock on which he will build his Church, a rock in which the gates of hell will not prevail. Most as I did, during my younger more naive years believed that Christ assured us that the Church would never fail. Well, today we have different thoughts. With increased knowledge we know the Church teaches that it will not be the Church, the body on the ground that will triumph over Satan. Rather, it will be our founder. Christus Vincit. Then what of the gates of hell? The happy answer is found in today’s breviary reading from a sermon by Pope Leo the Great on Peter’s Confession that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, and the true indefatigability of the Catholic Church. That “the gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith”.
As to the Chair’s infallibility, that has remained intact and will remain infallible when doctrine is formally pronounced ex cathedra. God will protect the integrity of what he instituted as the source of binding and loosening. Although, as is occurring now and has in the past pontiffs can err when communicating other than ex cathedra.