Mariologists Respond – “In a lengthy response, the International Marian Association Theological Commission highlights what it sees as significant errors and omissions in the Vatican’s controversial doctrinal note Mater Populi Fidelis.” Leading Mariologists Publish Scathing Critique of Vatican Note on Mary’s Titles (National Catholic Register)
Hong Kong Democracy Struggles – “Hong Kong’s appeals court heard an appeal this week by trustees of a relief fund, including Cardinal Joseph Zen, against their convictions for failing to register the body officially as a society.” Hong Kong court hears Cardinal Zen appeal (The Pillar)
Looking Back at Vatican II – “It is noteworthy that the practice of celebrating Mass facing the people or the reception of Holy Communion in the hand was never proposed to the bishops at the Council, nor was the complete vernacularisation of the Mass: Latin was to be retained, whilst the local language was to be permitted for some parts of the rite.” Whither the Mass of Vatican II? (The Catholic Herald)
Fallen Intellects, Material Solutions – “After departing from the intellectual coherence of medieval scholastic cosmology, the historical state of lived human experience produced massive cognitive dissonance for philosophers in the modern period.” Critical Theory and the Politics of Divine Love, Part 1 (What We Need Now)
The Body at Prayer- “The great Christian problem today is the problem of the human person and of the human body.” The Body at Prayer (Church Life Journal)
How God Uses Music – “Was it something in the music that week that called us to wait, something of surpassing beauty calling for further attention?… Whatever it was seemed to lie beyond my capacity for thought and expression. All I experienced was a quiet awareness that seemed both empty and full—above all, still.” Preaching to the Choir: How sacred music led me to Christian faith (Commonweal)
Preservers of the Classics – “Over the course of Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages, a deliberate program of copying the pagan classics by monasteries across Europe assured the survival of many texts that would otherwise have been lost.” The Myth of Christendom Destroying the Greco-Roman Classics (Providence)
Civilizational Erasure – “Trump is right to warn against mass immigration and the Islamification of Europe.” Yes, Europe’s civilization is being erased (The Spectator World)
Rabid Anti-Catholicism – “As the title suggests, [Modern Monsters] is not a book looking to promote ecumenical dialogue or build bridges across the aisle that separates disputing parties.” Getting to Know Some Modern Monsters (The Catholic Thing)
Crabgrass Catholicism – “Koeth makes the case that mass suburbanization both marred the spirit of neighborliness and collaboration and removed the structural and institutional avenues that once made it possible for people to band together to solve problems.” How Suburbia Reshaped American Catholic Life (First Things)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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This came through this morning on the “Catholics for Catholics” website:
“The Christian Post reported that Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat governor-elect, announced last week that she had appointed Stanley Meador as the state’s secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security. Meador belonged to the FBI’s Richmond office that released a contentious memo linking “radical-traditionalist Catholic” individuals that among other things included folks who attended the Latin Mass or had large families to violent extremism.”
This is what you get when Catholics vote for atheistic pro-abortion leftist politicians as we will soon have in our State of Virginia.
Re #9 Rabid Anti-Catholicism
I plan to skip this book, TYVM.
@ Crabgrass Catholicism
We read from Fr. Koeth’s book, that “Crabgrass Catholicism maps out the history of how Catholics who once lived in America’s strongly-ethnic urban enclaves moved en masse to the suburbs, and simultaneously lost their cultural heritage and their faith.”
Three points about technocracy, the neighborhood, and consistent moral compass:
FIRST, suburbanization on steroids is largely he unintended consequence of the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. Note the authorization under “defense”…the interstate system was intended partly to facilitate mass evacuations from target cities under a nuclear attack, as well as the expeditious movement of military convoys (a problem detected after World War I, in 1919, by the later President Eisenhower.) It was the ambiguity of pavement that helped destroy Koeth’s urban enclaves.
Also, the moral ambiguity of all technology—as in atomic power unlocked for various uses…
SECOND, in the compact world/neighborhood of today, the “enclaves” are now nation-states within flight, or 24/7 news, or fingertip contact with each other. The Second Vatican Council was partly an effort to better position the Catholic Church within this global context (different from ideological “globalism”)—as with the paired Constitutions on the perennial Church (Lumen Gentium) and the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes).
THIRD, we note that the latter document briefly but solidly anchors this engagement—both personal and societal—in the distinct and universal natural law (as well as in the Gospel revelation): “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience [….] the Council wishes to recall first of all the permanent binding force of universal natural law and its all-embracing principles” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 16, 79).
@ Fallen Intellects, Material Solutions
Michel Therrien continues to appear as one of the better commentator spirits among us. Fallen intellects due to material mindsets underscores the nature of critical theory.
What is critical theory? if not to focus on sentiment. When, what I am sexually, is what I wish to be – when awakened [a synonym of wokened] by academia to believe my convictions are really the product of ‘power structures’, rather than what my physical being actually tells me.
Drifting away from hard core reality is primarily located in Descartes scientific standard of methodical doubt, now the ironclad premise of scientific research and testing. Although what most distinguishes Man from other animals is his core ability to distinguish moral good, as different from physical good, moral evil from physical evil. It’s what defines humanness from the remainder of animal existence.
Therrien acknowledges this lacuna in current thinking. Needless to say the absence of our predominant distinguishing feature teleologically ends in animal barbarism. Which is what abortion, medical assisted suicide, transexual mutation really is.
“Which is what abortion, medical assisted suicide, transexual mutation really is.”
True, Father, as barbarism involves the engaging in or affirmation of acts that deny the inherent Dignity of the human person, who, from the moment of conception,Is Created In The Image And Likeness Of God, Equal In Dignity, while being complementary as beloved sons and daughters, Called to live our lives in Loving relationships In Communion With The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity.
“Let US Create man in Our Image.”- The Blessed Trinity
“You will be My People and I Will Be Your God.”- The Blessed Trinity
“Which is what abortion, medical assisted suicide, transexual mutation really is.” True, Father, as barbarism involves the engaging in or affirmation of acts that deny the inherent Dignity of the human person, who, from the moment of conception,Is Created In The Image And Likeness Of God, Equal In Dignity, while being complementary as beloved sons and daughters, Called to live our lives in Loving relationships In Communion With The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity.
“Let US Create man in Our Image.”- The Blessed Trinity
“You will be My People and I Will Be Your God.”- The Blessed Trinity
God Is Love; Love Exists In Relationship
God Is The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love Between The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, Who Proceeds From Both The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ. At The End Of The Day, It Is Still A Great Mystery, which does not change the fact that it is no Mystery that only those who are part of The One Body Of Christ Worship, in essence, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity.
Only Our Creator, God, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity , In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Love Between The Father, And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, The Author Of Love, Of Life, Of Marriage, Has The Ability And The Desire To Take Us From Death To Life Everlasting, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
“At the heart of Liberty Is Christ, “4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
“Blessed are they who are Called to The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb.”
“For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”
Dear Blessed Mother Mary, Mediatrix Of All Graces, Mirror of Justice And Destroyer Of All Heresy, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque, and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love Between The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Divine Eternal Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity (Filioque), hear our Prayer that your Immaculate Heart Will Triumph soon for the sake of Christ, His Church, all who will come to believe, and all our beloved prodigal sons and daughters, who, hopefully, will return to The One Body Of Christ, which exists From The Father, Through, With, And In His Only Son, Jesus The Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque) Amen.
@ Civilizational Erasure
To adapt to Islam, Europe must first erase its own civilization. Which it is doing (Gavin Mortimer).
What’s disheartening though not too surprising is the expressed attitude of Leo XIV toward open border policy, indirectly accusing Trump of treating illegal immigrants like garbage, and in his self perceived Henry Kissinger mode publicly castigating Trump’s Ukraine War peace proposal as entirely favorable to Russia. Furthermore, Trump, who has reinvigorated Nato, is accused of seeking to destroy it. Does Pope Leo believe Ukraine has just war status in a war in which they cannot win? – only continuous backing by the US and Europe and continued slaughter of Russians and Ukrainians, prospect of conflagration.
If there was any doubt about Pope Leo’s affinity to Pope Francis’ political ideology, relieve yourself of stress. Europe and Nato will rot by self affliction. The appointment to the Vatican of Cardinal Blase Cupich was no mere warm gesture.
When has Leo XIV said anything regarding Trump’s rescue of religious freedom in America, his support of Catholic principles?
What might we expect in January from the Cardinals consistory? Unless there’s a reversal, a continuance of the proxy reign of Francis I.
Another interpretation, but only barely likely, about the recent Cupich appointment…
Head honcho for the Vatican City-state, very distinct from the “Vatican” as meaning the Holy See and its dicasteries. Yes, now within earshot of the Pope, but only responsible for a troubled municipal budget, for installation of solar panels and public portapotties, and for other broom closet stuff.
If only this five-year administrative rabbit hole in Rome entailed an immediate replacement in Chicago!
@ Civilizational Erasure
Now here’s the good news. We all are called to an heroic practice of faith in Christ, the tenets of our Catholicism. The soul we save will not only be our own, but those taken in by the current relativistic malaise.
Because of what’s at stake our fighting the good fight will be rewarded lavishly by a most generous King, whose riches are well beyond whatever this world has to offer.
Re #8 – Civilizational Erasure
Pope Leo’s statements on Islamization through mass immigration are disappointing, to put it very mildly.
See Gavin Ashenden’s no-nonsense response on youtube.
Civilizational Erasure explores a theme it fails t identify properly, which is, historical reading. Islam was overpowered by the Mongols. It was short-lived but it was done; and when the Mongol empire became fractured and receded, Islam remained and had spread itself from being conquered. In the same period Christendom was divided and its Crusades became less effective as they went through more feckless turns.
Islamization is adaptive. Its Islamophobia is alike to the cry of anti-Semitism by certain parts of Jewry and ADL. Its “brotherhood” makes the most of laïcité or secularism with some of the benefits handed to it on a platter and others gained through shrewd lobbying and studied passivity. I have personally witnessed a prominent Muslim quietly pushing for the elevation of a Christian abortionist and succeeding.
And yet on both counts, not all Muslims follow those “callings” for living out an Islamic way of life. Even so they do not perceive the full slate of those activities.
Meantime western intelligence communities which are themselves mixed, want to exploit local Islamic movements so as to be able to promote or establish their own ideas on diversity for the long-term and their own specific short-term goals.
Does al Sharaa have a connection with Britain’s MAB?
‘ The two main drivers of Europe’s Islamification are mass immigration and the Muslim Brotherhood, the nebulous Islamist organization that President Trump intends to ban. One of Europe’s leading experts on the Muslim Brotherhood is the French academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, who requires police protection as a result of her research. She explained in a 2023 book that “their goal isn’t to adapt Islam to Europe but to adapt Europe to Islam.” To adapt to Islam, Europe must first erase its own civilization. Which it is doing. ‘
https://www.google.com/search?q=anemia+of+inflamation+does+not+warrent+taking+iron&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari&sei=qYw9afvDKeP9ptQPp63t-QI