Is Exodus Really Applicable?

Or are they just promoting "conservative" Judeo-Christian civic nationalism? Kass's book sticks to Exodus and the old Israel; it's Weigel who uses it to promote civic nationalism.

Leon Kass is an admirable guide to Exodus.https://t.co/wBZGZS15Z4

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) February 17, 2021

Weigel on Clericalism

Who will protect the rights of presbyters when they get punished as whistle-blowers? Weigel takes a small step towards mutual accountability but can reason his way to a complete system which would protect individuals.

The clerical caste system must be confronted and uprooted as the Church purifies itself.https://t.co/VoCLfKidgx

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) November 20, 2020

First Things

Tools of Statism

Weigel and Murray are both wrapped up in statist civic nationalist myths and hence ignorant of what is truly required for upholding community and culture. A failure in politike 101.

To the contrary. Murray knew that the United States was an idea or “proposition” nation: a polity built, not on the old foundations of blood and soil, but on the foundations of a common commitment to certain truths—truths that he, a good natural law man, believed were inscribed into the world and into us; truths that we could know by the exercise of reason; truths that, known, disclosed our duties as individuals and as citizens. But Murray also knew that a nation “so conceived and so dedicated” would not long endure, if the moral and intellectual foundations that make self-governance for the common good possible were to collapse; if the “truths” on which the American democratic experiment relied for its tensile strength were no longer held.

Father John Courtney Murray, S.J. was one of the first to sound the alarm bells regarding the decoupling of democracy and moral truth, for he believed that reducing democracy to simply a set of functions would be damaging to its very foundation. https://t.co/HeFPDyVtoh

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) November 22, 2020

Law and Liberty


Does he reign over the heterodox associated with the USCCB?

The Solemnity of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI on December 11, 1925 with the encyclical Quas primas. When our nation is beset by civic unrest, racial tension, and a pandemic, we do well to turn to Our Lord, who reigns over every people and nation. pic.twitter.com/WqEB6HdyHS

— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) November 22, 2020

Another Fluff Piece from Weigel?

Looking into the Future Through His Eyes: John Paul II, the Catholic Church, and the Crisis of the West
The age of the ethnic or national transmission of Catholic faith – the age of Catholicism transmitted by a kind of genetic inheritance or osmosis – is over everywhere in the Western world.

Weigel:

This profound and challenging vision of a Catholic future in which every Catholic is a missionary and every place is mission territory is taking some time for Catholics to grasp, especially in what have been comfortably Catholic societies and cultures for centuries. And yet Catholics must understand that we are living in apostolic times, not Christendom times. Christendom in the West is over.

The patriarchate of Rome has not even begun to recover from the consequences of the development of the imperial papacy. prestige loss of scale and accountability that resulted in clericalized institutionalism, feminism, loss of leadership In order to be the Church of the New Evangelization, Catholicism must renew and reform itself. Let me indicate very briefly two such lines of reform that seem to me especially urgent in Poland.

To be the Church of the New Evangelization requires a deep reform of Polish seminaries and Polish theological education. The priests of the future in Poland are all going to have to be missionaries, whether they’re priests living in and working from religious communities, or priests living and working as diocesan clergy in parishes. Every man who imagines that he has a priestly vocation in the Polish Catholicism of the 21st century must understand that he will, of necessity, be living a missionary vocation. That means that priestly formation in diocesan seminaries and religious houses must be formation for mission. The notion of the priesthood as a privileged career of providing sacramental services can no longer be the dominant notion of the priesthood in the West; it cannot be the driving image of the priesthood of the future in the United States, and I do not think it can be the idea that shapes the Polish Catholic priesthood of the future. Priests of the twenty-first century who think that their primary task is to maintain the Church’s institutional life – priests who do not think of themselves as missionary apostles – will eventually find themselves being museum-keepers.

Secondly, this Church of the New Evangelization in Poland must be a public church, but not a partisan church. It must be a Catholicism fully engaged in culture and in society, offering the truths that it is privileged bear to the public conversation about public goods. But the Catholic Church of the future in Poland, or elsewhere, cannot be a partisan church identified with any particular political party, political faction, political tendency, or political philosophy. Whenever the Church has done this in modern history, serious trouble for the Church’s primary evangelical mission follows.

Regarding the reform of seminaries and theological education: what exactly does Weigel want in terms of forming priests?  That they shouldn't be bureaucrats? Do the men seeking Holy Orders in Poland give credible witnesses as Christian men? What good will it do for these priests to be missionaries if they cannot make Christianity attractive to men?

Weigel says that the Latin churches need to refrain from being partisan. But to be in support of the state (and require obedience to the authorities of the state) is to be partisan in favor of the state. Will the Latin churches recognize that anyone advocating a breaking up of the state is presenting a legitimate political view?

If the root of the cultural incoherence of the West is a loss of faith in the God of the Bible (the Jerusalemic foundation of the Western civilizational project), then the Church of the New Evangelization – the Church of the future, according to John Paul II – is critically important to the rescue of the Western civilizational project. For it is the Church of the New Evangelization, in its work of proclaiming the Gospel and in its public witness, that will help Western civilization recover “Jerusalem,” and thereby recover “Athens” and the cultural confidence that reason can grasp the truth of things – which is essential to defending the rule of law against coercion in the name of skepticism and relativism.

By being a Church converting the world to the truths of biblical faith, the Catholic Church is also reconverting the world to reason and reason’s capacity to order human affairs. The two go together. By being a Church permanently in mission – the Church John Paul II envisioned during the Great Jubilee of 2000, the Church that he described in Redemptoris Missio, and Novo Millennio Ineunte – Catholicism will both fulfill the Great Commission and offer Western civilization a path beyond this crisis of incoherence.

The loss of faith and sin are fundamental problems, but they are always the fundamental problems. Can the churches of the patriarchate of Rome effectively evangelize given its institutional inertia, degradation of ecclesial culture, and capitulation to liberalism and feminism? The mess that the patriarchate finds itself in will not be addressed until its leaders are humble enough to receive insight into the causes.

Latin Integralists and Ultramontanists Unhappy with Weigel's Take on the Loss of the Papal States

Even though Weigel holds on to the more problematic of Rome's claims, the ones re: the Church Universal. Apparently he needs to repent and embrace papal caesarism.

The loss of the Papal States was a great boon to the papacy and to the Church’s evangelical mission.https://t.co/9agwmqGGwK

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) September 23, 2020

"The purpose of the sacrilegious usurpation of Our rule is the destruction of the force and efficacy of the Papal primacy and eventually the Catholic religion itself."

Pius IX, "Etsi multa" (1873) https://t.co/y0Nzp0ZWWq

— Rafael de Arízaga (@RafaeldeArizaga) September 23, 2020

CWR Interview with George Weigel

“My book is an agenda-for-the-future book, not a book about personalities.”
An interview with George Weigel, author of The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission.


As expected, it and his book are Rome-centric, and he upholds medieval Western Christendom as the ideal.

CWR: A foundational point for this book is your contention that we are living through the “turbulence of [a] transitional moment” as part of what you identify as the fifth major historical transition in the life of the Church. What is that transition? And how does the papacy fit, if you will, into that transition?

Weigel: As I note in very telegraphic form in The Next Pope, we’re in the fifth great transitional epoch in the two thousand year history of the Church. The first was the transition from the Jesus Movement (or, if you prefer, the primitive Church described in Acts and the New Testament epistles) to the “Early Church,” a transition that accelerated by the First Jewish-Roman War (c. 70 A.D.); that Early Church converted somewhere between one-third and one-half of the Mediterranean world in 250 years or so.

The “Early Church” then gave birth to, even as it gave way to, Patristic Christianity, which was shaped by the Church’s encounter with classical culture; that way of being Catholic supported crucial ecumenical Councils like Nicaea I, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, and nourished such great thinkers as Ambrose, Augustine, the Cappadocian Fathers, and Maximos the Confessor. Then, toward the end of the first millennium, Patristic Christianity gave birth to—even as it gave way to—Medieval Christendom: perhaps the closest synthesis of Church, society, and culture ever achieved. Medieval Christendom shattered in the 16th century, and from the cataclysms of that era came the Catholicism that every Catholic over 55 or 60 years old grew up in: Counter-Reformation Catholicism.

We’re now in a transition from Counter-Reformation Catholicism to the Church of the New Evangelization, a transition in which the institutions painstakingly built, defended, and rebuilt between the late 16th century and the late 20th century must now be transformed into platforms for mission. These transitional moments always create turbulence, and the present one—which began with the pontificate of Leo XIII in the late 19th century—is no exception.

Can. 747 §2, Again

CWR

The institutional default positions in Vatican diplomacy do not reflect two lessons taught by the late 20th century, says George Weigel.https://t.co/nhxvQQntVu

— Catholic World Report (@cworldreport) July 22, 2020

In The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (recently published by Ignatius Press), I suggest that the institutional default positions in Vatican diplomacy do not reflect two lessons taught by the late 20th century: the only authority the Holy See has in world politics today is moral authority; that moral authority is depleted when the Church fails to speak the truth to power, especially totalitarian and authoritarian power. The truth can be spoken prudently and in charity; but it must be spoken. If the truth is not spoken, the Vatican tacitly confesses its weakness and is always playing defense on a field defined by the enemies of Christ and the Church.

U.S. Bishops urge #POTUS to rescind divisive memorandum excluding undocumented from inclusion in the apportionment of U.S. House of Representative seats: https://t.co/nBaCBIx6K9. pic.twitter.com/A33RrM7X06

— U.S. Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) July 22, 2020

George Weigel to Do an Interview

On July 13, @mabrumley of @ignatiuspress and I will interview George Weigel about his new book, "The Next Pope."

You can watch the interview here:https://t.co/mINSYNvzpr

— JD Flynn (@jdflynn) July 7, 2020

Weigel on His New Book The Next Pope

Ignatius Press, not to be confused with The Next Pope by Edward Pentin.

CWR Dispatch: The Next Pope and the Great Commission by George Weigel
The Next Pope begins with the premise that we are living in apostolic times – times that require every Catholic to be an evangelist – rather than Christendom times.

Of course Weigel affirms Latin theologoumena regarding the authority of the bishop of Rome; there will be no consideration of reducing the Roman Curia to a local body responsible for the affairs of the local Church, or a reconsideration of what the primacy of Rome entails or the current synodal structures of the local Church, which would be necessitated by a re-evaluation of the historical separation of the presbyterate of the episcopate.

Weigel on Latin Integralism

First Things: Games Intellectuals Play (CWR)

The more sober of the new integralists admit that they’re not offering a practical program for here-and-now.https://t.co/L0w6FQ8dsj

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) May 20, 2020

And that's about it. The first question, which pertains to historical links between integralists and various European political movements and regimes, doesn't address the substance of their arguments. The second, about the link between Obergefell and the Declaration of Independence, does touch upon how the Constitution is to be interpreted, and can't be simply dismissed as the replacement of Leo XIII with Hegel. As for the third question, it's just an appeal to authority, as if an appeal to the private opinions of John Paul II and Benedict XVI but made public by them are sufficient answers to Latin integralism. But that's how one sort of ultramontanist thinks.

Then again, were you expecting a substantive theological critique?

John 8:19, John 14:6-21, Matthew 10:33

First Things: On John Paul II’s Centenary by George Weigel (CWR)

The second emblematic memory from that papal pilgrimage came on March 26 when John Paul walked slowly down the great esplanade before the Western Wall of Herod’s Temple, stopped at the Wall, bowed his head in prayer, and then—like millions of pilgrims before him—left a petition in one of the Wall’s crevices: God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the nations; we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant. Amen. Joannes Paulus PP. II. These two episodes give us the key to understanding Pope St. John Paul II. He could preach solidarity, embody solidarity, and call people to a deeper solidarity because he was a radically converted Christian disciple: one who believed in the depth of his being that salvation history—the story of God’s self-revelation to the People of Israel and ultimately in Jesus Christ—is the deepest truth, the inner truth, of world history.

How many Jews converted to Christ because of John Paul II? What was the justification for not preaching Christ to the Jews? If there needed to be a healing of memories, why should that be only one-sided? Any preaching about the political duties and obligations of Jews living in Christian countries, or formerly Christian countries, or political consequences if they reject these responsibilities and identities? If there needs to be a time out, a hands-off approach so that memories can be healed, let memories be healed, but both parties must recognize the wrongs that have been committed, and there must be an honest expression by both parties of what they find at fault with the other. Are both partners equal in their dialogue?

Was Abraham a Pharisee? Moses? David? The Maccabees? How can John Paul II then call Pharisees "our elder brothers"? Our elder brothers are Abraham and the righteous ones of the Old Testament, followed by the sons of Israel who came to know Christ and believed, the first Christians. Christianity is not a "Jewish heresy," it is the true Judaism, if we can even put Christianity into the category of "religion" and rename it such. Would the Israelites have said they had a religion that was to be called "Judaism"? The system of belief and worship could be given a name as being particular to their people, but is that how they would have understood the system, or would they have given priority to God in understanding their "religion"?

John 8:39, Galatians 3:7-9 -- but Saints John and Paul, both true Jews in their ethnicity, which was superseded by their supernatural adoption by God, are anti-semites? Perhaps much of the confusion can be attributed to Vatican II and John Paul II. We can get a document from the Roman Curia like this as a result:

COMMISSION FOR RELIGIOUS RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS
"THE GIFTS AND THE CALLING OF GOD ARE IRREVOCABLE" (Rom 11:29)
A REFLECTION ON THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS PERTAINING TO CATHOLIC–JEWISH RELATIONS ON THE OCCASION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF "NOSTRA AETATE" (NO.4)

In its critical parts, this document uses bad exegesis and equivocation to support its claims regarding the heirs of the Pharisees. It also avoids a discussion of the parts of the Gospel of St. John and the letters of St. Paul that would also be relevant to a Christian discussion of the Pharisee religion/Talmudic Judaism.

None of the claims by John Paul II, Vatican II, or various documents from the Roman Curia, or any other Latin source for that matter, touching upon the adherents of Talmudic Judaism or Talmudic Judaism itself can be infallible, since they involve judgments of particulars that do not directly pertain to the Christian Mystery, except the question of salvation. How are we to be saved? And the Gospel and Tradition are quite clear on that: through the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence the necessity of the document Dominus Iesus. Either Talmudic Judaism is the same as the salvation by Christ, or it is not. There is no alternative, even if some Christians attempt mental gymnastics to create one. A religion which is predicated upon the denial that Christ is the Son of God cannot be salvific, regardless of the subjectivity of its adherents, who may be saved despite their erroneous beliefs. That religion cannot be the faith of Abraham, which is not something Abraham gives of his own initiative, but is a response to God Himself.

Weigel's attribution of solidarity to John Paul II seems to mean nothing more than the "human fraternity" being pushed by Francis. Human solidarity is not equal, not even comparable to communion with the Most Holy Trinity.

Weigel's Apologia for Clerical Celibacy

Beyond Amazonia

"Celibacy, a total gift of self to God, only makes sense in a Kingdom context."

What does "total gift of self to God" really mean? Loving God above all others? All are called to do that. Giving up every good other than God, food, water, oxygen too? Loving God only? So we shouldn't love our parents or friends? Even monks still love others and the Church, even if they are free from any other concrete duties to others.

This theological language is very sloppy and doesn't help the Latin apologetic for clerical celibacy/continence. I thought it was sloppy in Karol Wojtyla's writing too, especially when compared to the scholastics.

If total gift of self requires the giving up of one good, why not the giving up of other goods as well? Hence my examples of food, water, oxygen. Now the response may be that it is giving up of all goods not necessary for life. Then why shouldn't "total gift of self" entail the giving up of all family ties and friendships, and a host of other goods not essential to survival, television, alcohol, golf and whatever else priests may indulge in? If the apologists for clerical celibacy talk about the "total gift of self to God" as just meaning celibacy, then yes, there is a problem with their use of words and logic. The current preferred Latin theological defense of clerical celibacy/continence (which was formulated and gained prominence only within the last 50 years or so) strikes me as just being a post hoc rationalization since it is so poorly thought-out.

Now it may be that someone can explain celibacy no longer as a "sacrifice" or the giving up of some good (wife and family), but I don't know of anyone who has done that yet.

The most reasonable claim would be a rather pragmatic one, that the celibate priest is free from the responsibilities of marriage (but not from responsibilities to family, friends, or even the political community necessarily), and in theory he would have more time to devote to ministering to his parish community. But let's not say that this is because the priest is making a "total gift of himself" -- that turns out to be a rhetorical exaggeration, at best.

Weigel's Latest

CWR: Catholicism and modernity, reconsidered and “renarrativized”

“Previous ‘framings’ of the story are unilinear,” says George Weigel about his new book The Irony of Modern Catholic History, “modernity acts, Catholicism reacts, end of story. But there has been much more going on, these past two hundred fifty years, than an action-reaction cycle.”

There is no "modern" project unless that is the project of the state, whether it be called secular or atheist; the state exalts itself above God.

Nothing new from Weigel who is stuck seeing the patriarchate of Rome as the "Church" and the state as "modernity." (And now there is the state elites versus the "globalist" elites, though many of the latter are also part of the former.)

Weigel Still Recycling Material

in reference to Rod Dreher's post linked here.

First Things: THE EASTER EFFECT TODAY by George Weigel (probably will also be published at CWR -- edit. and here it is)

What future for Catholic higher education?

CWR: The high-priced spread, revisited by George Weigel
Catholic parents serious about real education and real formation have options other than Georgetown, Yale, Stanford, and other schools assumed to be essential ticket-punches on the path to success in 21st-century America.

One of those options, the University of Dallas, just made an outstanding choice for its new president, selecting Dr. Thomas Hibbs, a first-class thinker who is also a committed Catholic, an able administrator, and a leader. Tom Hibbs joins a gallery of other Catholic college and university presidents — among others, John Garvey at the Catholic University of America, Michael McLean at Thomas Aquinas College, Stephen Minnis at Benedictine College, Timothy O’Donnell at Christendom College, Msgr. James Shea at the University of Mary, and James Towey at Ave Maria University — who are leading a renaissance in Catholic higher education. Their schools, and others, seek to prepare students for any post-undergraduate endeavor by giving them a firm grounding in the liberal arts, Catholic faith, the experience of Catholic community and public service. And they succeed.

The days of American higher education are numbered, and while some Catholic may provide an orthodox environment and the rudiments of a liberal education, they are unprepared to deal with the reality of collapse, statism and feminism. Catholic parents would do better to reconsider what they need to raise their children well and prepare them for the future (something beyond the Benedict Option) and choose accordingly, rather than assume the American way of life will continue forever.

1 Timothy 2:12

The Catholic crisis, in perspective by George Weigel
“In spite of everything the newspapers say,” says the German theologian (and baroness) Nina-Sophie Heereman, “the future of the [Latin-rite] Church belongs to the U.S.!”

Also at First Things.

Nina-Sophie Heereman

Tertio Millenio Seminar: A Theocon Project

Associated with the theocons of First Things, it is of course egalitarian with respect to the selection of faculty and students, and therefore feminist in practice if not in ideology; can this really be the epitome of Latin Catholicism?

Full-immersion Catholicism by George Weigel
As this Catholic annus horibilis continues to unfold, perhaps some good news is in order.
Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society
Seminar
Tertio Millenio Institute

FB

Evangelical Catholic

website (not to be confused with The Center for Evangelical Catholicism)

Heard about this organization from a friend; it is doing the same work as FOCUS, maybe the St. Augustine Institute. Can't help but make comparisons to Dynamic Catholic and other such organizations. Is there a place for these new forms of mass media and for these organizations that are marketing their ability to train Catholics how to evangelize? Why do they seem so necessary now?

Any inspiration from George Weigel? It is more likely that Weigel is part of the trend, drawing upon from the same papal resources.






Scott Hahn too:




FORMED: Catholicism on demand
Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute create a Netflix-type service for religion

Do They Personally Vouch for the Alternatives?

Prominent Catholics call Trump “manifestly unfit to be president” by Catherine Harmon

Neo-Yankees who believe in the proposition nation? Do they prove the Know-Nothings to have been correct in their fears about Catholic immigration?

Vox Day: That Which Goes Unlinked

Catholic Common Core All the Way!

Post by The Cardinal Newman Society.