A UD Event

Trying to remain relevant to the American Church...

The JP II Conference continues today feat. @josephecapizzi and @ccpecknold of @CatholicUniv, UD's own @gjpappin and Daniel Burns, and concluding reflections by Robert Koons of the Univ. of Texas.
Conference agenda, event locations, and livestream link: https://t.co/cB28lkDTtd pic.twitter.com/p45L7sqHDw

— University of Dallas (@UofDallas) April 16, 2021

Should He Still Be a Role Model?

Evangelization through friendship is a start; but Christianity must have an answer to the state. (And that requires a proper response to feminism, not "Catholic feminism" of the John Paul II type or of anyone else.

“Looking back at my own life, the most effective Christian apostolates I have been involved in have been informal events building real friendships with neighbors, events focused on community, faith and scholarship.” https://t.co/wP8AuIjk1C

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) March 30, 2021

After the JP2 Roman Catholics Pass

how much of a cult to JP2 remain?

"The rumors turned out to be true; the pope was deceived; and McCarrick achieved his sordid ambition . . . through the mechanism of the Big Lie. That does not amount to any sort of smoking gun, and it certainly does not call into question the integrity of a canonized saint."

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) November 11, 2020

The McCarrick Report is Released. No Surprises

Shifting the blame onto others, no revelations about what Francis did know, and putting some of the blame on Archbishop Viganò.

The full McCarrick report is now online and public:https://t.co/gwpHjH7RKt

— Cindy Wooden (@Cindy_Wooden) November 10, 2020

The #McCarrickReport: Full Text and A Vatican Summary | National Catholic Register https://t.co/WF5kvpnWac @NCRegister

— Edward Pentin (@EdwardPentin) November 10, 2020

#BREAKING Vatican releases report on disgraced former Cardinal and sexual predator Theodore #McCarrick.

No press conference accompanied this document release, no statement from the #Vatican was made.https://t.co/yTCSHOMEX1 pic.twitter.com/Ztk93jJzQK

— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) November 10, 2020

By the early 1980s, one New York mother knew she had to speak up about Theodore McCarrick and her sons. #McCarrickReport https://t.co/O0qvJy73Oy

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) November 10, 2020

The #McCarrickReport includes a letter written by a U.S. cardinal in 1999 objecting to McCarrick’s appointment to a higher office because of allegations of misconduct, including at a New Jersey beach house. https://t.co/fUwap1h0Xc

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) November 10, 2020

Statement on Holy See’s Report on Theodore McCarrick Most Reverend José H. Gomez Archbishop of Los Angeles President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: https://t.co/HzuFRE7O8l pic.twitter.com/jhq66P729i

— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) November 10, 2020

The #McCarrickReport is a sad whitewash. Contrary to this headline, blaming JPII, the report says "3 of the 4" New Jersey bishops" provided John Paul “with inaccurate and incomplete in information…regarding McCarrick’s sexual conduct with young adults.” 1/2 https://t.co/kGAuKUh32F

— Raymond Arroyo (@RaymondArroyo) November 10, 2020

It remains unknown how much Pope Francis knew about McCarrick in the five years between Francis’ election as pope and his removing the former cardinal from ministry, @ColleenDulle writes.https://t.co/QMfscDikFN

— America Magazine (@americamag) November 9, 2020

“In the case of #McCarrick, the simple fact is that pathological personalities lie and deceive people - even intelligent and saintly people - and that’s what McCarrick was able to do," said George Weigel. https://t.co/awhGiqwdR2

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) November 10, 2020

The Vatican report recognizes the history of Theodore McCarrick as a serious injury to the Catholic Church. But it does not address the crucial question of influence: the influence that McCarrick wielded, and the influence that promoted him. https://t.co/P0fMtSkqee

— Philip Lawler (@PhilLawler) November 10, 2020

My instant reaction to the #McCarrickReport: its chief purpose is to obscure the shameful role played by Pope Francis, who rehabilitated McCarrick and his cronies because they were useful to him, and acted only when the media forced him to. https://t.co/DH24ojFfDJ

— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) November 10, 2020

This tells us so much about the politics of today’s @USCCB https://t.co/4WW3NGjwkv

— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) November 10, 2020

First glance, the McCarrick report is a very sobering, astringent read that doesn’t hide any uncomfortable truths. It just lets the chips fall where they ....... BLAHAHAHA Nope. All blame shifted to nobodies or the deceased.

— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) November 10, 2020

Vatican’s McCarrick Report reveals crucial gaps in Archbishop Vigano’s ‘testimony’ https://t.co/C3QwmHFuer

— America Magazine (@americamag) November 10, 2020

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò issues initial response to the #McCarrickReport: pic.twitter.com/6yauaD5uGL

— Diane Montagna (@dianemontagna) November 10, 2020

It's truly astonishing that Francis still imagines that anyone takes him seriously. Thank God for Viganò and, quite frankly, to hell with the Vatican spin machine! https://t.co/ffWtjth1Pf

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) November 10, 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.

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Still time to register and watch tonight's event! https://t.co/FKok0xMfTI
one-hour VIRTUAL event:

Transform Catholic schools ... bless family and friends ... inspire saints ... and change the world — with St. John Paul II's life-changing teachings

— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) September 28, 2020

The GIVEN Institute

I’m proud to be associated with the ⁦@giveninstitute⁩, a definite bright light in the Church today. https://t.co/vVOIKBSDIz

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) July 7, 2020

Joy encouraged viewers to think of themselves as gifts from God and to recognize the gifts they have been given. She said women have the ability to enter into what every heart yearns: a longing to be loved.

This is a potentially toxic belief I've seen Roman Catholic women push over and over again in their reflections on being Christian. While the emotional longing to be loved (or affirmed) is an important part of being human (generally more so in women than men), the desire to love at the rational level or alternatively, to love with all of one's being, is an even stronger and more important part of being human. This is how St. Augustine's point about the human heart should be properly understood, even though it has been misunderstood by at least one American Roman Catholic women writer. We all should remember what God has done for us and the love that we have received from Him, and to live the Divine Life which He has shared with us accordingly. It is not that great of a leap to go from the premise about the natural longing to be loved to a claim about women being naturally more spiritual than men--which the speakers do not claim, at least in the excerpts provided in the article, but other Roman Catholics have made that leap. Finally, nothing in the Given Institute mission explicitly repudiates feminism; if anything it advances a spurious form of "Catholic feminism" taking the cue of Pope John Paul II. Benedict XVI did not reject the Catholic feminism of JP2, and Francis has been in continuity with John Paul II in that regard.

The Anglican Pastoral Provision

Fr. Z: 40th Anniversary of the Anglican “Pastoral Provision”: a landmark of authentic ecumenism

40th Anniversary of the Pastoral Provision and the Anglican Use

Pastoral Provision

John Paul II Was a Libertarian!

Samuel Gregg doesn't make this actual claim but he wants to appropriate John Paul II for liberalism.

How John Paul II reminded us that liberty and truth are inseparable – Acton Institute PowerBlog

⁦@DrSamuelGregg⁩ for the internet win of the day! https://t.co/ARyJe49lBD

— Bradley J. Birzer (@bradleybirzer) May 21, 2020

Centesimus Annus is often praised—rightly, in my view—for being the modern social encyclical most attentive to economics as a social science. This owed much to John Paul II’s willingness to meet and have serious discussions with prominent economists who themselves occupied a variety of positions on the economic policy spectrum while the encyclical was being drafted.

Economics is a practical science; academics need to take shortcuts and make assumptions about human behavior in order to have predictive models because the system with which they deal is too big.

Fr. Z on John Paul II

Fr. Z: 100th Birthday of St. John Paul II. Wherein Fr. Z muses and reminisces.

Fr. Z gives his opinion about the legacy of John Paul II, even though he did not agree with that creation of Divine Mercy Sunday in the Roman rite. I don't know if he would judge it a problematic papal modification of the Roman rite, but I do think that it was, symptomatic of problem with how the authority of the patriarch of Rome is conceived.

At one point, back in 2016, I said that John Paul should be declared Doctor of the Church, with the nickname, Doctor Misericordiae. His teaching contributions to the Church are numerous. Also the movement to have him declared such would surely slow the obvious systematic erosion of his body of teaching as Pope. For the last few years, what John Paul upheld and clarified about, for example, objective truth and morals, has been under attack at the highest levels. I cannot shake the idea that Benedict wrote what he wrote to the Polish bishops in part because of the manifest attack on John Paul’s magisterial writings. There has also been a methodical purge of the last Woytlians and Ratzingerians in the Curia and Roman school. It seems to me that Divine Mercy Sunday would be a good day for such a declaration. Perhaps it’s time to jump start that project. I resonate also with the position that it takes some time to absorb the impact of a saint’s writings. Still, given the offensive against his magisterium, sooner could be better than later.

When you read Papa Ratzinger’s aforementioned letter, don’t skip over his description of resistance to plastering over the ancient Sunday “in albis” with the modern innovation of “Divine Mercy” Sunday. I share that resistance. I have nothing against the modern devotion, but I don’t think it’s promotion should be at the expense of something so ancient and deeply rooted. But I digress.

His body of writings, including his encyclicals, must be individually separated into dogma and theological opinion.What the patriarchate of Rome wants to do with the conferral of honors to be recognized by the patriarchate of Rome is up to the patriarchate of Rome. However, calling them doctors "of the Church" is beyond the scope of its authority, though ultramontanist Latins continue to believe that it isn't.

I don't even think that Ratzinger's theology should be promoted in such a manner, and I think Ratinzger's theology will have greater staying power. What should be promoted is a true habit of theology among the priests and bishops of the patriarchate of Rome, one which enables them to distinguish properly between dogma and theological opinion. Chances of this happening in the next ten years on a wide scale? Very small.



alternate at Shalom

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.

May 18

CNA/CWR: Pope Francis to offer Mass at tomb of John Paul II on saint’s 100th birthday

The Roman Saint-Making Machine Steams Along

The whole process needs to be reformed and restored first millenium practices.

CNA/CWR: St. John Paul II’s parents’ sainthood cause has officially opened

Exaggerating the Writings of One Pope on One Topic

and perhaps elevating them to the level of the ordinary Magisterium. This is Latin confusion concerning the papacy.

CWR: 25 years after Evangelium Vitae, we still need a “new feminism” by Michele M. Schumacher
In his encyclical, Pope John Paul II called for a “new feminism”—“new” in the sense of the radical novelty of Christianity itself, not a reactionary Christian answer to secular feminism.

Similarly, this post: Be Not Afraid of the New Feminism by Courtney Barnes

Pope St. John Paul II used Edith Stein’s insight in his Theology of the Body discourse, his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, as well as his pastoral Letter to Womenpromulgated that same year. In fact, John Paul II went so far to coin the term “New Feminism” calling all Catholic women, “to promote a ‘new feminism’ which rejects the temptation of imitating models of ‘male domination’, in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society, and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation” (Evangelium Vitae, 99). This call has been answered by many consecrated religious and Catholic intellectuals such as Helen Alvaré and Women Speak For Themselves, Feminists for Life, The Sisters of Life and Endow to name a few. However their voices are often muffled by the old feminism that is alive and well in the secular media.

Related:
This is a new book published by Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute: Sex and the Catholic Feminist by Sue Ellen Browder

Who Will Care Enough to Read It?

Is he attempting to ride JPII's coattails?

CWR Dispatch: Pope Francis to publish a book with reflections on St. John Paul II
The book is expected to be published sometime ahead of the 100 year anniversary of the birth of Karol Wojtyla on May 18.

How to Enforce Accountability?

This is the current problem for the patriarchate of Rome.

Rod Dreher: Cardinal Sodano Deserves A MillstoneNo molester himself, but he was biggest protector of Father Maciel -- who personally abused 60 boys, says new report

"Eloquent Ambiguity"

Crisis: U.S. Bishops Approve the Pope’s Capital Punishment Ban by Fr. George W. Rutler

If JP2's Reputation is Dimininshed, So Is Dziwisz's

Dziwisz of course isn't going to talk about his own part in covering up for Maciel

CNA: St John Paul II’s abuse record defended by his long-time secretary
“The emerging opinions that John Paul II was sluggish in guiding the Church’s response to the sexual abuse of minors by some clerics are prejudicial and contradict the historical facts,” says Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the archbishop emeritus of Krakow.

A Necessary Act of Inculturation?

Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Byzantine Rite

Should the supposed feast of the patroness of the Americas (rather than just Ibero-America) be observed by the BCA? Why isn't it sufficient for the United States to observe the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (or the Feast of the Conception of St. Anna)? It is not even clear to me that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important to the rest of Ibero-America, rather than just to Mexico. Was the declaration of Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness of the Americas by Pope John Paul II, in conjunction with the earlier "synod" of bishops, motivated by political or patriarchate concerns?

Nice Discussion of Theory

But what are the practical implications? We know that John Paul II tried to do something with "mutual submission." What would the author say about the authority of the husband and the submission of the wife? She clearly believes (and erroneously so) that "prescriptive roles were thankfully dissolved" by St. Paul in Galatians 3:28.


Hildegard of Bingen’s Vital Contribution to the Concept of Woman by Abigail Favale