Protecting Their Sinecure

I enjoyed this compelling presentation on the relevance of theology in the university by Judith Wolfe, a beloved professor here at St Andrews, and the supervisor of my MLitt dissertation.https://t.co/qilaZsWfjB

— Joy Marie Clarkson (@joynessthebrave) May 28, 2021

Making an Idol out of Sacred Authority?

First Things: Sacral Presidency by Peter J. Leithart

A semi-imperial presidency seems inevitable, though not because of gaps in the Constitution or the vulgar tastes of American voters. Benjamin Franklin may have been closer to the mark when he observed there’s a “natural inclination in mankind toward Kingly Government.” Whether they are monarchs or not, and whatever the constitutional limits placed on them, powerful leaders take on royalish trappings because politics is ineradicably sacral. Since the president is the “one,” he ought to transcend the sturm und drang of swamp politics, standing above sectional interests and faction as one president for one people. 

A solitary executive may lurch in an autocratic direction; l’etat, c’est moi. But in Christian and even post-Christian Europe, monarchs are sacred because they represent a divine authority to which they themselves are accountable. Presidents have served as the unordained priests of American religion. They take their oath of office on the Bible, often with the addition of “so help me God,” and end speeches with “God bless the United States of America.” President George H. W. Bush’s first act as president was to offer prayer. By comparison with the pageantry of Christendom, the sacral aura is dim—no anointing, no crown or cross. But it’s there. And properly so, since, as the solitary symbol of one nation, the president signifies the nation’s under-Godness.

Is fallen man inclined to making an idol out of political authority, especially since the mistake or distortion is made so easily, attributing to the man who rules god-like status? The farther one is from his fellows in status and power and most importantly, accountability (and mutual respect), the more likely the exaggeration?

One could argue that the authority of the husband over the wife and of the parents over their children is sacred as well, being derived ultimately from God. But we don't think about that much, and with that authority comes duty and accountability to God, as well as the responsibility to make sure one has the appropriate virtues to use that authority properly.

ιδιώτες

Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences: Nation, State, Nation-State

Breitbart: Vatican Proposes European Union as Example of ‘a Supranational State’

Sr. Prudence Allen Is Still Working

Church Life: Gabriel Marcel and the Discovery of Fatherhood by Sr. Prudence Allen, R.S.M.

Liturgy Outside Liturgy

Headship

Some may make the argument that a woman should submit or obey a husband only with respect to what pertains to the good of the family -- that his authority is only for leading the family as a whole, and providing instruction to his wife as to what is to be done for the good of the family. To tell his wife what to do with respect to his private benefit does not fall under the Apostles' injunction and is tantamount to treating his wife as a servant or a slave(!).

But the Apostle Paul does say she should submit "in everything" (Ephesians 5:24 -- I need to double-check with the Greek). This may go against the contemporary egalitarian notion of relationships. Perhaps the male egalitarians who believe in soulmates and such imagine that their wives are just like men in their thinking, even if their bodies are very different. But if men and women are not equals and do not act or think in the same ways with respect to the one another, but the women expects to be led and the man to take the initiative in their "relationship" or marital friendship, then the man must lead her with respect to their own friendship and not only with respect to the family good. Otherwise she will be dissatisfied with the quality of the relationship and with her man. The sort of equality that marriage egalitarians think is possible is actually possible only with respect to intermale friendship (and probably to a lesser extent with interfemale friendships), in which men come come to a consensus about what they are going to do rather than have one man "lead" -- that is what reciprocity would seem to require, that men take turns in having the initiative for activities (e.g. hosting) and be allowed to take the initiative, rather than have one man doing everything.

Ao, men should tell their wives to make them a sandwich; a woman who is not willing to do this for her man has issues with men that need to be corrected or healed before she can have a healthy relationship with a man.

There are a few women who are the boss in the family; do they really respect their compliant, nice husbands? Are they really satisfied with their relationship? How often do they engage in marital relations? Or are they comfortable with how things are because they are neither willing to change themselves or to deal with their excessive self-love/pride?

Dalrock: She’s the boss, you’re a guest.

The Promise and Prospects of Retrieval: Recent Developments in Roman Catholic Thought that Shape Contemporary Dogmatic Theology by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

So Long, Farewell

The Donald Trump of Catholic Higher Education by Thomas S. Hibbs
February 14, 2016
As the short-lived presidency of Simon Newman comes, apparently, to an ignoble end at Mount St. Mary's University, deeper questions remain about the focus and goals of many Catholic universities.


Related:
Fr. Schall on a lecture by Tracey Rowland: The Theological Foundation of Catholic Education

Life After LC

For one priest...

One aspect of Pope Francis's encyclical: green and pro-life. As it says at the bottom of the page, Thomas D. Williams, a...

Posted by The Catholic University of America Press on Friday, June 19, 2015

I suppose he hasn't been disavowed by CUA Press yet.

The Incarnation and Deification

Post by Orthodoxy and the World.

Jerry Sayler Reviews "The Race to Save Our Century: Five Core Principles to Promote Peace, Freedom, and a Culture Of Life"

Rethinking the American Experiment (via Insight Scoop)

John Zmirak is one of the authors of the book -- he also wrote this essay: The Myth of Catholic Social Teaching

Even CST must be judged as to under which part of the ordinary Magisterium various pronouncements fall. The Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine recognizes that CST is a product of moral theology. However, Zmirak may go too far in his critique -- slavery which is a punishment may not be unjust or intrinsically evil. There probably has been a change on teaching on the charging of interest for certain loans, to the detriment of society. As for religious liberty - I do not think his interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae as a rupture with previous papal prenouncements is the only tenable one. Finally, the infliction of pain as a punishment is different in its moral species from its use to coerce the revealing of information or the confession of guilt. The latter, as a means of coercion, is unjust, unless it has the character of punishment (for disobeying a lawful command to reveal information), but even that justification of the use of torture is problematic when one considers due process and procedural justice.

Zmirak has shifted in his views over time and the essay reflects this shift.

Offensive to the East?

Site of so many Christological controversies in the Church of the first millenium...

Not very ecumenical. Some might respond that this is typical of the Latin mindset (or Latin simple-mindedness).

Humanity’s wounds and the theological “byzantisms” of Christians

The complete speech at Zenit.

This is from 2010: Vatican rejects “chosen people” claim, calls on Israel to end “occupation”

RT is considered to be "alternative" in the United States - is the report accurate? It is inaccurate in attributing the position to the Vatican, as it is one taken by a synod of bishops, if that. Still, Catholics who believe in "dual covenant" theology may not be Zionists; but would they take this claim (or the authority of those who made it) seriously?

"We Christians cannot speak of the promised land as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people,” Bustros continued. "This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people – all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people."

It is not surprising that some would say the archbishop is antisemitic. Who but Roman-rite Catholics (Americans, but possibly some Europeans as well) would hold on to dual covenant theology?

critique "Replacement" theology is also [wrongly] criticized by Catholics of Jewish background.

Related:
SPECIAL ASSEMBLY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS
10-24 OCTOBER 2010

Israelis not happy with synod statement, angry over bishop's remarks
First Things

Carl Olson on Theosis

From December 2012: "Theosis and the Role of the Laity"

I've already linked to Orientale Lumen XVI. But I wanted to make a note of this - Mr. Olson writes:
" I'm pleased to say, on a directly related note, that I am currently co-editing, with Fr. David Meconi, SJ. (editor of Homilietic & Pastoral Review) a volume on theosis in the Catholic Tradition, which includes chapters by Dr. Daniel Keating, Fr. John Saward, Dr. Tracey Rowland, Dr. Joan Mueller, Dr. David Fagerberg, and several others (fifteen authors in all). That book will hopefully be available next year, if all goes all."

Why Study Aristotle's Metaphysics?

From the TMC newsletter: What We are Reading: Aristotle's Metaphysics by Christopher O. Blum, Fellow and Dean

Metaphysics has never been as widely understood or as greatly loved as philosophers think it ought to be, but today, it seems, there are some particularly stiff cultural winds blowing in the face of its pursuit. In the first place, metaphysics is a kind of knowledge, and reasoned-out knowledge at that. In that regard, it is a subject more like chemistry or Euclidean geometry than it is like the study of literature or the sifting of political platforms. When we seek to answer questions such as “what is God?,” we are not looking for a moral or an aesthetic judgment, we are seeking understanding. Second, although metaphysics seeks the knowledge of the highest causes, it does so from common experience and human reasoning alone, and so it is different than the kind of knowledge of God that we have thanks to our faith and on the basis of what God has revealed about himself in Sacred Scripture. Metaphysics provides the tools to make our theological reflections more accurate and more fruitful, but, by itself—that is, without the assistance of revelation—it speaks only in the most general terms about the Divine. For these two reasons, then, it can be hard to muster up the patience that metaphysics demands of those who pursue it. After all, our political and cultural woes are so very pressing, and our faith certainly does offer more ready and more powerful answers to our most pressing questions. Why, then, do we labor through the difficulty of Aristotle’s Metaphysics? The reason is simple: in imitation of St. Thomas Aquinas, we thereby propose to measure our own intellectual grasp of reality against the one Dante called the master of those who know.


More on TMC's program of studies.

Theology and the Good Society

Big Ideas

with: Phillip Blond, Founding director of the ResPublica thinktank
John Milbank, Professor of Politics, Religion and Ethics at the University of Nottingham
Adrian Pabst, Lecturer in Politics at the University of Kent

mp3

Good decision by Liturgical Press

It is publishing Chalice of God: A Systematic Theology in Outline by Aidan Nichols, OP.

Feast of Christ the King

source: Christ Pantocrator

wiki: Christ Pantocrator and Christ in Majesty

QUAS PRIMAS (On the Feast of Christ the King)
Pope Pius XI

Saint Josemaria, The Feast of Christ the King

Jeffrey Tucker, Simple Motet for Christ the King
Chanted Propers for Christ the King

Michael Moreland, The Social Kingship of Christ: Metaphysical, not Political*

Eric Lionel Mascall

William Tighe, Eric Lionel Mascall As Anglican Patrimony

A piece by Fr. Rutler (also here).

Gifford lecture bio

From a comment at Rorate Caeli:

The eminent Italian scholar, Father Enrico Zoffoli - a Passionist - studied the NCW
extensively and wrote about his findings. His conclusion was: the basis of the Neocatechumenate is heretical. He called the NCW 'A Fearful Danger to the Faith'.


One of his most important works on the subject is 'Eresie del movimento neocatecumenale', quinta edizione migliorata e arricchita di nuove sconcertanti testimonianze, ed. Segno, Udine, 1992 (Heresies of the Neocatechumenals).
A later work was 'Verità sul Cammino Neocatecumenale'. Testimonianze e documenti, ed. Segno, Udine, 1996


Fr. Zoffoli taught at the Lateran University and was a member of the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas. He was the author of numerous works of theology, philosophy and lives of the saints. His masterly 1400 page exposition of Catholic theology 'Christianesimo: Corso di Teologia Catholica' was published in 1994 to wide critical acclaim.


To examine Fr. Zoffoli's abundant credentials go to


http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Zoffoli