New York, NY (November 17, 2014). Most people don't realize that abortion, abandonment of newborns and infanticide are not just modern problems. They were also common in the Middle Ages. Lack of care for the poor and the elderly was also common back then.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a medieval saint who cared for poor pregnant women and their babies. The daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, and wife of a German prince, Ludwig, Landgraf of Thuringia,built a hospital for the poor near Wartburg castle in her husband's domains. She was a true "mother" to sick children, and devoted to the physical and spiritual care of pregnant mothers. After her husband's death on crusade in 1227, she built a similar hospital in Marburg in Hesse, where she worked after taking the Franciscan habit and serving the poorest of the poor with several other women, who were perhaps the first Third Order Sisters in the world, until her death.
Dr. Lori Pieper, OFS, a medieval historian and a secular Franciscan, has detailed Elizabeth's work for the poor and its significance in her biography of the saint, "The Greatest of These is Love: The Life of St Elizabeth of Hungary." The new revised edition is now available from Tau Cross Books and Media, as well as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other outlets.
Dr. Pieper says: "Elizabeth was very sensitive to poor women and the circumstances that might pressure them to abort or abandon their children. Once in Hesse, she cared for a poor pregnant woman who was alone, and continued to care for her after her child was born. As the woman got ready to leave Elizabeth gave her some food and clothing for herself and the child. The woman's husband, who may have originally abandoned her while pregnant, now returned -- and the two ran off, leaving the child behind. They eventually returned for the baby and asked forgiveness. The people who witnessed this tended to condemn this woman and told Elizabeth she should not receive any further aid, and should even have what was given to her taken away. But Elizabeth continued to have compassion on her and her child. We see this so often today. People often condemn women in difficulty, but compassion is still the true pro-life attitude."
The book tells the whole story of Elizabeth's life from her birth in 1207 until her death. It is based on the truth that love or charity is the greatest of the virtues. Elizabeth practiced this virtue as a vocation in her love for her husband and children. She was a young wife and mother of barely 18 when she met the first Franciscans who came to Germany and through them discovered her second vocation to the poor. She died beloved throughout Europe, and already considered a saint, on November 17, 1231 -- still only 24 years old -- and was canonized in 1235.
Since then she has inspired a multitude of men and women who have imitated her life of service in religious orders and other communities and charities named for her. One of them was Fr. Ludovico da Casoria, a 19th-century Franciscan friar who founded the Suore Elisabettine in Italy, and who will be canonized on November 23, 2014.
Also inspired by St. Elizabeth was a courageous Jesuit priest, Fr. Alfred Delp, who in a sermon in 1941 in Sankt Georg church in Bavaria, denounced, though in veiled terms, the Nazi regime's program of euthanasia for the mentally and physically handicapped and other seemed "unfit to live." But St. Elizabeth, he said, teaches us "the true meaning of human life . . . This quiet woman bears a grave and urgent message for our land, for our people, for each of us: everywhere, wherever we find ourselves, wherever we may be called upon to bear witness, we must protect life, we must guard human beings from everything that can crush them underfoot. Woe to those who inflict suffering! And woe to those who have destroyed a human life, who have desecrated an image of God, even when it was already breathing its last, even when it seemed to represent only a vestige of humanity."
There is more of Fr. Delp's sermon, and other reflections on St. Elizabeth and the "culture of death" in this inspiring book. They make it clear that she is not just a distant medieval figure but a woman for today.
Using Electronic Devices in the Liturgy
Recently, the bishops in New Zealand issued a letter stating that iPads and other electronic tablets are not to be used to replace the Roman Missal in the celebration of the Mass. Over the last couple days, it’s received some attention from blogs like Thomas McDonald’s God and the Machine and Deacon Greg Kandra’s The Deacon’s Bench.
Now, it’s very clear for those who know me or have read my blog for some time that I’m a computer geek. I make no attempt to hide this fact. I have an iPad and an Android smartphone, as well as several computers (including a classic Commodore 64). I follow trends in the tech world, and try to figure out how to use them to the Church’s advantage.
With my geek cred established, it might come as a surprise that I agree with the New Zealand bishops. Electronic devices, like iPads and smartphones have their place within the Church, and should receive wide use by people at all levels for the work of the Church, but the celebration of the Mass is one place where we should be reticent about bringing these forms of technology into play.
The written word is an important aspect of our worship, so much so that the books used for the celebration of the Mass should be high-quality, durable, and beautiful. There should be a permanence to the books used at the altar and ambo, because the words we speak at Mass are truly the Word of God. Words have power, and the Word of God spoken during the Mass have the power to make Christ present in the proclamation of the Scriptures and in His Real Presence through the Words of Institution.
The Word of God is permanent, existing for all eternity, and became incarnate through Our Lord taking on human flesh through the Blessed Virgin Mary. For this reason, it is fitting that the texts used for the celebration of the Mass be permanent and tangible through the use of books dedicated for the celebration of the Mass, and not transitory and intangible data on an iPad screen. So, for the purposes of celebrating Mass, I agree that electronic devices should not replace the Roman Missal.
I do believe there are places for electronic devices outside of the actual celebration of the liturgy. For at least 2 years now, I have used an iPad to display my homiletic notes while I preach the weekend homilies. I’ve found this to be a good use for the iPad, especially since it is a lot less wasteful than printing up the notes on paper – I’d estimate that I’ve saved well over 100 pieces of paper in that time. It also allows me to occasionally record the homily for later publication over the blog (as I did last weekend).
I also agree with Thomas McDonald that e-ink devices could easily replace the throw-away missals that nearly every parish uses. (Catholic publishers, like Our Sunday Visitor,Word Among Us or Magnificat, are you listening?) Instead, the parish buys a dedicated “plug server” and the required number of dedicated e-ink readers (think non-Fire Kindles). The server is connected to the Internet, and communicates with the readers over a dedicated wi-fi link.
When a parishioner picks up the e-ink reader, it connects to the server and grabs the entire text of the Mass. I especially like Thomas’ idea of having the hymns right in line. No more page flipping or announcing, “Please join in hymn #XXX.” Think of a custom-made worship aid at every Mass without the hassle. Just tell the server what hymns to add for the day, and it does the rest, including downloading the daily readings directly from the publisher. It would also eliminate the confusion that comes with the necessary separation of the ordinary and propers of the Mass in current missals.
So, Catholic publishers who might be willing to take this on, I’ll take 150 e-ink readers and a couple of the servers, but I’ll keep the Roman Missal and Lectionaries in the sanctuary.
Today's Homily
You may have noticed over the past couple of weeks that the readings are clearly focused on the end of time. John has taken great pains to describe visions that he is seen about the next life in the next world. In the midst of all of this, perhaps the most important observation that John makes is the vision of a new heavens and a new earth. The reason I think that this is so important for us, is that all too often in our lives there are too many instances where we see things that are falling apart. I am not talking simply about physical things, although certainly watching someone age, and experience the inevitable hardships that come with growing older, is certainly quite important.
No, I am referring in so many ways to what we encounter time and time again in our world, throughout all ages of history. It’s not difficult to become overwhelmed by those things that we see occurring in our world. It’s sad in so many ways, that the things that human beings have been struggling with in terms of sin are still in our midst. People still do not get along, we still not learn to share, there are times are we treat people differently for very superficial reasons like the color of their skin, and the world is increasingly becoming a place of great disparity financially and otherwise.
If this is all there is, then indeed we are the saddest of peoples. About is not to suggest that life is miserable. I feel like I’m a pretty happy person. Perhaps you do too. But these events should remind us to focus our attention on the person of God who calls us to this new and extraordinary life. In the Psalms, God tells us that he is doing something new. In today’s reading John sees a vision of a new heavens and a new earth. And certainly the resurrection of Jesus changed everything about what it meant to be a follower of God. There was something far more important to hope for and to hope in because Jesus extends to each of us this tremendous gift of unending and eternal life.
It is important to remember that this newness occurs whether we see it or not. And so, it should be some comfort and consolation to those who may not feel that there is much new, or who may not see much new in their lives, to know that God continues to do these things, even when we are unaware.
source: http://www.deporres.net/category/daily-homily/
No, I am referring in so many ways to what we encounter time and time again in our world, throughout all ages of history. It’s not difficult to become overwhelmed by those things that we see occurring in our world. It’s sad in so many ways, that the things that human beings have been struggling with in terms of sin are still in our midst. People still do not get along, we still not learn to share, there are times are we treat people differently for very superficial reasons like the color of their skin, and the world is increasingly becoming a place of great disparity financially and otherwise.
If this is all there is, then indeed we are the saddest of peoples. About is not to suggest that life is miserable. I feel like I’m a pretty happy person. Perhaps you do too. But these events should remind us to focus our attention on the person of God who calls us to this new and extraordinary life. In the Psalms, God tells us that he is doing something new. In today’s reading John sees a vision of a new heavens and a new earth. And certainly the resurrection of Jesus changed everything about what it meant to be a follower of God. There was something far more important to hope for and to hope in because Jesus extends to each of us this tremendous gift of unending and eternal life.
It is important to remember that this newness occurs whether we see it or not. And so, it should be some comfort and consolation to those who may not feel that there is much new, or who may not see much new in their lives, to know that God continues to do these things, even when we are unaware.
source: http://www.deporres.net/category/daily-homily/
PRACTICAL THEOLOGY: New from Ignatius Press
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 18, 2014) St. Thomas Aquinas' theoretical and philosophical brilliance were evident in his writings, particularly his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae. Aquinas also provided personal and practical wisdom in his highly acclaimed work. In his new book, PRACTICAL THEOLOGY: Spiritual Direction From St. Thomas Aquinas, Dr. Peter Kreeft provides 359 pieces of wisdom from the Summa Theologiae, which, Kreeft says, "are literally more valuable than all the kingdoms of this world because they will help you to attain "the one thing needful," or "the greatest good," the ultimate end and purpose and meaning of life.
Kreeft's book is unlike any other on Aquinas in that it provides the most practical analysis of the Summa Theologiae ever written. Aquinas had a reputation as an absent-minded professor, but he provided practical, personal and functional advice that helped his followers, including Kreeft, in their quest for sanity, happiness and union with God.
The 359 gold nuggets Kreeft selected helped him in the struggles of real life, to live in the real world and to grow closer to the Lord. He hopes they do the same for his readers. After each passage directly from Aquinas, Kreeft provides brief spiritual commentary to help explain it and apply it practical, personal, existential, "livable" thoughts.
Kreeft, who is an expert on Aquinas, has framed these readings as answers to questions that people actually ask their spiritual directors. Each answer is taken word for word from Aquinas.
Among the many topics Aquinas and Kreeft cover in PRACTICAL THEOLOGY include:
- The problem of evil
- Interpreting the Bible
- Love vs. knowledge
- Reconciling justice and mercy
- Human freedom and divine grace
- Angels and demons
- The need for theology
- Predestination and free will
- Three kinds of goods
"Peter Kreeft's writings fall into the category of true genius, and this work, PRACTICAL THEOLOGY, may be his opus," says Dan Burke, executive director, of the National Catholic Register. "Not only does Dr. Kreeft make Aquinas" thought more accessible, but he does so in what I believe to be Aquinas" most important gift to the Church, the revelation of truth illumining the path to union with God. If this path isn't quite clear to you, this is the book for you."
More Catholic books.
Stay Grateful, Stay in the Light
I do not know if you have noticed on Facebook, but there is an increasing number of people who are being challenged to be grateful. I have seen three day challenges, seven day challenges and even thirty day challenges. The idea is that for three, seven or thirty consecutive days a person who accepts the challenge is supposed to publicly post on Facebook what they are
grateful for, so that these things are not taken for granted.
I have heard that people who are grateful for things are healthier, and I know that when things are not going so well I do try to identify those things for which I am very grateful. It tends to turn my attention away from my troubles toward blessings I have in my life.
Taking the time to reflect upon those things for which we are grateful is a profitable exercise. It keeps us from taking things for granted. It keeps us from wallowing too much in the negative in life, to focus on what we have, rather than upon what we do not have.
It is interesting that not having what we want or wanting what we do not have is a tremendous cause of suffering in Buddhism. and is something we should strive to overcome. I have even tried to identify how negative things in my life can be things for which I am grateful. A setback at work can be turned into something positive when we express gratitude for having a job. Negative experiences can become positive simply in the way they can help us realize that even in our darkest hour we can find the positive light that gives us hope.
source: http://www.deporres.net/category/daily-homily/
grateful for, so that these things are not taken for granted.
I have heard that people who are grateful for things are healthier, and I know that when things are not going so well I do try to identify those things for which I am very grateful. It tends to turn my attention away from my troubles toward blessings I have in my life.
Taking the time to reflect upon those things for which we are grateful is a profitable exercise. It keeps us from taking things for granted. It keeps us from wallowing too much in the negative in life, to focus on what we have, rather than upon what we do not have.
It is interesting that not having what we want or wanting what we do not have is a tremendous cause of suffering in Buddhism. and is something we should strive to overcome. I have even tried to identify how negative things in my life can be things for which I am grateful. A setback at work can be turned into something positive when we express gratitude for having a job. Negative experiences can become positive simply in the way they can help us realize that even in our darkest hour we can find the positive light that gives us hope.
source: http://www.deporres.net/category/daily-homily/
Catholic Treasury of Prayers and Devotions: Kindle Edition
This treasury of prayers, now released on Kindle, will help you go to the Lord with courage and pray to receive God's grace.
Sometimes, the Pope said of prayers and devotions, one goes to the Lord "to ask something for someone;" one asks for a favor and then goes away. "But that," he warned, "is not prayer," because if "you want the Lord to bestow a grace, you have to go with courage and do what Abraham did, with that sort of tenacity."
This comprehensive treasury of Catholic prayer includes everyday prayers, devotionals, how to pray the rosary, litanies, the Stations of the Cross, Eucharistic prayers, prayers to prepare for confession, prayers to the saints, Marian prayers, family prayers, and more.
From Saint Benedict Press: Prepare the Way
Celebrating the Return of a Timeless Classic: The Beloved Queen of Apostles Prayer Book
Pauline Books & Media and the Daughters of St. Paul are pleased to announce the return of Queen of Apostles Prayer Book, a beloved classic in a soft leatherette gift edition. A favorite for more than fifty years, this treasured prayer companion with time-honored devotions including the Angelus, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Rosary, and now Mary, Untier of Knots is a comprehensive resource for daily prayer and meditation. 
Come home again to the richness of traditional Catholic prayers offered in this warm honey-brown gift edition. The handsome treasury reunites you with classic prayers accented with lovely religious art from the masters—a beautiful family heirloom to enjoy and hand down through generations. The updated version of this perennial favorite includes:
* Daily Prayers
* Prayers to the Holy Trinity
* Eucharistic Devotions
* Prayers to Our Lady
* Prayers to the Saints
* Seasonal Prayers
"It is my hope that the Queen of Apostles Prayer Book will inspire all who use it with a deep trust in the power of prayer, and that they will find encouragement and consolation in times of difficulty," says Pauline Books & Media Publisher Mary Mark Wickenhiser, FSP, compiler and editor of Queen of Apostles Prayer Book.
Queen Of Apostles Prayerbook
The Pope App: Check It out Today
Be sure to check out the Pope App, powered by news.va, which is run by the Pontifical Council for Social Communication.
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Pope Francis is bringing openness and humility to the Vatican | The Australian
It was 8.22pm on March 13, 2013 and in the square, the phones and tablets flashed in the dark like twinkling stars. The Francis era of the Roman Catholic Church began with a buona sera (“good evening”), spoken shyly but firmly into the microphone. In fluent Italian, Pope Francis joked that “my brother cardinals have gone to the ends of the Earth” in order to “give Rome a bishop”, asked for prayers for “our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI” and led the world in reciting an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be.
Read more.
Read more.
Abide, a New Prayer App That Wants to Connect You With God - Aleteia
It's probably safe to say that far more Catholics nowadays carry a smart phone around with them than a prayer book. And although there are many ways to access prayer websites on your phone, it's also safe to say that for many people, new technology has provided so much distraction that prayer time suffers.
There's a new app being launched today that promises to teach people to pray better, facilitate group prayer among people connecting with one another through digital devices, and spur people to spend more and better time in prayer, yes, without their cell phones around.
Read more.
There's a new app being launched today that promises to teach people to pray better, facilitate group prayer among people connecting with one another through digital devices, and spur people to spend more and better time in prayer, yes, without their cell phones around.
Read more.
Vatican astronomer, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno wins Carl Sagan Medal
Michigan-bred Vatican astronomer and Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno will become the first clergyman awarded one of planetary science's most prestigious awards, when on Thursday in Arizona he receives the Carl Sagan Medal.
And then Consolmagno, for two decades the curator of the Vatican's meteorite collection, plans to head to metro Detroit where he grew up. He has a bittersweet assignment here: to retrieve and return to the Vatican three meteorites he loaned the Cranbrook Institute of Science in 2002.
And then Consolmagno, for two decades the curator of the Vatican's meteorite collection, plans to head to metro Detroit where he grew up. He has a bittersweet assignment here: to retrieve and return to the Vatican three meteorites he loaned the Cranbrook Institute of Science in 2002.
Pope Francis Hails John Paul II Role in Fall of Berlin Wall
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has hailed St. Pope John Paul II's role in the fall of the Berlin Wall and urged people to build bridges by opening hearts.
Francis marked the 25th anniversary Sunday of the destruction of the wall symbolizing the Cold War by appealing to all those of good will to foster a "culture of coming together" to bring down all barriers still dividing the world.
Greeting people in St. Peter's Square, he paid tribute to those who worked for the Berlin Wall's end, including those paying with their lives. John Paul II's championing of the Solidarity union in his native Poland is credited with helping bring the demise of Soviet bloc communism.
Pope Francis Hails John Paul II Role in Fall of Berlin Wall
Francis marked the 25th anniversary Sunday of the destruction of the wall symbolizing the Cold War by appealing to all those of good will to foster a "culture of coming together" to bring down all barriers still dividing the world.
Greeting people in St. Peter's Square, he paid tribute to those who worked for the Berlin Wall's end, including those paying with their lives. John Paul II's championing of the Solidarity union in his native Poland is credited with helping bring the demise of Soviet bloc communism.
Pope Francis Hails John Paul II Role in Fall of Berlin Wall
Pope mulls removing Catholic church charges for marriage annulments | CTV News
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis on Wednesday denounced the hardships Catholics can face when seeking marriage annulments, revealing he once fired an official who tried to charge thousands of dollars for one.
Francis told participants at a Vatican course for officials dealing with annulments that as bishop of Buenos Aires, he was dismayed to learn that some faithful needed to travel hundreds of kilometres (miles) and lose days of work to reach church tribunals.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pope-mulls-removing-catholic-church-charges-for-marriage-annulments-1.2088123#ixzz3IUQYL2qF
Raleigh seminarian’s letter to Brittany Maynard
Last week I came across the heartbreaking story of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer one year after her wedding. When doctors suggested that she might only have six months to live, she and her family moved from California to Oregon in order to obtain the prescriptions necessary for doctor-assisted euthanasia. She is devoting her last days to fundraising and lobbying for an organization dedicated to expanding the legality of assisted suicide to other States.
Brittany’s story really hit home, as I was diagnosed with a very similar incurable brain cancer in 2008 at the age of twenty-four. After years of terrible headaches and misdiagnosis, my Grade III brain cancer (Anaplastic Astrocytoma) proved to be inoperable due to its location. Most studies state that the median survival time for this type of cancer is eighteen months, even with aggressive radiation and chemotherapy. I was beginning an exciting career as a naval officer with my entire life ahead of me. I had so many hopes and dreams, and in an instant they all seemed to be crushed. As Brittany said in her online video, “being told you have that kind of timeline still feels like you’re going to die tomorrow.”
I was diagnosed during my second Navy deployment to the Northern Arabian Gulf. After many seizures, the ship’s doctor sent me to the naval hospital on the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain, where my brain tumor was discovered. I remember the moment I saw the computer images of the brain scans – I went to the Catholic chapel on base and fell to the floor in tears. I asked God, “why me?” The next day, I flew home to the United States to begin urgent treatment. A few months after radiation and chemotherapy, I was discharged from the Navy and began formation for the Roman Catholic priesthood, a vocation to which I have felt called since I was nineteen years old. Despite all of the hardships and delays in my training and formation over the past six years, I hope to be ordained to the transitional diaconate this Spring and to the priesthood one year later.
Read more.
Brittany’s story really hit home, as I was diagnosed with a very similar incurable brain cancer in 2008 at the age of twenty-four. After years of terrible headaches and misdiagnosis, my Grade III brain cancer (Anaplastic Astrocytoma) proved to be inoperable due to its location. Most studies state that the median survival time for this type of cancer is eighteen months, even with aggressive radiation and chemotherapy. I was beginning an exciting career as a naval officer with my entire life ahead of me. I had so many hopes and dreams, and in an instant they all seemed to be crushed. As Brittany said in her online video, “being told you have that kind of timeline still feels like you’re going to die tomorrow.”
I was diagnosed during my second Navy deployment to the Northern Arabian Gulf. After many seizures, the ship’s doctor sent me to the naval hospital on the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain, where my brain tumor was discovered. I remember the moment I saw the computer images of the brain scans – I went to the Catholic chapel on base and fell to the floor in tears. I asked God, “why me?” The next day, I flew home to the United States to begin urgent treatment. A few months after radiation and chemotherapy, I was discharged from the Navy and began formation for the Roman Catholic priesthood, a vocation to which I have felt called since I was nineteen years old. Despite all of the hardships and delays in my training and formation over the past six years, I hope to be ordained to the transitional diaconate this Spring and to the priesthood one year later.
Read more.
How Would Bilbo Vote?
The midterm elections and the final installment of The Hobbit film trilogy are just around the corner. It's past time somebody asked the burning question: How would Bilbo Baggins vote? For the uninitiated, Bilbo is the title character of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel behind the films, and most people's introduction to The Lord of the Rings, the grand sequel to The Hobbit.
To understand Bilbo, we need look no further than his creator, J.R.R. Tolkien. The clues are not only in Tolkien's collected letters, but also in the novels themselves.
Bilbo's nephew, Frodo, is a proponent of nonviolence near the end of The Lord of the Rings. Plus, Tolkien loved trees and detested the ugly side of industrialism. Surely if the Oxford don were alive today, the thinking goes, he would be a Prius-driving, organic smoothie-drinking, COEXIST bumper sticker-sporting liberal. Wouldn't he?
But wait. What of all the stuff in his work about honor, chivalry, family, battlefield courage and moral absolutes? Focusing on this, some on the left have concluded that, no, Tolkien must have been an old-fashioned dead white male conservative.
Both views can't be right. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? Was Tolkien a soft-edged moderate? Tolkien was a moderate beer drinker. He was a moderately good rugby player as a boy. But there was nothing moderate about his political views.
In the recently released The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot
coauthors Dr. Jay Richards, a Catholic, and Dr. Jonathan Witt, an Evangelical Christian, show how Tolkien's Middle-Earth novels championed liberty, trade and limited government, key issues in the upcoming midterm elections. They believe Tolkien's novels of Middle-Earth draw us a map to freedom and liberty, and that perhaps brushing up on our Tolkien lore can help us prepare for this midterm election vote.
For more information, contact CarmelCommunications.com.
To understand Bilbo, we need look no further than his creator, J.R.R. Tolkien. The clues are not only in Tolkien's collected letters, but also in the novels themselves.
Bilbo's nephew, Frodo, is a proponent of nonviolence near the end of The Lord of the Rings. Plus, Tolkien loved trees and detested the ugly side of industrialism. Surely if the Oxford don were alive today, the thinking goes, he would be a Prius-driving, organic smoothie-drinking, COEXIST bumper sticker-sporting liberal. Wouldn't he?
But wait. What of all the stuff in his work about honor, chivalry, family, battlefield courage and moral absolutes? Focusing on this, some on the left have concluded that, no, Tolkien must have been an old-fashioned dead white male conservative.
Both views can't be right. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? Was Tolkien a soft-edged moderate? Tolkien was a moderate beer drinker. He was a moderately good rugby player as a boy. But there was nothing moderate about his political views.
In the recently released The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot
coauthors Dr. Jay Richards, a Catholic, and Dr. Jonathan Witt, an Evangelical Christian, show how Tolkien's Middle-Earth novels championed liberty, trade and limited government, key issues in the upcoming midterm elections. They believe Tolkien's novels of Middle-Earth draw us a map to freedom and liberty, and that perhaps brushing up on our Tolkien lore can help us prepare for this midterm election vote. For more information, contact CarmelCommunications.com.
The Tectonic Plates of World Catholicism Shift
By Massimo Faggioli, University of St. Thomas
An extraordinary two weeks in Rome ended Saturday with a standing ovation. Pope Francis had invited 191 bishops and clergy to the Synod on the family to speak their minds on issues such as divorce, premarital cohabitation and homosexuality and they did.
Pope Francis’s invitation to bishops was to “speak clearly. No one must say, ‘this can’t be done.’” This was a big gamble. But the result is a victory for him. True, the final report is markedly less open to the aforementioned “irregular” situations that many had hoped for. But it is also clear that a stable majority of the bishops in Rome is on his side if we look at the vote tally of October 18.
Bishops are aware of the challenges to the so-called traditional model of the Catholic family and acutely aware that these challenges are not going to disappear. In this sense, the Catholic church of 2014 seems very far from that of Francis’s predecessors. What we are witnessing is an acceleration of Church history – something similar to the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago.
What took place over the two weeks of the Synod was a genuine debate between competing ideas of what the church’s relationship ought to be with modern culture, the sexual revolution, and gender identity. But above all what these two weeks have revealed, for the first time, is a tectonic shift – a movement in the plates that make up the map of the Catholic world.
These are new alliances. Until the Second Vatican Council – the most important church reform since the 16th century – it was the European churches and their theological traditions that had the leading role. The churches built by missionaries may have been important participants but they were not able to build a strong opposition to the Europeans. Not anymore.
This October the strongest objections to the German bishops' proposed welcome to gay and divorced Catholics came from the representatives of English-speaking Catholics from the United States, Africa, and Australia. Their opposition was carefully planned even before the Synod as one can see from the long paper trail of interviews, op-eds and books laid down by Cardinal Raymond Burke (USA) and Cardinal George Pell (Australia). Once in Rome they argued with the Europeans in a way that has created a new sense of self-awareness in their churches back home.
Until Vatican II, American Catholicism was on the progressive side of history, in a church still filled with cultural optimism. The church and Christianity were then part of mainstream culture. Then came the 60s, the new legislation on abortion, divorce, and more recently same-sex marriage. The Catholic church felt pushed to take a countercultural stance. The legacy of the Second Vatican Council became a contested narrative and captive of the “cultural wars” of these past 30 years.
All this is part of a much bigger change in what can be called the neo-conservative turn of a number of prominent lay leaders of English-speaking Catholicism. Taking part in the public debate through such publications as First Things (founded in 1990), they have voiced growing criticism of the welfare state in domestic politics; have endorsed the 2003 war in Iraq; and have been fiercely opposed to legislation regulating abortion and same-sex marriage.
The election to the papacy of a Latin-American bishop like Jorge Mario Bergoglio who does not adhere to any one political ideology has set different experiences of Catholicism in different parts of the world on a collision course.
When the Pope speaks about economic and social justice and the international financial system, Africa and America are on opposite sides of the argument. But on the issue of family values, Africa and America have built an alliance, and there is no doubt that, in the contemporary role of churches in the social and political debate, marriage and family play a particular role.
Unlike their neighbors to the north, Latin American Catholics have left behind the dream of building a “Christian nation” and have become convinced, like European Catholics, that it is time to adapt to changed social conditions.
It is interesting to see how a deeply traditional Catholic such as Pope Francis has unsettled the culture of important sectors of Anglo-Saxon Catholicism – in the US in particular. After 35 years of pro-American popes such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Vatican and the US need to rebuild a lost harmony.
This now is the “American problem” of Pope Francis: the first pope after World War II with virtually no contact with the USA and its cultural empire, partly because of the difficult relationship between the US and its Latin American backyard and partly because of the personal background of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Francis has never been to the US. His English is not as fluent as that of his predecessors. This is going to be a crucial challenge for Francis and the future of Christianity.
America and the so-called global south are placed at the intersection of two worlds. In one corner there is the Christian West, where there has been a loss of faith in God and loss of trust in the power of human reason or what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo calls “weak thought.” In the rest of the world there is a resurgence of religious belief or as French political scientist Gilles Kepel has dubbed it, “the revenge of God.” In this sense, the 2014 Synod is the dawn of a new era in the history of the Catholic church.
Massimo Faggioli does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
An extraordinary two weeks in Rome ended Saturday with a standing ovation. Pope Francis had invited 191 bishops and clergy to the Synod on the family to speak their minds on issues such as divorce, premarital cohabitation and homosexuality and they did.
Bishops are aware of the challenges to the so-called traditional model of the Catholic family and acutely aware that these challenges are not going to disappear. In this sense, the Catholic church of 2014 seems very far from that of Francis’s predecessors. What we are witnessing is an acceleration of Church history – something similar to the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago.
What took place over the two weeks of the Synod was a genuine debate between competing ideas of what the church’s relationship ought to be with modern culture, the sexual revolution, and gender identity. But above all what these two weeks have revealed, for the first time, is a tectonic shift – a movement in the plates that make up the map of the Catholic world.
A new map of the Catholic world
In this new map Europe and Latin America are at the forefront of the new openness. On the other hand, North America, Africa, and in general English-speaking Catholics are more inclined to hone to a firm countercultural line, refusing to evolve the doctrine and pastoral practice of the church with regard to marriage and family. Asia presents a more complex picture, although the Cardinal from Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, for example, was one of the leaders of Francis’s majority.These are new alliances. Until the Second Vatican Council – the most important church reform since the 16th century – it was the European churches and their theological traditions that had the leading role. The churches built by missionaries may have been important participants but they were not able to build a strong opposition to the Europeans. Not anymore.
This October the strongest objections to the German bishops' proposed welcome to gay and divorced Catholics came from the representatives of English-speaking Catholics from the United States, Africa, and Australia. Their opposition was carefully planned even before the Synod as one can see from the long paper trail of interviews, op-eds and books laid down by Cardinal Raymond Burke (USA) and Cardinal George Pell (Australia). Once in Rome they argued with the Europeans in a way that has created a new sense of self-awareness in their churches back home.
The ‘exceptional’ American church
There are different reasons for the creation of these new alliances. In Africa opposition to a post-modern understanding of sexuality is rooted in deep cultural differences with Europe. For the US in particular, marriage and family have an iconic role shaped by the history of the American frontier.Until Vatican II, American Catholicism was on the progressive side of history, in a church still filled with cultural optimism. The church and Christianity were then part of mainstream culture. Then came the 60s, the new legislation on abortion, divorce, and more recently same-sex marriage. The Catholic church felt pushed to take a countercultural stance. The legacy of the Second Vatican Council became a contested narrative and captive of the “cultural wars” of these past 30 years.
All this is part of a much bigger change in what can be called the neo-conservative turn of a number of prominent lay leaders of English-speaking Catholicism. Taking part in the public debate through such publications as First Things (founded in 1990), they have voiced growing criticism of the welfare state in domestic politics; have endorsed the 2003 war in Iraq; and have been fiercely opposed to legislation regulating abortion and same-sex marriage.
The election to the papacy of a Latin-American bishop like Jorge Mario Bergoglio who does not adhere to any one political ideology has set different experiences of Catholicism in different parts of the world on a collision course.
When the Pope speaks about economic and social justice and the international financial system, Africa and America are on opposite sides of the argument. But on the issue of family values, Africa and America have built an alliance, and there is no doubt that, in the contemporary role of churches in the social and political debate, marriage and family play a particular role.
Unlike their neighbors to the north, Latin American Catholics have left behind the dream of building a “Christian nation” and have become convinced, like European Catholics, that it is time to adapt to changed social conditions.
It is interesting to see how a deeply traditional Catholic such as Pope Francis has unsettled the culture of important sectors of Anglo-Saxon Catholicism – in the US in particular. After 35 years of pro-American popes such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Vatican and the US need to rebuild a lost harmony.
This now is the “American problem” of Pope Francis: the first pope after World War II with virtually no contact with the USA and its cultural empire, partly because of the difficult relationship between the US and its Latin American backyard and partly because of the personal background of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Francis has never been to the US. His English is not as fluent as that of his predecessors. This is going to be a crucial challenge for Francis and the future of Christianity.
America and the so-called global south are placed at the intersection of two worlds. In one corner there is the Christian West, where there has been a loss of faith in God and loss of trust in the power of human reason or what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo calls “weak thought.” In the rest of the world there is a resurgence of religious belief or as French political scientist Gilles Kepel has dubbed it, “the revenge of God.” In this sense, the 2014 Synod is the dawn of a new era in the history of the Catholic church.
Massimo Faggioli does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Lessons from the Charterhouse
Due to the kindness of a benefactor, the Brothers recently came into possession of the book, The Prayer of Love and Silence [1], which Father David Phillipson had recommended from our pulpit some weeks previously. Its author is “A Carthusian,” so named due to a custom of the Carthusian Order1 [2] that guards the monks’ hiddenness and silence.
It would be difficult to do such a work justice in a review. My intention herein is to give the reader a taste of a work at once so simple and so deep that it defies summary.
With the exception of the section entitled “The Blessed Trinity and the Spiritual Life,” which is the last one third of the book, reading it was easy. It was like drinking good water: nothing to prevent the effortless imbibing of the material — and refreshing! After a few draughts, though, I realized that I was drinking strong stuff, so I had to slow down and read sections over again — even though the words and the syntax were quite simple. The thought occurred to me that the life of the Carthusians is productive of such an experience. In their slow, silent, hidden existence, they distill the complexities of the ancient liturgy, the great spiritual writers they read, and the manual labor they carry out, all into a life of great simplicity.
This makes their writing itself highly distilled, rather like the liquor they make [4]. Yes, this strong stuff is spiritual Chartreuse!
Read more
The volume is a translation of two works that originally appeared in 1951 and 1948 respectively. Its subjects are varied, but all pertain to the interior life. Two parts of the book, “An Introduction to the Interior Life” and “The Blessed Trinity and the Spiritual Life,”are systematic in their approach. A third section — in the middle of the work — is a series of “Sermons in Chapter” given by the Abbot to his monks in their chapter meeting [3] on feast days.
It would be difficult to do such a work justice in a review. My intention herein is to give the reader a taste of a work at once so simple and so deep that it defies summary.
With the exception of the section entitled “The Blessed Trinity and the Spiritual Life,” which is the last one third of the book, reading it was easy. It was like drinking good water: nothing to prevent the effortless imbibing of the material — and refreshing! After a few draughts, though, I realized that I was drinking strong stuff, so I had to slow down and read sections over again — even though the words and the syntax were quite simple. The thought occurred to me that the life of the Carthusians is productive of such an experience. In their slow, silent, hidden existence, they distill the complexities of the ancient liturgy, the great spiritual writers they read, and the manual labor they carry out, all into a life of great simplicity.
This makes their writing itself highly distilled, rather like the liquor they make [4]. Yes, this strong stuff is spiritual Chartreuse!
. . .
Read more
An Appreciation for Church History
Brother Francis has a tremendous appreciation for the history of the Church. He likes to call Church history “the laboratory of wisdom.” Why? Because the history of the Church is the history of human salvation, and choosing the best means to save one’s soul is the highest prudence. And prudence, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is wisdom in action.
History is the laboratory of wisdom, but the application today of the lessons learned from history is prudence.
How, for example, are we to understand what St. Pius X meant when he said that “modernism is the synthesis of all heresies,” if we are ignorant of the history of the Church’s battles against heresy? How are we to evaluate the causes of what Pope Benedict referred to a “crisis of Faith,” if we unfamiliar with any of the twenty ecumenical councils that preceded Vatican II?
There are twenty-two books of the Bible that are history books: the first nineteen of the Old Testament, the two books of Machabees, which end the Old Testament, and the Acts of the Apostles in the New.
A knowledge of Church History is a knowledge of the life of the Body of Christ extended in time throughout the past twenty centuries. It is a glorious history, with its martyrs, confessors, saints of the desert, great doctors and popes, apostles of nations, proliferation of contemplative orders, active orders, teaching orders, advances in science, medicine, the arts, missionary life, and victories over the enemies of true religion, who engaged her by pen and sword.
Without a knowledge of history, of its facts, dates, and events, a Catholic is ill-prepared to defend the Church against those who would gainsay her by misrepresentation, misinformation, or deliberate disinformation. Nor can we forget that we all have an obligation to instruct the ignorant who have been misled by error and who, in their hearts, nurture an affinity for the truth.
source: catholicism.org
History is the laboratory of wisdom, but the application today of the lessons learned from history is prudence.
How, for example, are we to understand what St. Pius X meant when he said that “modernism is the synthesis of all heresies,” if we are ignorant of the history of the Church’s battles against heresy? How are we to evaluate the causes of what Pope Benedict referred to a “crisis of Faith,” if we unfamiliar with any of the twenty ecumenical councils that preceded Vatican II?
There are twenty-two books of the Bible that are history books: the first nineteen of the Old Testament, the two books of Machabees, which end the Old Testament, and the Acts of the Apostles in the New.
A knowledge of Church History is a knowledge of the life of the Body of Christ extended in time throughout the past twenty centuries. It is a glorious history, with its martyrs, confessors, saints of the desert, great doctors and popes, apostles of nations, proliferation of contemplative orders, active orders, teaching orders, advances in science, medicine, the arts, missionary life, and victories over the enemies of true religion, who engaged her by pen and sword.
Without a knowledge of history, of its facts, dates, and events, a Catholic is ill-prepared to defend the Church against those who would gainsay her by misrepresentation, misinformation, or deliberate disinformation. Nor can we forget that we all have an obligation to instruct the ignorant who have been misled by error and who, in their hearts, nurture an affinity for the truth.
source: catholicism.org
The Underrated Virtue of Forgiveness (via wordonfire.org)
In the recently released film Calvary, we witness the transformative
power of the virtue of forgiveness, especially the Christlike
forgiveness that calls for self-sacrifice in love.
from wordonfire.org
from wordonfire.org
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