tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post6744779519401695691..comments2024-03-28T16:16:51.062-04:00Comments on Musings of a Pertinacious Papist: English Catholic converts who experienced V-II: reactionary cranks or prescient prophets?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-68445744576729837952012-01-10T23:23:43.141-05:002012-01-10T23:23:43.141-05:00Sheldon: Don't know how 'brilliant' it...Sheldon: Don't know how 'brilliant' it is, LOL, but intriguing. Here's a factoid, rather inexplicable to say the least: just went through Scott Hahn's treatment of Benedict's Biblicism, "Covenant and Communion" (Brazos). Hahn is a one-man juggernaut for inerrancy. The book has positive blurbs from evangelical heavyweights. He talks at length bout modern biblical criticism, yet manages to get through a book-length treatment without the concept of "inerrancy" being even mentioned or listed in the index. Am I missing something, or is there an elephant carcass in the room?JFMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05496819581817926605noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-72446436446657302762012-01-10T17:16:24.802-05:002012-01-10T17:16:24.802-05:00JFM. Brilliant. I had not thought of this compar...JFM. Brilliant. I had not thought of this comparison before, but it rings true, frankly, sad to say. Both Barth and B16 have major existentialist influences in their background and undercurrents (if not overt themes) in their work. B16 is "Augustinian," by his own profession, as opposed to "Thomistic." The latter always struck him as too "Aristotelian" and "neoscholastic." In that sense he's also a produce of the nouvelle theologie's reaction against the "manualist" instruction of the Garrigou-Legrange era (and earlier).<br /><br />Neither Barth nor B12 strikes one has heterodox upon a first perusal. One has to know what to look for. I've found this so especially with Barth, whom many Protestants (even Evangelicals) find compelling and embrace without reserve. Few of those who love Barth know where the problems lie in his theology, that they lie not so much in what is said but what is intended by what is said, which often differs radically from traditional Christianity, not to mention the magisterial tradition of Catholicism. <br /><br />There are just enough clues here and there in both to alert the cautious reader that there may be problems. What emerges in the case of Barth is a view of Christianity that floats above <i>terra firma</i> in the ethers of personal "encounter" above the facts of history and two feet above contradiction. <br /><br />I do not know B12's pre-papal work as well as I do Barth, but I've read enough to see what I think you mean. There is something of that existentialist about him too, though he's not easily pinned down, but there's enough to make one wary.Sheldonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-72371161595537593012012-01-09T21:54:57.543-05:002012-01-09T21:54:57.543-05:00This will incense people, but part of me thinks Ra...This will incense people, but part of me thinks Ratzinger (in his pre-papal career) was sort of a Catholic version of Karl Barth. I say this after reading Larson, and having recently read the evangelical Lloyd-Jones assessment of Barth. It sounds very much like Larson's critique in distinct ways:<br /><br />"Barth clearly had a first-class intellect. Nothing else could account for his acute criticism of various theological outlooks ... He was said by those who knew him to be a ‘great character’. But his greatness was seen supremely in his heroic stand against Hitler and Nazism ...<br /><br />There is no question also but that he stood out above all others as a theological giant in this century. No name has been quoted more freely not only in Protestant circles but also among Roman Catholics.<br /> <br />...His attacks on Liberalism and Modernism were devastating... But alas, it was only a matter of appearance.<br /><br />To start with he accepted a radical criticism of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. ... He denied propositional revelation, and his view of the historicity of the foundational facts of the Christian faith expressed itself in his strange division of history into ‘holy’ and ‘secular’.<br /><br /> ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’ and when this canon of judgement is applied to Barth and his works it is clear that the result has been entirely negative from the evangelical standpoint.<br /><br /> Though his works and influence have been in existence for 50 years, he has brought no revival to the church. This is not surprising as his approach, in spite of his denials, is essentially philosophical. His style was involved and difficult and while for a time he produced a crop of intellectual preachers, who were always preaching about ‘the Word’, it soon became clear that they were not preaching the Word itself.<br /><br />By now his influence from the continent has been eclipsed by that of more radical thinkers.<br /><br />...<br /><br />His keenest students at the present time seem to be Roman Catholic theologians, especially those of the liberal school that is accepting more and more the Higher Critical view of the Bible, and is at the same time anxious to interpret the pronouncements of the Council of Trent in a Protestant direction."<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Ratzinger's works do seem different, and he does often seem to land on the side of propositions. Also, his mentor Von Balthasar loved George Kelly's refutation of Ray Brown's biblical deconstruction, so it makes trying to nail don just what the theologizing really amounts to difficult. When I read his material without any prejudice or suspicion, it is all very helpful, so maybe that is the way to go. But he himself has said his non-papl work is fair game for analysis, so I don't think I am being disrespectful. Simply tyring to understand the theology he has produced!JFMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05496819581817926605noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-58697604013396599782012-01-09T20:06:52.521-05:002012-01-09T20:06:52.521-05:00In this vein, I still find compelling J. Lamont...In this vein, I still find compelling J. Lamont's comment some time ago over a Rorate Caeli on a post devoted Ocariz. Lamont says that Ocariz rejects, in the case of Vatican II, the standard view that later ecumenical councils can clarify earlier magisterial statements only if they a) are more clearly and precisely expressed than the earlier ones and b) are equally or more authoritative than the earlier ones. Instead, says Lamont:<br /><br />"[Ocariz] is claiming that the conciliar [V-II] documents were produced as previous documents were, with the intention of explaining and deepening the Catholic faith, and hence that they contain new teachings in the fields of ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality that should be accepted. But this is false. The only novelty in the conciliar documents is that they are expressed in a way that permits a heterodox interpretation. The people involved in drafting them did not have any actual developments of doctrine in mind; what they had in mind was the rejection of previous doctrine. If you want to find something new in the documents, you must accept the modernist positions that their drafters wished to promote."Georgenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-27808001031565689652012-01-09T11:31:16.747-05:002012-01-09T11:31:16.747-05:00IAMSpartacus' link to Larson is disconcerting,...IAMSpartacus' link to Larson is disconcerting, to say the least. While I cannot pass judgement on all its particulars, I do think it hits the nailhead here:<br /><br />"What possible motive could someone like Joseph Ratzinger have for wanting to make Revelation and Truth into evolving phenomena? ...the primary motivation for such aberrations is the perceived necessity to bring the faith into line with reductive physical science."<br /><br />Yes, yes, and One hundred percent YES. The entire shift marked by Vatican II hinges on the conviction that modern science has disproved much of what up until the last 200 years was held to be true. Hence things earlier never disputed -- The OT picture of God and His Wrath, the absoluteness of moral law, the damning nature of Original Sin, the bona fide historicity of Scripture, the possible "lostness" of much of humanity -- all suddenly become fluid within Living Tradition. Or so it does certainly seem. The irony is that the recent popes don't sense the near impossibility of relaxing thought in these areas and retaining rigid traditions like male-only priests, celibacy, or Christian uniqueness. If you let go of the observable and identifiable supernatural intervention of God as accurately testified to by Scripture, in the end holding on to anything else at all will seem like merely an ecclesiastical coercive power reach. What follow is a retreat to imposing nothing, only "proclaiming" iow pleading. Which doesn't bring especially strong results, witness the present situation. <br /><br />If anyone can convincingly argue otherwise, I'll stand happily corrected. The Pope does appear to be being used of God to help slow the tide, but it so far it all looks more like a temporary reprieve than a change of course.JFMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05496819581817926605noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-21726352236329815872012-01-07T09:25:43.782-05:002012-01-07T09:25:43.782-05:00Dear Dr. I have been uneasy for a long time about ...Dear Dr. I have been uneasy for a long time about confusing signals sent by the V2 Popes and I have been reading an analysis by Mr Larson that has concretised that uneasiness into a firm dread.<br /><br />I send you think link not expecting you to post it but for you to evaluate the argument there it using your expertise.<br /><br />I pray Mr. Larson is wrong but I think, sadly, he has Our Holy Father pinned.<br /><br />http://www.waragainstbeing.com/parti-article12Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12879499915093940176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-23541631158735558972012-01-07T09:05:59.215-05:002012-01-07T09:05:59.215-05:00Dei Verbum
19. Holy Mother Church has firmly an...Dei Verbum <br /><br /><br />19. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1). Indeed, after the Ascension of the Lord the Apostles handed on to their hearers what He had said and done. This they did with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed (3) after they had been instructed by the glorious events of Christ's life and taught by the light of the Spirit of truth. (2) The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus.(4) For their intention in writing was that either from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who "themselves from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word" we might know "the truth" concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (see Luke 1:2-4).<br /><br />And, yet, Our Holy Father, in his First, "Jesus of Nazareth" book declares that John is not the author of his Gospel but some anonymous John is the author thereby jettisoning 2000 years of tradition off the barque of Peter with a breezy alacrity.<br /><br />And I can site MANY decisions taken by the PBC - especially when it was authoritative - that rejects any rejection of who the authors of Our Gospels are.Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12879499915093940176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-27456526414196020862012-01-06T10:09:34.915-05:002012-01-06T10:09:34.915-05:00Dear Dr. Your excellent post ended with a quote fr...Dear Dr. Your excellent post ended with a quote from "The Feast of Faith" and so I will also quote it and then when we read both quotes together, don't we end-up scratching our heads in wondering what he, finally, thinks about the lil licit Liturgy?<br /><br /><br />Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy<br /><br /><i>Lest there be any misunderstanding, let me add that as far as its contents in concerned (apart from a few criticisms), I am very grateful for the new Missal, for the way it has enriched the treasury of prayers and prefaces, for the new eucharistic prayers and the increased number of texts for use on weekdays, etc., quite apart from the availability of the vernacular. But I do regard it as unfortunate that we have been presented with the idea of a new book rather with that of continuity within a single liturgical history.<br />In my view, a new edition will need to make it quite clear that the so-called Missal of Paul VI is nothing other than a renewed form of the same Missal to which Pius X, Urban VIII, Pius V and their predecessors have contributed, right from the Church’s earliest history. It is of the very essence of the Church that she should be aware of her unbroken continuity throughout the history of faith, expressed in an ever-present unity of prayer.</i><br /><br />P.S. I hasten to add that when it comes to personal Holiness and Intellect and Education and Orthopraxis, Our Holy Father is a veritable ocean whereas there is still a lot of room after what I am is poured into a shot glass.<br /><br />I honestly do not know what he thinks whereas there was never a doubt about what Pope Saint Pius X - or, for that matter, even what the great Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val - thought.Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12879499915093940176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-83270471168951571332012-01-06T09:54:03.394-05:002012-01-06T09:54:03.394-05:00As a peritus at the Council, Ratzinger was a liber...As a peritus at the Council, Ratzinger was a liberal and on p. 124 of "The Ratzinger Report," Vittorio Messori notes about Cardinal Ratzinger and The Immemorial Mass; "Far from regarding this Iindult" on the lines of a restoration, he saw it rather in the context of that 'legitimate pluralism' which has been so stressed by Vatican II and its interpreters."<br /><br />And he said that after earlier (p.79) having been quoted as saying that; "It's always very dangerous to change religious language. Continuity here is of great importance...I grant, however, that expressions such as 'original sin' which in their context are also directly biblical in origin but which already manifest in expression the stage of theological reflection, are modifable."<br /><br />I am not sure what he believes, frankly. His "Jesus of Nazareth" books employ a great preponderance of protestants exegetes and he tells us that some anonymous John is the one who wrote The Gospel not the John of Tradition; he tells us we dont have to convert Jews etc etc etc..<br /><br />I fear the Immemorial Mass was officially resurrected so it could be subjected to the knives of the rationalists and they can dissect and kill it like they killed The Mass after V2.Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12879499915093940176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6312447.post-24315817187993421672012-01-06T05:23:32.093-05:002012-01-06T05:23:32.093-05:00In the Feast of Faith Cardinal Ratzinger comes acr...In the Feast of Faith Cardinal Ratzinger comes across as quite liking the new form of the Mass. He has some quite negative things to say about the way Mass was celebrated before the change.Sharonnoreply@blogger.com