The glory of Solesmes Abbey

Abbaye de Solesmes en Drone / France TV Sport / Tour de France 2013. from FREEWAY PROD on Vimeo.

[Hat tip to R.C.]

"Franciscans of the Immaculate: will Francis save them?"

"Sources: large numbers of FI priests petitioning to be relieved of pontifical vows," posted by Adfero (RC, May 14, 2014).

It may be recalled, as Sandro Magister reported (see here), that a couple, six of whose nine children are members of the Franciscans of the Immaculate (FI), made a personal plea to Pope Francis to help, in response which he was reported to have answered "soon, soon."

Adfero's post concludes: "Let us pray that soon the Holy Father will end this drastic intervention that he approved and save a beautiful order currently in critical condition."

[Hat tip to R.C.]

"The Crisis of the Sacred and the Church kneeling before the World"?

Sounds a bit "over the top." This, at least was the judgment of Marco Bongi in an article in Riscossa Cristiano about the "dreadful words" spoken by Alessandro Gnocchi on March 8, 2014 at the annual meeting of Civitella del Tronto. The Title of Gnocchi's presentation was "The Crisis of the Sacred and the Church kneeling before the World."

Translated by Francesca Romana, Bongi's article was posted by Adfero under the title, "Clear words, 'prophetic words'" (RC, May 15, 2014), and indeed the opening quotation from Gnocchi does verge toward the alarmist:

"We will find ourselves more and more faced with someone who professes to speak to us in the name of God by telling us that we have no need of Him.”

With that, Bongi turns his thoughts, "as a simple layman who observes what is happening around him."

Whatever the religious liberty envisioned in Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae, he says, Rome hasn't done much to resist "the demand to remove every reference to the religion of the State from the constitution." What ever was envisioned by the Council fathers regarding ecumenism, the effect has been to suggest that "fundamentally the differences among the various Christian religions and non-Christian ones too, are -- all things considered -- negligible." Whatever the Council envisioned in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the "innovators" appear to "hate [the traditional liturgy of the Latin rite] because it attributes too much importance to God and the transcendent dimension of [our] relationship with Him." Whatever the Council fathers may have envisioned about upholding the rights of God, it now appears that the rights of man are much more important: "God is not important" and "there is no sense in fighting to defend Him ...." Whatever may have been envisioned, it looks more and more like "the law of God is not important," as it now appears that it may soon be possible for the divorced and remarried may be re-admitted to the sacraments. Likewise, the result of the "pastoral" approach following the Council has been "Communion in the hand, impeding, de facto, genuflections (since the kneelers have been taken away) expelling, de facto, sin, the last things, the objectivity of morality from catechesis as well as homiletics."

Finally, even Bongi finds himself asking, by the end of his article: "Will God accept being put to the side like a useless toy for much longer?"

[Hat tip to R.C.]

First Things going soft on sodomy?

Is First Things getting caught up in the prevailing cultural cross-currents of our times and going soft on sodomy now too? The question arises after two articles recently published in its pages in two separate issues.

Before examining this issue, however, I first want to temporarily set aside the Holy Father's suggestion that Catholics not "obsess" over the Church's sexual prohibitions, so that we can highlight the clear perennial teaching of the Church and thereby set off in sharp relief the tell-tale ambiguity that marks the muddle-minded thinking of our own day.

To this end, let us consider a recent article by intrepid theological critic, Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., who has just published Part 1 of a two-part series entitled "Why Are Homosexual Acts Wrong?" (Latin Mass Magazine: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Winter/Spring 2014), pp. 16-19 [notes are Fr. Harrison's].

In this first installment of his two-part series, Fr. Harrison briefly lays the groundwork for his discussion by summarizing Church teaching; but his main purpose in the balance of the series, he says, is to address the most common objections to the traditional Christian understanding of why homosexual acts are gravely immoral. The first and only objection dealt with in Part 1 is the claim: "It's not unnatural."

One point Fr. Harrison makes is that St. Thomas' answer to the question at issue does not in any way depend on -- or even mention -- marriage, but appeals to an even more fundamental ethical criterion: the kinds of sexual acts from which generation can never follow, says Thomas, are "the most grave and shameful" of the various types of lust, because "they transgress that which has been determined by nature with regard to the use of venereal actions." (ST, IIa IIae Q. 154, art 12, c) While all sexual activity outside of marriage is gravely sinful, not all such sins are equivalent. As Fr. Harrison reminds his readers, "Sodomy is, but fornication is not denounced in the Bible and Catholic tradition as one of the four 'sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.'" (Cf. Gen. 18:20; 19:13, CCC #1867. According to the fashionable interpretation of many modern exegetes, the sin of the men of Sodom is seen by the Genesis author as consisting merely in their 'lack of hospitality' toward Lot's guests, and not in the vice that has been named after their city. In reply to this objection, it will be sufficient for present purposes to point out that it is refuted by the Bible itself. The Letter of Saint Jude tell us (v. 7) that Sodom was punished for its "unnatural vice" (in the Vulgate, abeuntes post carnem alteram, "going astray after other flesh," i.e., "other" than what God and nature have ordained.")

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its own answer to our question, takes the same approach as St. Thomas, as Fr. Harrison points out, not even mentioning the question of marriage. Rather, it declares:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity (Gen. 19:1-2; Rom. 1:24-27; I Cor. 6:10; I Tim. 1:10), tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (CCC, #2357, emphasis added)

Which brings us to the question raised by the title of our post. While we see daily examples of Catholics and even some Church officials appearing to waffle or go soft on various aspects of Church teaching, particularly on morals, most Catholics would be surprised to think that of a flagship publication of Catholic neo-conservatism founded by the celebrated Catholic convert from Lutheranism, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. One would not expect, for example, to read passages such as Paul J. Griffiths recently wrote in his review of Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography, by Richard Rodriguez, a self-identified "gay." Near the end of his review (FT, April 2014, pp. 58-59), Griffiths first offers this rather benign observation:

I don't agree with every position taken in Darling, or with every argument offered. On Islam, I suspect that's what's needed at the moment isn't emphasis on the similarities among the three so-called Abrahamic religions as desert faiths, real though these are, but rather on difference and complimentarity. The recent work of Rémi Brague on this, especially On the God of the Christians (and on one or two others), is especially instructive.

As I say, nothing particularly notable there ... But then he continues:

On homosexuality and homosexual acts, by contrast, I think Rodriguez much closer to being right than not. Insofar as such acts are motivated by and evoke love, they are good and to be loved; insofar as they do not, not. In this, they are no different from heterosexual acts.

Really? Acts that the Bible and Catholic tradition have always declared "sins that cry to heaven for vengeance" can be "motivated by and evoke love"?

Gratitude for Francis Schaeffer on the 30th anniversary of his death

Covenant Seminary reminds us that thirty years ago today Francis Schaeffer died.

Ray Ortlund, in "Gratitude for Francis Schaeffer" (TGC, May 15, 2014), offers three reasons to be grateful for Francis Schaeffer's life and ministry (emphasis ours):

One, Francis Schaeffer pioneered a new way of advancing the gospel. All my life I’d been exposed to conventional people using conventional methods, and I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I had the privilege of knowing men of true greatness, like my dad. But Schaeffer was just different. He located the gospel within a total Christian worldview. He talked about modern art and films and books. He spoke with prophetic insight about cultural trends. He worked out fresh ways to articulate old truths, even coining new expressions like “true truth.” He had a beard and long hair and dressed like a European. He had Christian radicalism all over him, called for by those radical times. I found him non-ignorable. To this day, I dislike conventionality, partly because I saw in Francis Schaeffer a man who made an impact not by conforming and fitting in but by standing out as the man God made him to be, the man the world needed him to be.

Two, Francis Schaeffer united in a coherent and even beautiful whole theological conviction with personal humaneness. I remember his saying once that, in a conversation with a liberal theologian, he would try to conduct himself so that the liberal would gain two clear and equal impressions. One, Schaeffer disagreed with him theologically. Two, Schaeffer cared about him personally. Moreover, Schaeffer pointed out that, in ourselves, we are unable to demonstrate simultaneously the truth and holiness of God, on the one hand, and the love and mercy of God, on the other hand. In our own strength, we will slide off toward one emphasis or the other. But as we look to the Lord moment by moment, we can hold together both theological conviction and human beauty. But only by both together can we bear living witness to the magnitude of who Jesus really is. And if we fail to show the fullness of Christ, we actually bear false witness to him, we make him ugly in human eyes, and we set his cause back, however sincere we may be.

Three, Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith, leading L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, exemplified compelling Christian community. They welcomed all kinds of people. They attracted all kinds of people. They demonstrated a gentleness, openness and tolerance that created space for many diverse people who wouldn’t have found a home in our more typical churches. They sacrificed personally to create this rare kind of community. Their wedding gifts were wrecked, people threw up on their carpets, and so forth. The Schaeffers flung open their lives, their hearts, their space, and it cost them. But they gained many people for Christ. This bold commitment is real Christianity. Anything less is bluff and hypocrisy.

I thank the Lord for Francis Schaeffer.

And so do I.

Yet another reason for gratitude for Schaeffer, at least in my book, is one I've just learned about from our friend and correspondent, Guy Noir -- Private Eye: Schaeffer apparently had the temerity to confront Karl Barth on his compromised view of biblical inerrancy and authority, a fact that clearly irritated Barth to the point that his vexation sometimes attained nearly apoplectic levels, as can be seen from the following excerpt from a letter he wrote to Schaeffer:

Rejoice, dear Mr. Schaeffer (and you calling your-selves 'fundamentalists' all over the world)! Rejoice and go on to believe in your 'logics' (as in the fourth article of your creed!) and in your-selves as in the only true 'bible-believing' people! Shout so loudly as you can! But, pray, allow me, to let you alone. 'Conversations' are possible between open-minded people. Your paper and the review of your friend Buswell reveals the fact of your decision to close your window-shutters. I do not know how to deal with a man who comes to see and to speak to me in the quality of an [sic] detective-inspector or with the beheavior [sic] of a missionary who goes to convert a heathen. No, thanks! Yours sincerely. Excuse my bad English. I am not accustomed to write in your language.

This excerpt is found on p. 39 of Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America, by Barry Hankins, who goes on to say: "Schaeffer replied that he was surprised at the tone of Barth's letter and that he had expected that the two would be able to sit down together and discuss their differences amicably and openly, without minimizing the disagreement."

You just gotta love this: the urbane and world-renown champion of "neo-orthodox" (existentialist) theology provoked to something near apoplectic seizure by a fundamentalist critic who asks for nothing more than the opportunity to sit down together and amicably and openly discuss their differences so that he (Schaeffer) can instruct him in the truth of God's Word! Huzzah!

[Hat tip to JM]

Where Karl Barth failed

Matthew Rose, "Karl Barth's Failure: Karl Barth Failed to Liberate Theology from Modernity's Captivity" (First Things, June 2014). Just a few excerpts from this insightful and substantial article (emphasis ours):

Karl Barth was the greatest theologian since the Reformation, and his work is today a dead letter. This is an extraordinary irony. Barth aspired to free Christian theology from restrictive modern habits of mind but in the end preserved the most damaging assumptions of the ideas he sought to overcome. This does not mean he no longer deserves serious attention. Barth now demands exceptionally close attention, precisely because his failures can teach us how profound the challenges of modernity are for theology—and show us the limits of a distinctly modern solution to them.

Bernard McGinn's "Biography" of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas

A new book on St. Thomas's Summa. It will be interesting to see where this comes out when the dust settles. His self-identification as something other than "a card carrying member of any Thomist party," as well as his disenchantment with the pre-Vatican II "dry-as-dust version of neo-Thomist philosophy" and affection for the Nouevelles suggests some caution. We shall see.

Christopher Blosser plans a more substantial review of the book in the near future, but for now offers this post as a courtesy to the publisher who sent him a complimentary copy for review: "Thomas Aquinas' 'Summa theolgiae': A Biography -- Bernard McGinn" (Against the Grain, May 14, 2014): In full disclosure, I promised that I would give it mention on my blog while the review was forthcoming. McGinn is distinguished for his extensive scholarship of Christian mysticism and does not identify himself as "a card carrying member of any Thomist party." Nevertheless:

"... I'd been reading Thomas for almost sixty years and teaching him for over forty. When I was studying a dry-as-dust version of neo-Thomist philosophy from 1957 to 1959, I was rescued from despair by reading the works of Etienne Gilson, especially his Being and some Philosophers. . . . between 1959 and 1963, I was privileged to work with two great modern investigators of Thomas, Joseph de Finance and Bernard Lonergan. It was then I realized that no matter what kind of theology one elects to pursue in life, there is no getting away from Thomas. So the opportunity to come back to Thomas and the Summa was both a challenge and a delight." [From the Preface]

Suffice to say I am intrigued, and will have more to report once I get into it.

From the Publisher

This concise book tells the story of the most important theological work of the Middle Ages, the vast Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, which holds a unique place in Western religion and philosophy. Written between 1266 and 1273, the Summa was conceived by Aquinas as an instructional guide for teachers and novices and a compendium of all the approved teachings of the Catholic Church. It synthesizes an astonishing range of scholarship, covering hundreds of topics and containing more than a million and a half words--and was still unfinished at the time of Aquinas's death.

Here, Bernard McGinn, one of today's most acclaimed scholars of medieval Christianity, vividly describes the world that shaped Aquinas, then turns to the Dominican friar's life and career, examining Aquinas's reasons for writing his masterpiece, its subject matter, and the novel way he organized it. McGinn gives readers a brief tour of the Summa itself, and then discusses its reception over the past seven hundred years. He looks at the influence of the Summa on such giants of medieval Christendom as Meister Eckhart, its ridicule during the Enlightenment, the rise and fall of Neothomism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the role of the Summa in the post-Vatican II church, and the book's enduring relevance today.

Tracing the remarkable life of this iconic work, McGinn's wide-ranging account provides insight into Aquinas's own understanding of the Summa as a communication of the theological wisdom that has been given to humanity in revelation.

[Hat tip to C.B.]

"Guess who?"

[Advisory - Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]

Always to be counted on for some exacting analysis and quality writing on his blog, Elliot Bougis (a.k.a. Codgitator), in "Guess who?" (FideCogitActio, May 13, 2014), offers a typically though-provoking comparison of a notably transparent passage from an editorial by Fr. Michael Simoulin in the April issue of Le Seignadou (SSPX, Montreal de l'Aude, France) and a thematically-related passage from the former Cardinal Ratzinger's address to the Chilean bishops in 1988:

Say what you will about the SSPX–and in light recent comments, let me note that I reject any idea that the Novus Ordo Missae is “evil” or “invalid”–you’ve got to respect the honesty of the following passage:

Of Rome and celebrity

Maureen Mullarkey, "Tammany on the Tiber" (First Things, May 12, 2014):

John XXIII once remarked that the Vatican was the hardest place on earth to remain a Christian. The pope’s impish bon mot floated like skywriting over the double canonization in St. Peter’s Square on the Second Easter Sunday. On the glittering heels of this production came advance notice of another: London’s The Tablet reported that Paul VI is on the books for beatification this coming October.


Are we at the point where election to the Petrine office is itself a signal of godliness, a guarantee of eventual canonization? Will each pope canonize his predecessor—or two or three of them—with the unspoken assumption that his own successor will return the compliment? Is election a promissory note drafted in white smoke, and redeemable at death for public elevation to the rank of saint? It begins to look that way.

Not only the faithful but their shepherds, too, are susceptible to media-induced semblances of sanctity. Devotion to the aura of sanctity and to the machine that produces it makes cult figures out of mere men. Like that talking snake in Eden, it murmurs in the ear. It excites the illusion that every papal opinion—however lacking in prudence or responsible facts—is oracular.

This expedited exercise in saint-making was a premature apotheosis, a pageant of synthetic piety staged for immediate media consumption. With this as a precedent, canonization risks becoming one more pseudo-event, like bread and circus, thrown to a culture besotted with virtual reality.

In our lifetime, we have watched the papacy descend into spectacle. By now, showboating—from kissing feet to a mega-Mass on Copacabana Beach—is an established feature of the modern papacy. As if spectacle itself could cure the malaise that has emptied churches, closed parishes, and turned cathedrals into pay-per-view tourist sites.

EWTN - Extraordinary Faith - now online!

As someone who has been privy to a bit of the background story of the making of this series, I am particularly enthused about seeing it finally debut on EWTN, and now online at http://extraordinaryfaith.tv/:

Extraordinary Faith is a monthly 30 minute television program on EWTN that celebrates the beauty of classical Catholic sacred art, architecture, music, and liturgy. We’ll take you to some of the world’s most awe-inspiring churches. We’ll introduce you to dynamic young Catholics whose faith has survived the demands of a secular world and who are becoming key players in the New Evangelization by sharing their enthusiasm for the traditions of Catholicism. We’ll show you the rich vocations harvest that is synonymous with the movement to restore the Extraordinary Form of Mass to mainstream parish life. We’ll give you the resources to find churches that offer traditional worship experiences, and we’ll even assist you to organize your own Latin Masses.

Come back to this site often and read about our latest new episodes. Every episode will be available for viewing on this web site one month after it debuts on EWTN.

• Extraordinary Faith Trailer
• Extraordinary Faith Episode 1 - Mission San Juan Capistrano

Alex Begin, host of the monthly episodes of Extraordinary Faith, is of course also the author of our weekly "Extraordinary Community News" columns. Whether you follow Extraordinary Faith on EWTN via television or online, tune in each month for the latest episode, and I know you will be pleased with the beautiful coverage given to the Church's rich legacies or art, architecture, and music associated with the classic form of the living Latin liturgy. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Begin and his associates for their tireless work and sacrifice of time, talent, and treasure on behalf of the "Tridentine Community" and many others, both at home in Metro Detroit and far beyond.

"Get comfortable being dismissed as bigots"

Matt McCullough, "Book Reviw: An Anxious Age, by Joseph Bottom" (9Marks, 2014):

An Anxious Age—the latest from Catholic essayist and pundit Joseph Bottum—is a book about the religious dimension of American public life. And it’s about the rise of a social class with an outsized influence on the shape of American culture, a group he calls post-Protestants.

... In some ways the earliest chapters of the book reminded me of Bottum’s fellow Catholic writer of an earlier generation, Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor is known in part for her distinctive ability to make Protestant self-righteousness come to life, especially its rural southern variety. Bottum’s focus is self-righteousness too, but not among the usual suspects. His focus is not the right wing religious fundamentalists of O’Connor’s rural Georgia, but the left-leaning, city-dwelling, well-educated and well-off descendants of the social gospelers.

... Conservative pundits have referred to this class as the new “elites.” But Bottum’s main argument is that we’d understand them better if we see them as they see themselves. “They do not feel themselves elite in any economic or political sense of real personal power. What they do feel is that they are redeemed” (130). They’re set apart as a class by their ability to recognize and personally reject the forces of evil—especially bigotry, militarism, oppression, and (sexual) repression. And they enjoy a calm assurance that they’re insiders to a better world coming just around the corner. They saw a vote for Obama in 2008 as an important step toward that new world. And they move closer to that world every time they buy a pair of Tom’s shoes or tote their organic groceries in reusable bags.

... Mainline Protestantism lost its place as America’s moral center in the turbulence of the 1960s and 70s. But Bottum argues the crippling damage was done long before the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, or legalized abortion. In Bottum’s account, the figure who best represents what happened to Mainline Protestantism and best explains the shape of post-Protestant sensibilities is Walter Rauschenbusch.

... whether nor not Rauschenbusch was as influential as claimed here, Bottum’s insight into his thought and into its implications for the Mainline and for post-Protestants is one of the book’s chief contributions. Two points are especially important.

First, according to Bottum Rauschenbusch redefined sin and redemption. Sin is not an offense against God but an anti-social force, “the evil of bigotry, power, corrupt law, the mob, militarism, and class contempt” (66). Redemption is not peace with God by faith in Christ, but “essentially an attitude of mind,” a “personal, interior rejection” of the forces of evil in society (66). To quote Rauschenbusch, this “redeemed personality” is the “fundamental contribution of every man” to what he called the “progressive regeneration of social life” (quoted on p. 70). [Guy Noir: "This sounds very much like lines from any number of papal encyclicals!"]

Second, Bottum highlights what Machen and Niebuhr recognized about the social gospel, what ultimately undermined the usefulness of Mainline Protestantism, and what put the “post” in the post-Protestant class: Rauschenbusch’s view of sin and salvation left little room for Jesus. Jesus’ teaching may have clarified the nature of evil and the kingdom of righteousness. But, in Bottum’s excellent image, “Christ seems to be only the ladder with which we climbed to a higher ledge. And once there, we no longer need the ladder” (67).

... This is not the book I would recommend if you want a full sense of 20th century American religious history. And for an account of the lost influence of Christianity in American public life, Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion is more comprehensive and—I believe—more compelling. But An Anxious Age is an enjoyable and engaging read, thought provoking even where it isn’t fully convincing.

Two lessons seem especially important. First, those of us who hold a traditional Christian view of human sexuality and marriage must get comfortable being dismissed as bigots. If Bottum is right about the post-Protestant “redeemed personality,” there is a tremendous psychological reward for identifying bigotry and very little social cost to condemning it. In this climate, there is no incentive to consider the nuance by which one can love a person and disapprove of their behavior, disapprove even because you love them and want to see them flourish.

Second, we’ve got to be willing to accept our status as outcasts from the power centers of American society before we’ll be of any use to American society. According to Bottum, Protestant Christianity was most influential in public life when Protestants were more interested in theological faithfulness than public usefulness. As he puts it, “religion actually works to ground the American experiment because we take religion more seriously than the American experiment” (291). [Oh that Rome would seem to take religion more seriously than placating and policies]. The decline of Mainline Protestantism is a powerful cautionary tale. If we assume the gospel while we aim for cultural renewal—if we redefine it in the name of cultural relevance—we’ll end up irrelevant anyway. [emphasis Guy Noir's]

[Hat tip to JM]

The cold eye of realism from Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat, "A Catholic dilemma" (NYT, May 9, 2014):

Before I address myself to Cardinal Walter Kasper’s latest remarks on how he thinks Roman Catholicism might change its approach to second marriages and the sacraments, I want to engage with Philip Lawler’s thoughtful responses to some of the issues raised in my column and posts on the possibility of an alteration to Catholic teaching on this front.

Writing as a doctrinal conservative, with the confidence in the continuity of church teaching that entails, Lawler has kind words for my explanation of some of the doctrinal issues in play, but he argues that in contemplating the potential fall-out from a Kasper-esque shift I’m entertaining a hypothetical that simply can’t and therefore won’t take place. To my suggestion that such proposals “might lead to schism if the pope were to adopt and implement them,” he returns that “and so they might—IF they were adopted. But they won’t be.” Then he wonders if there’s any real purpose to ”talking about the possibility of schism, at a point when the doctrinal debate is only just getting underway,” and worries that even raising that scenario only makes Catholic teaching seem vastly more up-for-grabs than it actually is ...

... the coverage of Pope Francis’s Vatican by respected Catholic journalists of different ideological stripes, from John Allen to John Thavis to Sandro Magister, all of whom — aware of the theological issues in play — have treated the Kasper proposal or something like it as a very live possibility for the church.... [H]igh-ranking churchmen [have spoken] in either general or specific terms in support of such a change — Kasper himself, intimates of the pope like Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, and as of this week, the cardinal who will serve as secretary-general of the upcoming synod on the family. [There is also] the pope’s personal role, from his initial press conference, through his choice of Kasper to speak to the cardinals on this issue, down to his famous “private” phone call on the subject, not only in inviting debate but seemingly pushing it gently in a specific direction.

Now none of these indicators prove anything about the future, and they fit easily enough with a scenario, suggested by both Allen and Magister, in which the pope will up endorsing some kind of pastoral change around the rules for annulments (which Benedict XVI, as Joseph Ratzinger, also entertained), without following Kasper’s much more problematic suggestion of official paths to communion for the non-annulled.

But it remains the case that if you bracketed questions of continuity and infallibility and simply followed the best reporting on the Vatican and watched what high-ranking cardinals and the pope himself have said and done, you would have good reasons to think that Kasper’s proposal or something like it was receiving very strong consideration by this pontiff.

Which raises an interesting dilemma for Catholics (and especially Catholic writers) who do believe in continuity and the impossibility of certain changes: When it seems that the pope is considering what seems like a doctrinal change, what is the appropriate response? Is it to simply remain imperturbable, secure in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is in charge? Or is there a duty of some kind to offer counsel that goes beyond simply saying “that can’t happen,” and that actually considers the consequences if it did?

Obviously I incline in the latter direction, or I wouldn’t have written what I did. But I’m not particularly confident in my answer; I think the dilemma, given Lawler’s premises (and mine, perhaps less securely held) about the church, is interesting and real.

[Hat tip to JM]

When Pope Francis is clear, he is very clear

Oh, the beauty of it! Whatever the ambiguities of his frequent "off-the-record" remarks and the confusion they have evoked in the media, there is no doubt that the strong suit of Pope Francis may be in his clear preaching concerning the traditional doctrines about Satan. Woe to the enlighten progressives who thought they had consigned such "medieval" doctrines to the dustbins of history! Granted, part of the entertainment value of this sort of preaching by His Holiness is the way it curdles the blood of the "enlightened" drive-by media.

Jim Davis, "Devil in the details: WPost on Francis teaching about Satan" (Patheos, May 12, 2014).

[Hat tip to JM]

"All our lives are an accident and we must all die somehow"

In Robert Speaight’s The Unbroken Heart, a novel sadly neglected in the long years following its publication in 1939, a character named Arnaldo has just been told of his beloved wife’s untimely death. His reaction, by today’s standards, seems very strange indeed. “It does not really interest me,” he confesses, “to know by what accident Rhoda died. All our lives are an accident and we must all die somehow.”

So what does interest him? The answer, to his interlocutor at least, sounds almost incomprehensible. “I want to know how she died, what was in her mind, what her soul said to God when she fell from the rampart. Nothing else is of the least importance whatsoever. Our life is directed to that moment when we fall from the rampart, and our eternal destiny is decided by that. But I see that you don’t believe that.”

Nor, would it appear, does anyone else. Certainly not anyone these days, i.e., people anxious to appear hip and stylish, their opinions plugged into the usual circuits of secularity. People for whom the parameters of life are far more plausibly found between the covers of, say, Time or Newsweek or People Magazine, are not interested in tracing the soul’s trajectory at the moment of death. A huge eruption in sensibility having taken place in recent years, the traditional eschatological landscape remains largely unrecognizable.

So begins Regis Martin's article, "Will Anyone End Up In Hell?" (Crisis Magazine, May 1, 2014). Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

War hero

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become something of a saint among Evangelicals over the last thirty years. In a recent communique, our correspondent Guy Noir had this to say about the following First Things book notice about a new biography by Mark Movsesian, "A Christian Man: A New Biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer" (First Things, May 7, 2014):

"I certainly admire his example, and given the testimonies, is writings must generate sparks for many, many people. All good.

But he seems far closer to Thomas Merton than to Maximillian Kolbe, and theologically closer to a Karl Barth or Karl Rahner than a Karl Adam or a Karl Stern. I think the title of this piece would more fairly run, "A Man, a Christian, and a Martyr."

[Hat tip to JM]