Glen Bolas on Piper on Wright

Glen Bolas at Hwaet! has an excellent post on John Piper's criticism of Tom Wright's doctrine of Justification. I will comment further on this when I am at greater liberty. HT to Kiran for letting me know about this.

Update: I found this youtube video in which Wright discusses his response to Piper.

Events at Caroline Chisholm Library

I received this email from Anna Krohn, who is, among other things, the librarian of the Caroline Chisholm Library. You might be interested if you are in town.

Dear Friends,

Just to remind you of three events at the Caroline Chisholm Library programme over the next weeks-

1) The fascinating scholar Dr Anna Silvas speaks of her visits to ancient Asia Minor, once called simply the ‘Christian land’,today Turkey. After briefly outlining the character of St Basil the Great, she reports on her search for the location of St Basil’s retreat, which was eventful and wonderfully successful. In St Basil the Great: Voyage of Discovery. 1-2pm Wednesday July 29th, 2009.

2) Fr Anthony Denton the Director of the Melbourne Archdiocese's Vocation Office will speak with and present Bishop Julian Porteous (Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney) new book After the Heart of God (Connor Court Press, 2009) in which the Bishop addresses the question of the mission of the priest in contemporary times. Book Launch: Friday 7th August,6.30 pm (with refreshments)

3) The widely recognised and popular English Catholic journalist: Joanna Bogle will be present at the launch of her most recent book: A Yearbook of Feasts and Seasons (Gracewing Press, 2009) on 6.30 pm Friday 17th August. (Book signing and refreshments)

All are welcome.
Best wishes: AMK

Caroline Chisholm Library
3rd Floor/ 358 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne email: cclbookmarks@gmail.com

"Exorcism" at South Australian Lutheran Camp

Did you catch this news story a few weeks ago? I only caught up with it through reading the LCA President's comments on his page here.

I know none of the details, but it did remind me of the Vollmer case refered to in the news report above. I had close second-hand experience of that one, due to the fact that one of the men who was charged and served a three month sentence in relation to it was married to my cousin. I remember at the time being terribly frightened by the inept actions of these amateur "exorcists".

The Catholic Church not only believes in exorcism, but has trained exorcists (always priests) who are licenced by their local bishop. So my problem is not with the idea of exorcism. I am terrified that amateurs might take into their own hands both the diagnosis and the cure. Both the cases refered to in this post were misdiagnoses. That's bad enough. But, worse still, God help anyone who attempted an "exorcism" on a real demon without the expertise and experience required.

The Miracle of Sharing?

I was a little dismayed this morning when our pastor preached on the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes using the "exegesis" that goes: one boy came forward willing to share his lunch, and after the disciples got everyone to sit down and Jesus blessed the boy's lunch and started handing it out, then everyone realised that there would be enough to go around if only they too shared what they had brought...

Two questions:

1) Do you think this interpretetion "spoils" the miracle by downgrading it to a pot-luck dinner?
2) Did your pastor use this idea?

The Writing Under the Table Cloth

You may know the story about Luther's debate with Zwingli on the Lord's Supper in 1529 - how he dramatically whipped back the tablecloth to reveal the words he had chalked there at the beginning of the debate: "hoc est corpus meum", and how he declared that "The Word stands there too mightily!" for him to deny it.

Walter Brandmüller, the President of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences and (from 1970 to 1997) the professor of Church History at the University of Augsburg in Germany, makes the following comment in his new book "Light and Shadows: Church History amid Faith, Fact and Legend" (Ignatius Press) on page 154:

The true Church of Jesus Christ...is and remains uninterruptedly, through the millenia, through all the inadequacies and failures of her members and her pastors and through all historical changes, one and the same foundation of Jesus Christ, regardless of the fact that at any moment in history her nature could and should be more authentically realised than will ever actually occur in this age.

Since Martin Luther disputed this and regarded this same Church as degenerate, as the Babylonian Whore, not just because of the sins of her members but as a result of a fundamental defection from the Gospel, we must say to him, with reference to the above-cited words of Sacred Scripture [Matt 16:18, John 16:13, Matt 28:30, 1 Tim 3:15, Rom 11:29 etc.], what he himself had replied to Zwingli in Marburg in 1529: "The word stands there too mightily!" And just as he then took chalk and wrote on the table "This is my body, this is my blood", so too in this case the Catholic must take his chalk and write on the table what Michelangelo wrote along the rim of the cupola of Saint Peter's in Rome: "The Gates of hell shall not prevail against it!" This word, too, stands there too mightily for anyone to overlook it.

Which is rather nice. BUT...

But it is rather like engaging with someone on a debate about the Real Presence (to carry on the analogy) on the basis of John 6, when that someone denies that John 6 is even talking about the Eucharist. For, as Past Elder (a one-time frequent guest and interlocutor on these pages - remember him?) never tired of pointing out for us, Luther would simply have denied that the Roman Pope and the Bishops and all who regard themselves as being in communion with them is the Church to which Matt 16:18 refers.

Nevertheless, I like Brandmüller's point.

Master Theologian

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Welcome to Master Theologian! Tonight's contestant will be faced with the challenge of his theological career. He must demonstrate to the whole world - to bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful and ALL people of good will - why he deserves the title "Master Theologian".

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A Master Theologian must demonstrate competance that sets him head and shoulders above the competition. He must show an all-round mastery of a wide range of different subject matters.

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And yet at the same he has to be able to pull it off in his own particular style that sets him apart from the rest of the flock.

 

 

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Here is tonight's challenge. The Contestant will be given a mystery theme and a list of 20 set ingredients. He must incorporate all the set ingredients into the mystery theme.

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And yet, as always, there is a catch. We want to see something of our contestants own particular style and character in what he finally serves up. Don't bore us with just any old rehash of an old recipe. We want something ORIGINAL, which shows that tonight's contestant really is deserving of the title "Master Theologian".

 

 

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Introducing tonight's contestant: Pope Benedict XVI!

 

 

 

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[Wild Applause]

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Pope Benedict. Are you ready for this?

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Yes, I believe so. I think the time is right.

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Are you nervous?

 

 

 

 

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No, no. I have prepared long and hard for this. I believe it is within my competancy, that I have the authority to teach, and that the voice of the Church, expert in humanity, needs to be heard.

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You sound pretty sure of yourself. Maybe you won't be when you hear the list of ingredients. George?

 

 

 

 

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Pope Benedict: Here is the list of your set ingredients:

Employment and labour, Life ethics, Development programs, Original sin, Globalisation, Political authority, Civil society, Business ethics, Creation, Economics, Marriage and family, Human nature, Subsidiarity and solidarity, Technology, Finance, Population growth, the Environment, Immigration, Education and Human rights.

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Given that list of ingredients, Pope Benedict, can you guess what the mystery theme might be?

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Yes, I think I can.

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Are you nervous now?

 

 

 

 

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Perhaps just a little.

 

 

 

 

 

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Pope Benedict, you have your twenty set ingredients. You will be given 5 minutes in the pantry to chose out four additional ingredients to add to these so that you can give your own particular flavour and style to the task. Before we reveal the mystery theme, tell us what four ingredients you think you will add?

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That is fairly simple. I will chose Charity and Truth, Faith and Reason.

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Given your earlier form, that's fairly predictable. But don't you think that might just be a little outside the theme that seems to be developing here?

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No, I have always found I work best when I write from the heart. These four ingredients express a lot of who I am and what I am about. I am fairly confident the final result will reflect this.

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Pope Benedict, once your time begins, you will have two and half hours to come up with the final product using all the set ingredients. Matt will now reveal for you the mystery theme.

 

 

 

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Your mystery theme tonight is... The Social Encyclical!

 

 

 

 

 

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Pope Benedict, your time starts now.

 

 

 

 

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"Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity...

Local girl's comments on CIV (Caritas in Veritate)

In case you haven't seen this yet, this is from here.

Tracey Rowland:

The intellectual center of this encyclical is that “A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism.” It rests a notion of authentic human development upon the principle enshrined in Gaudium et Spes 22, that the human person only has self-understanding to the extent that he or she knows Christ and participates in the Trinitarian communion of love. As the Pope says, “Life in Christ is the first and principle factor of development.” The whole document is a plea to understand the limitations of a secularist notion of development. Behind secularism lies the error of Pelagius which in contemporary times takes the form of trust in education and institutions without reference to God or the interior dynamics of the human soul. A purely secularist notion of development reduces the human person to a kind of economic machine somehow designed for the accumulation of wealth.

Such a truncated concept of development has fostered government policies hostile to the more spiritual elements of human life, including relationships of reciprocal self-giving in love. Abortion is encouraged, couples are persecuted for having more than one child, and international aid is linked to the acceptance of contraceptives. The questions covered in Humanae Vitae are thus not merely those of purely individual morality, but indicate a strong link between life ethics and social ethics. The concept which links the two is that of a “human ecology.”

Secularist notions of development also fail to comprehend the root cause of drug addiction and depression which is the malnutrition of the human soul, made for communion with God but imprisoned within a materialist universe. When cultures no longer serve the deepest needs of human nature and actually narrow the spiritual horizons of people, people don’t know who they are and feel depressed.

The remedy for this pandemic in contemporary Western culture is to grasp the fact that truth is something which is given to us as a gift: “In every cognitive process, truth is not something that we produce, it is always found, or better, received. Truth, like love, ‘is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings’” (34).

Caritas in Veritate is a masterful synthesis of the Trinitarian anthropology of Gaudium et Spes and the subsequent insights of Paul VI and John Paul II, applied to the contemporary context. The core theological ideas were all present in Ratzinger’s essay on the notion of human dignity in Gaudium et Spes, written in the late 1960s.

At the more practical level this encyclical is exciting in that it calls for a reform of the United Nations and the economic institutions of international finance. It is clear that the general tendency of such institutions to equate human development with the success of capitalism and democracy or material progress is utterly inadequate when measured against the Gospel’s standard.

Here on SCE, we always barack for the home team. (Tracey Rowland is Dean of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, Australia). Good on ya, Tracey.

NT Wright on the TEC decision to go ahead with ordaining persons in same-sex relationships

HT to First Thoughts for the link to this column from my favourite Anglican theologian. Now, if only he could apply the same thinking to the ordination of women...

The Americans Know This Will End in Schism:

Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations

Cathy and David at the Movies: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"

Cathy: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” sees 16 year old Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), together with his best friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), entering his second last year at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the painful arena of adolescent love. In order to find a way of defeating Lord Voldemort, Harry’s archenemy, Harry and Albus Dumbledore (Hogwarts’ headmaster and Harry’s much-loved mentor) search out memories of Voldemort as a student at Hogwart’s – with tragic consequences.

David: Its just so hard to be objective about this film. I cannot even imagine what it might look like to someone who has never heard of Harry Potter, or who hasn’t read the books, or who hasn’t seen all the previous installments. I found myself asking: does this film make sense as a story in itself? I guess one has to start with what “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is about. One would expect that it would have something to do with someone called “the Half-Blood Prince” – which the novel certainly is. But this major theme in the novel is reduced to a secondary subplot (behind the teenage romances) in the film. Very frustrating for HP fans.

Cathy: After much anticipation (the girls were very excited to be seeing HP for the first time IN the cinema AND on the opening day), I actually came away feeling a bit disappointed. Considerable discussion ensued on the way home about the many scenes from the book that we considered vitally important to the plot that were not included, while several scenes not even in the original story were added. I found the end particularly anticlimactic, and so at odds with the dramatic ending in the novel.

David: Nevertheless, this is a beautifully produced film, with good performances from the main characters. Michael Gambon, as Dumbledore, is the best he has ever been – very “Gandalf”. He has aged into the part. Talking of which, Maggie Smith (who plays Professor McGonagall) is noticeably aging. The new character of Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) – while not quite what I expected – is absolutely delightful. There is witty humour all the way through the film (although I asked myself “Was the book this funny?”).

Cathy: I agree. Great cinematography; the very grey, monochromatic look at times certainly suited the darker mood of the movie, and I am still glad I went to see it. I’m giving it three and a half stars.

David: The problem is that the film just didn’t, in the end, seem to present the story line of the novel in a coherent manner. I’m giving it three stars.

"Apocalypse Now" for Anima Education course starts on 27th July

As you know, I am a sessional teacher for a joint initiative of Anima Women's Network and Catholic Women's League called Anima Education.

On Monday 27th July at 6:30pm (going to 8:30pm), we start a new course called "Apocalypse Now: A way to read the Book of Revelation".

The venue is Mary Glowrey House, 132 Nicholson Street Fitzroy, and the course will go for eight weeks on consecutive Monday nights (27/7, 3/8, 10/8, 17/8, 24/8, 31/8, 7/9, 14/9). The cost is $120 for the full course (payable on the night).

And for those in Western Victoria, I will be doing a weekend course at Ballarat (at Nazareth House) on an Overview of the History of the Church on 18th to 20th September.

"The Erotics of Abstinence"

Reader: Where have you been, Schütz? You haven't put up a post for a whole week!

Schütz: I'd like to say that I have been deeply studying the new Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, or writing my paper on NT Wright's understanding of Justification for the John Paul II Insitute Colloquium on St Paul, but...

I have to admit that what I have really been doing is reading all four books in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. I have already posted below on my initial reaction to reading the first novel, but I want to add something more here.

Two comments from the Commentators while the port was being passed around got me thinking. The first was from Matthias who said something about Meyer being a Mormon and the other was from Mrs Doyle who said that the attraction of Edward Cullen had nothing to do with him being a vampire and everything to do with him being a gentleman who "who encourages Bella in maintaining and developing certain virtues". And this, she points out, is "presented as [something] equally attainable for any man".

A google search brought up this article from Time Magizine more than twelve months ago. As I mentioned before, the unusual thing about the Twilight novels is the very restrained and decidedly traditional attitude it takes toward sexual ethics. Bella is a seventeen/eighteen/nineteen year old who has only ever had one boyfriend. Edward insists that they get married before they have any sexual relations beyond kissing, hugging and holding hands. After their marriage (plot-spoiler here) comes the baby and then the house. All in the traditional order - but absolutely NOT in the order that it generally happens today. (Is there any marriage celebrant out there who can say that you have married more than one couple in the past twelve months who - to your knowledge - did it this way?)

Now, I know that these novels are written for teenage girls, but it is still very unusual for a series of novels in which sexuality and romance were so front and centre not to stray from the straight and narrow in this way. So what's going on? Here is what the Time article has to say:

But it is the rare vampire novel that isn't about sex on some level, and the Twilight books are no exception. What makes Meyer's books so distinctive is that they're about the erotics of abstinence. Their tension comes from prolonged, superhuman acts of self-restraint. There's a scene midway through Twilight in which, for the first time, Edward leans in close and sniffs the aroma of Bella's exposed neck. "Just because I'm resisting the wine doesn't mean I can't appreciate the bouquet," he says. "You have a very floral smell, like lavender ... or freesia." He barely touches her, but there's more sex in that one paragraph than in all the snogging in Harry Potter.

At first I was a bit shocked to hear from a friend that their 12 year old daughter had read all these novels. After all, as the article points out, this is not Harry Potter (side comment - I saw film no. 6 with the kids yesterday - Cathy and I are doing a review of that at the moment which I will post soon). But the more I think about it, if the Twilight novels encourage a new kind of sexual ethics in the name of true romance, then perhaps they are a good thing.

OR do they hold up an impossible ideal? Despite the fact that Meyer IS a practicing Mormon, there is no religion in the novels. Religious virtue is therefore not put forward as the motivating factor in this abstinence. So what is? Respect for one another, not wanting to hurt one another, being committed to a single permanent relationship, respect for parents, respect for all human life (abortion is an issue raised by the final book), the desire for motherhood... These are good things.

And, okay, maybe Edward is an impossible benchmark for the average teenage male to aspire to (no real man sparkles in the sunlight or can uproot whole trees with a flick of the wrist), but at least in this character Meyer has put out a challenge for young men to learn a little more about the kind of masculinity and romance that will make them attractive to a life-mate and help them to live with themselves in good conscience.

At the films yesterday, Maddy saw the shorts for the next Twilight movie, "New Moon". She asked when she would be allowed to read the novels. Answer: Not yet. Ten is toooo young for this. But when the time is right, I don't think reading the novels will do her any harm, and possibly a bit of good.

4th Century Bible Online...

This is so cool. The Codex Sinaiticus online. Wow. This is astounding.

Yee-Haa! It's OUT! "Caritas in Veritate: On integral human development in Charity and Truth"

And here's the link: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html.

You can guess what I will be spending the rest of the day doing...

Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" - Is this what Real Girls want?

Okay. I had a day on my own today, and wanted to do something that was in no way related to work or study. So I put down JWC Wand's "Doctors and Councils", and Walter Brandmüller's "Light and Shadows: Church History amid Faith, Fact and Legend" (which is really excellent, BTW), and NT Wright's "Simply Christian", and picked up the copy of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" that my wife received for her birthday and has just finished reading.

Okay, okay... "Trashy, horror/fantasy romance", I hear you say. "Girl novel", I hear you say. And yes, it is, but I enjoyed it all the same. I saw the film on while on the plane to Rome back in April (and enjoyed the soundtrack too, I might say), and thought, what the heck. I'll sit back, light my pipe and read the most popular novel since Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code.

Several pipes and coffees and glasses of wine and hours later, and I had finished. Not since the Da Vinci Code have I read a novel so quickly. In the case of the Dan Brown drivel, that was because the book was literary rubbish and could be speed read without losing any of the (very little sense) of the story. But Twilight is okay as a story, and okay in terms of writing (better than JK Rowling's prose, anyway, which I find has me lost in unintended tongue-twisters as I try to read her books aloud to my children).

Is this the kind of novel a guy is supposed to enjoy? There are several comments on the web on this topic (eg. Real Men read (and love) Twilight and Twilight Novel From a Male Perspective ).

What I did find interesting is that for such a sexually charged novel, there is NO SEX in it at all. Not even a little bit. The only time in which the act of intercourse is even mentioned, it is referred to obliquely as "that". And yet the prose is really quite steamy for all that. Is this what teenage girls really dream about? Tall, dark (or pale in this case), romantic and NO SEX? But it does seem to be about the temptation of forbidden fruit and the resistence to that temptation - as the cover picture and the inclusion of the text of Genesis 2:17 in the preface make quite clear.

The Australian Literary Review had an article on the topic of Vampires in modern literature last week. The writer of that piece suggested that the modern fascination with vampires is because we all want to be one. Certainly, by the end of Twilight, Bella wants to be one. And it seems that Edward is the "perfect guy" precisely because he is one. One writer on Facebook claims that reading Twilight has actually given her unrealistic expectations of men.

That seems to be related to the challenge that one of the commentators to whom I linked above issues to women:

Give Twilight to your teenage sons. Give it to your nephews and husbands and other guy types. Tell them it's cool. Tell them they'll like it. Tell them that it'll help them understand women and therefore help them get dates.

Is that right? Will reading "Twilight" really help us understand what women want? For those readers out there who have read Twilight, what do you think of this advice?

Happy Birthday Daniel Victor Ambrose Pearce

It is our godson's birthday today. Here is a pic of him with his father, the excellent Pastor Fraser Pearce.

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New ACBC Website

While there is at least one diocese in Australia that still does not have a website (cf. Cooees in the Cloister), the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has just had a brand spanking new web-job done on their site. And in case you are wondering why it looks very much like this website in look and feel, well, that would be because it had the same creator. Well done, Matt!

Why do I retain the Governor General in my Proposal for an Elective Constitution Monarchy for Australia?

Fr Greg Blevins wrote to this morning saying:

Just read you proposal for an elective monarchy in Australia. One thing I don't understand: with a resident monarch, why have a Governor General?

Ah, you see, this is the beauty of it all.

Australia as it exists at the moment is actually federation of separate British Colonies. All the Colonies (now referred to as "States" in the "Commonwealth of Australia") have their own Governor, directly chosen by the Premier of the local State Parliament and appointed by the Queen herself without any Federal participation in the process. The Governor General is the same sort of beast writ large, chosen by the Prime Minister and appointed directly by the Queen without any participation from the State governements. So we have two quite separate teirs of Government, both directly and independently related to the people and, through their governors, to the Crown.

The next oddity is that under the current constitution we currently have an absentee monarch, sharing our monarch with Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and a bunch of other places. This works very nicely as the Monarch has zilch input in the way our nation operates politically except for the business of appointing Governors and Governors General. In fact, it is hard to know why anyone would want to change this system - we get the best of both worlds: the stability that comes from constitutional monarchy and the self-determination that comes from democratic independence. And we don't even have to pay for the Monarch.

Effectively we have a vacuum at the top of our political system - one that the Republicans would like to see filled by a President. Proposals for a Presidency have reached all sorts of complications about the way in which such a president would be appointed. Mainly the argument comes down to whether he/she should be appointed by direct vote of the people or through some form of parliamentary concensus. But it is also complicated by the question of what powers the president would have in the political process. This in turn is complicated, because there has been a great deal of debate as to what exactly are and are not the currrent powers of the Governors/Governor General, especially since the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975 by the then Governor General, Sir John Kerr. Would a President have the powers to do that? If he did, and if he were a popularly elected leader, that could create a very unstable situation.

My proposal for an Elective Constitutional Monarchy for Australia (in effect, proposing that we have a Sovereign head of state who is elected FOR LIFE by a very particular and predictable process) aims at making the only change necessary in order to have an Australian Citizen as our Head of State, and leaving everything else in place as it currently is. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Retaining the State Governors AND the Federal Governor General would keep the Elected Head of State at a safe distance from the day to day political process. The sole political activity and power of the Monarch would continue to be the appointment of Governors at both state and federal levels (on the recommendation of the Premier of the Parliament), just as it is in the current system. In every other respect the role of the Soveriegn would be purely ceremonial - thus filling that "vacuum" at the top of our political system which is currently filled by our Absentee Monarch.

My system also solves the question of how to elect the Head of State by a similar process of removing his/her election as far from the day to day democratic political process as possible, thus eliminating any possibility of volatility and instability (the same thinking is behind the idea of election FOR LIFE - somthing that should be no trouble when the only political power of the Monarch is the appointment the Governors). I borrowed the idea for an "Elective Monarchy" from the Holy Roman Empire, where the Emperor used to be chosen by a group of princes who had the role of "Electors". Let the "Electors" be the "princes" of our political system, I thought, namely those Governors and Governors General that remain in the new system. These Electors are people who have been appointed by the leaders of the democratically elected parliaments and appointed by the Crown. They have a limited term of office, but their office is not dependant upon the government who appointed them remaining in power. As a college working together, they, and not the rather more volatile Parliaments, are well placed to do this duty. Add to that that the Governors are generally not in themselves politicians, but "elder statesmen and women" of our nation, and they seem the perfect choice to elect a new monarch on the death of the old one.

Any way, that's my thinking. I reckon it would not only work, but would flourish as a system of governement for our nation.

Lutherans and Catholics: "The Same, but Different"?

On his Extra Nos blog, LP Cruz has a post called "Same Same, but Different". He is picking up on the posting of another Lutheran, one Steve Martin from the US, entitled "Too Religious?". The question is: if Lutherans and Catholics both use the same or similar liturgical forms, doesn't that mean that they are "the same"? Not so, counters LP Cruz, they are DIFFERENT because when Lutheran say the SAME things they MEAN different things from Catholics.

The problem with people observing Lutherans is that they hear the same words we speak and think we mean the same things as the RCs.

No.

We sound and look the same as the RC but we do not mean the same things when we use the same words. We just look the same, but we are not the same.

We are not the same because we do not mean the same things when we use the words found in our liturgy. The words strike the Lutheran differently when they hit the Lutheran’s ears.

Well... From one perspective, he is most certainly right. Certainly Lutherans intend to do something quite different in their Eucharistic Liturgy than Catholics. After all, we intend to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which they certainly do not. But then, that really is made quite clear by the fact that they cut out the "sacrificial" bits of the liturgy, whereas we retain them in all their glory (the Traddies' criticisms of the Novus Ordo notwithstanding).

However, there are great swathes of the Eucharistic Liturgy which have been completely retained by the Lutherans - and the Anglicans and even by those of other protestant traditions such as the Methodists (Uniting Church in Australia). The Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei are unaltered. The shape of the Liturgy is unaltered. Many of the Collects and the Readings and the Propers share much in common.

Remember the old saying "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi"? I know that a lot of people (Lutherans and Catholics) have tried to turn that around to say that it equally means "Lex Credendi, Lex Orandi", ie. that it is equally true to say that the Rule of Faith establishes the Rule of Prayer as it is to say that the Rule of Prayer establishes the Rule of Faith, but the original saying upon which this dictum is based does not allow us to be so careless about the order. "Lex supplicandi legem statuat credendi" means that the rule of prayer is what establishes the rule of belief.

The upshot of this is that when Lutherans and Catholics really mean different things by the words they use in the liturgy, they generally make pretty sure that they use different words. When they use the same words and do the same things, it must be concluded - at least on the level of phenomenology (for all I know about that subject, which is not much) - that they mean the same thing by what they do and say.

So it is fairly natural that, when a Lutheran finally wakes up and smells the incense (as they say), he (or she) often realises that the very words he (or she) has been using all the way along have meant exactly what Catholics mean when they use the same words.

It is all downhill to the Tiber after that...

Blessed John Henry Newman at last!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="341" caption="(Soon to be Blessed) John Henry Newman"][/caption]Zenit reports:

Pope Approves Cardinal Newman Miracle
Recognizes Martyrdom of Dachau Victim, Spanish Priests

VATICAN CITY, JULY 3, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Today, Benedict XVI authorized the promulgation of decrees recognizing miracles, martyrdom and heroic virtue in several causes for canonization.

A Vatican communiqué reported that the Pope received in private audience Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, and authorized the congregation to promulgate the following decrees.

Miracles attributed to the intercession of the following:

-- Blessed Cándida Maria de Jesús Cipitria y Barriola (1845-1912) (born Juana Josefa), Spanish founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of Jesus.
-- Servant of God John Henry Newman (1801-1890), English cardinal and founder of the Oratories of St. Philip Neri in England...

Etc. Etc. The list is long, but the main character in the list for English speaking Catholics would have to be number two on this list, the unofficial Patron Saint of all modern day converts to the Catholic Faith, John Henry Cardinal Newman.

We are overjoyed. What a pity that there are no 1st class relics left to venerate...

High on a hill...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="399" caption=""High on a hill stood a lonely goatherd...""][/caption]
Hardman Window has excelled himself in this posting on Cooees. Go there and have a good laugh!

On the Authority of Catechisms

Recently, in a comment, Cardinal Pole suggested that Catechisms are not binding magisterial documents. [Actually, as in the comment below, this was an error of recollection on my part. It was Kiran in dialogue with the Cardinal and not the Cardinal in dialogue with Kiran who made this point. I should have checked my sources. Somewhere I got the commentators jumbled.] I asked another commentator, Kiran Newman [in fact, I was asking the person who originally asserted it - see below], what he thought of this, and this was his response:

For instance, the stance of the CCC on Capital Punishment us debated frequently in traddie circles, and I don't think that constitutes rebellion, even if I think those who disagree with the disagreers. But then again, I am loath to multiply the number of binding instruments. The Catechism is, I think, authoritative, without being binding. Too nice a distinction? Or maybe, the Catechism can be seen as a kind of indication of what the Church in her concrete historical circumstances, is thinking. She can change her mind and has done so on what is in the Catechisms, while she cannot contradict herself on doctrine. I think one can however be required not to teach against the Catechism, if the Church so chooses. But she doesn't seem to do so in reality now. On the other hand, JPII says in publishing the current Catechism that it "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion." He carefully avoids binding, but says everything else. In sum then, I do not know. A worthy question for your blog?

Sure is, so we are asking it.

Of Celibate Bishops and Infant Baptism in the post-Nicene Church

While in Bendigo recently in the company of the excellent Fraser Pearce, we were indulging in two of my favourite pastimes simultaneously: talking theology and op-shopping. This took us to the local Salvo's store, where we found a surprisingly good collection of theological books for sale. For $3, I picked up a copy of J.W.C. Wand's "Doctors and Councils", published in 1962. (Wand was the Anglican bishop of London at the time of it's publication.)

I have not read enough of the lives of the Saints, so I have been enjoying this book immensely. Today, I came across the following paragraphs on St Gregory Nazianzus:

Gregory was born in the year of the Council of Nicea, 325, on his father's estate at Arianzus near the town of Nazianzus, of which his father was the bishop. The father had belonged originally to an obscure sect from which he was won to Orthodoxy by the persuasions of his wife, Nonna. She was not only a good wife, but a splendid mother, and deserves to be ranked with Monica, the mother of Augustine, as among the women who have made great contributions to history through their influence upon their sons. There was an older sister, Gorgonia, and a younger brother named Caesarius....

He was there [in Athens] for twelve years altogether, from the age of 18 to 30.

About this time he was caught at sea in a violent storm, of which he has left us a vivid description, and during it he pledged his life to the service of God. He returned with his brother, Caesarius, to Nazianzus, and it is possible that at this time he was baptised...

In 374 the elder Gregory died, as did also his wife, Nonna, at about the same time. For a period Gregory continued to administer the Church of Nazianzus while doing his utmost to secure the appointment of a new bishop...

Worn out before his time he died in 390, the year when at Hippo in North Africa the great Augustine was ordained priest.

Now this I found interesting - and educational - because it redrew the picture in my mind of the post-Nicene Church. I had thought that by this time two practices universally accepted in the Church today - episcopal celibacy and infant baptism - were already well in place. After all, all three of the Cappadocians were celibates, as was Augustine later. And all three came from well-established Christian families. I knew that Augustine was baptised as an adult, but I thought that the reason he was not baptised as a child was because his father was not a Christian. But Gregory's father, Gregory of Nazianzus Sr, was a bishop and his mother apparently a devout orthodox Christian - so why was Gregory Jnr only baptised as an adult? And at first I surmised, when reading that Gregory's father was a bishop, that his episcopal service must have begun after the death of his wife, but then I read that his wife died at about the same time he did.

So, you live and you learn. Does any Reader of SCE have more information of when these two practices - episcopal celibacy and infant baptism - became more widespread? My suspicion is that the practice of infant baptism at least became more common as a result of the writings of Augustine, who was just beginning his ecclesiastical career at the time when Gregory died.

The kind of Ecumenism we need more of in today's world...

This report on the three-way opposition to legal abortion in England - from the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminister and the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain - is proof that when it works, ecumenical action can be very beneficial in today's morally-confused world.

As legalised Euthanasia is the next front on which bio-ethical battles will be fought in our own pariliaments, we in Victoria (in particular) and Australia (in general) can take some comfort in the fact that there is much more agreement over issues surrounding the end of life than issues surrounding its beginning. You can be assured that we are well on the road to seeking the same sort of ecumenical agreement in this area.

More on the Bones of St Paul

This story, carried by Cathnews and originally on some website called "Monsters and Critics", seems quite reasonable to me.

Elburg, an expert on archaeological study of old bones and organic remains for the government of the German state of Saxony, told the German Press Agency dpa in an interview, "It's impossible to establish that it's him." ...Even a genetic analysis of the bones in a sarcophagus marked as Paul's would reveal nothing, because there were no proven descendants whose DNA could be compared. "But the bones could tell you the sex and age of death of the person," he said. ..."Traces of beheading can be identified with absolute certainty," he said. ...Elburg counselled maximum precision in opening the sarcophagus, saying, "It will be comparable to opening the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh."

Which is quite true - only I don't think the Vatican will ever sanction such an opening. Better to leave these things well enough alone, and let "pious tradition" embroider "reasonable possibility"...