When the Jacobin Revolution threatened to destroy the Church, it was Borromeo’s legacy that did most to help her survive…

Today the Latin Christians of the one true Church celebrate the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop and Confessor, under both the Johannine and the Pauline form of the Roman Rite.  We therefore re-publish with  revisions our brief 2007 post in honor of this great Saint through whom and with whom Christ our Lord reformed and strengthened His mystical Body:

November 4 is the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), a great prelate and reformer of the Latin Church.  Today his pivotal role is largely forgotten, even in western Christendom, but even a cursory reading of his life would amply show that in him, the one true Church found one of her greatest bishops-ordinaries after Saints Augustine and John Chrysostom.  (Thus Christopher M. Bellitto, in an article on the Saint Anthony Messenger, names Borromeo among the ten great Catholics of the second millenium.)  To those who’d like to know more about him, we recommend the online biographies on New Advent and Wikipedia, the former of which paints a vivid picture of the epic character of Borromeo’s life and times.

Carlo Borromeo was born to power and privilege, his father being the Count of Arona, but even in his teens Borromeo already demonstrated his mettle by giving to the poor the revenues of an uncle’s benefice.  When his uncle was elected as Pope Pius IV, Borromeo was appointed a high curial official, an act that, by God’s mysterious workings, reaped great benefit for Christendom; for when Borromeo was pressed by his family to leave the service of the Church, he refused and went on to become a priest and, eventually, the greatest bishop of Milan after St. Ambrose, esteemed for both the excellence of his leadership and the holiness of his life.

Like his older contemporary St. Francis Borgia, therefore,  Borromeo eschewed high estate for the pearl of great price; and like the former, Borromeo was more a St. Dominic than a St. Francis, making his mark through less “dramatic” fields of service–legislation, governance, organization–that are no less heroic or vital to the Kingdom of God.  At the resumption of the Council of Trent, for example, Borromeo’s administrative and diplomatic skill was instrumental in assembling the  Council Fathers, ensuring the sucesss of their work, and publicizing their reformatory decrees through the Roman Catechism; and when his effort to apply the reforms in his diocese met bitter, even violent opposition from the State and the clergy, it was through Borromeo’s prayerful patience and tact no less than though his courage and chutzpah that God gave him the victory.

How important Borromeo would become in history is seen in the fact that many of the institutions of Christian formation and discipline we consider commonplace today were, for the most part, creations of his age.  To take but one example, the seminary as an institution was largely unknown before the 16th century, when its formative role was performed by the Universities, the religious institutes, and the cathedral and monastic schools–adequately or inadequately under varying circumstances, but without much regularity in manner or effect. It was Borromeo who, in reforming his diocese and province, regularized the seminary system, thus providing a model to other bishops on how to apply of the decrees of Trent on priestly formation.

Likewise illuminating to his brother bishops was Borromeo’s brilliant and fruitful combination of the priestly, teaching, and administrative facets of the episcopal office to effect reform.  For instance, besides taking measures for the education of priests, Borromeo also established a systematic manner of instructing children and other laity in the Faith:  before his time, it was precisely the dearth of such instruction that allowed the growth in Latin Europe of such heretical sects as the Brethren of the Free Spirit and their infiltration of otherwise healthy movements like the Beguines and Beghards.  His enlisting of Jesuit assistance was likewise momentous, for it provided a model of cooperation that helped counter the first onset of anti-Jesuit sentiment and became a powerful structural force in the Catholic Reformation.

In sum, Borromeo was one the reformers like Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, St. John of the Cross, and St. Theresa of Avila, pioneers like St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Philip Neri, and authors like Francisco de Vitoriam, Francisco Suarez, St. Robert Bellarmine, and St. Francis de Sales, who made the 16th century so illustrious.  The influence of his writings went as far afield as England; and when the Tridentine reforms finally reached France, it bore the unmistakable stamp of Borromeo’s model.  History showed later how vital a role he really played, for when the Jacobin Revolution and its totalitarian contagion assaulted the Church through the 18th and succeeding centuries, it was the institutional legacy of Borromeo–the seminaries, the Sunday schools, the confraternities, and the catechisms–that did most to fortify the faithful of Christ.

Oremus:

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You for giving us Saint Charles Borromeo, through whose work You strengthened Your one true Church for the innumerable trials of the past centuries.  Grant that we,  the clergy and laity of Your Body on earth, may ever remember his example of faithful service and courage, and thus become ready instruments of Your grace for the world.  Amen.

Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us, unto the glory of God!

A prayer by St. Charles Borromeo may be found here, at the website of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary.

The holiness of any one of us benefits all, and the sin of any one harms all, for we are joined to one another, as we are all joined to Christ…

Every time we proclaim the Apostles’ Creed, that most ancient summary of the Christian Faith, we declare our belief in “the communion of saints“.  Thus our Latin and Eastern Catholic traditions honor all saints in heaven on November 1 and on the 1st Sunday after Pentecost, respectively; and we Latins commemorate the other faithful departed on November 2, as our Eastern Catholic brethren do on various days of the year, particularly at Lent.

But what does this doctrine mean?  The best nutshell definition was given by the Latin theologian Hugh of St. Victor centuries before Dumas of the romances: singula sint omnium et omnia singulorum, one for all and all for one! a phrase that surely befits  the high adventure of Catholic truth.  Among modern thinkers, one of the best explanations of the communion of saints was written by Karl Adam in his (we dare say) magisterial work from the 1920’s, The Spirit of Catholicism, which is online on EWTN.com.  Thus does Adam, in chapter vii,  summarize the ancient Apostolic teaching:

“By this doctrine [of the communion of saints] the Church means a community of spirit and of spiritual goods among the saints on earth, that is among all those who are incorporated by faith and love in the one Head, Christ. More than that, she means also the vital communion of these faithful Christians with all those souls who have passed out of the world in the love of Christ, and who either as blessed souls enjoy in glory the Vision of their God, or as souls in the state of purgation await that Vision… the whole mass of the redeemed, who in the various stages of development, as members of the militant, suffering or triumphant Church, are conjoined through their one Head, Jesus Christ, in one single family and fellowship, in one single sacred Body.” (Adam, chapter vii)

As may be seen from the foregoing, the communion of saints is not limited to Christians who have entered the glory of heaven–some of whom the one true Church publicly proclaims, or canonizes, to be worthy of honor and emulation–but includes all the “holy ones” (Latin sancti) of God in heaven, on earth, and in purgatory, living in Christ and in one another, suffering together and being saved together, an ever-flowing, ever-interceding communion of love in which

“no good can be done, no virtue practiced by individual members, which does not redound also to the salvation of all” (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, 89).

For in supernatural fact we are none of us isolated believers, lonely sinners “in the hands of an angry God” (pace Edwards).  Rather,  we are, by baptism,  integral members of the one true Church, the Body of Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:27), each having a vital place in the Church and a vital role in each other’s transformation in Christ:

“[T]he members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:25-26)

Thus Adam, citing Scripture, explains that

“there is no grace that may be a purely personal possession, no blessing that does not belong to all.  “If the foot should say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body?” (1 Cor. xii, 15-16). The ultimate meaning of every vital Christian function lies precisely in its close relation to the complete organism, in its solidarity with the whole.” (Adam, chapter vii).

“And so it may happen,” Adam continues, “that,

though for the external history of the Body of Christ the activities of the structural organs, the official activities of pope or bishop, may be more manifest to the eye, yet the joyful poverty of a St. Francis of Assisi, the vigils of a St. Ignatius of Loyola and the charity of a St. Vincent de Paul may claim greater importance for its inner history, for the realization of the fullness of Christ.” (Adam, chapter vii)

The key phrase was the last, “the fullness of Christ”.  The expression comes from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, where the Apostle declares that

“He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1:22-23, KJV).

Hence, the Church is the fullness or completion (Greek pleroma) of Christ. His saving action is inseparable from that of His Body the Church, to Whom He joins Himself as Bridegroom to Bride; and as we are members of the Body of Christ, so we can, by His grace, complete His work of saving the world and each other:

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24).

For this reason, indeed, St. Paul teaches that human action in the Church plays a key role in all our salvation,

“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13 KJV).

But isn’t this all pantheism? an Evangelical might object, as indeed many objected when Tony Campolo affirmed the strongly communitarian (non-individualist) tenor of Scriptural teaching on the unity of believers.  We must answer that being of the Body of Christ does not make us essentially Divine, which is what pantheism means.  Rather, we partake of the Divine nature (2 St. Peter 1:4) and become children of the Father not in ourselves but by participation, because we share in the life and mission of Christ our Divine Lord.

“There is but one God, the Triune God, and every created thing lives in awe of His mystery. But this one God is a God of life and of love. So great, so superabundant is this love, that it… by the precious gift of sanctifying grace, summons [man] from his state of isolation to an unparalleled participation in the Divine Nature and in Its blessings, to a sort of active co-operation in the work of God, to effective initiative in the establishment of the Kingdom of God.” (Adam, chapter vii)

“The creature”, continues Adam, “remains always a creature and can co-operate in the work of salvation only through God’s power”, but

“looking at the matter as a whole, the true Kingdom, whence comes all blessing, is not God alone, not the divine “One” (hen) alone, but the “One and all” (hen kai pan) or rather the totality of all the members whom Christ, their Head, introduces into the Divine Life of God, who is fruitful in His saints.” (Adam, chapter vii)

This is not absorption into God, nor mere imputation of justice to purely passive humanity, but grace-generated transformation in Christ with our active, free, grace-generated participation:

“[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you” (Philippians 2:12-13 KJV).

This, says Adam, is the main difference between Protestantism and the Christian Faith of one true Church.  Protestantism pays lip-service to the Incarnation, yet continues to imagine the Lord our God as a totally transcendent deity, Who saves us without any participation by the human nature that Christ made one with His Divine Person.  But in response to the atomizing Protestant principle (the child of Nominalism’s union with St. Augustine’s residual Manicheanism) that we must not “absolutize” what is merely earthly, we affirm that human beings in all their weakness are, by grace, necessary co-participants in Christ’s saving work, because in Him the Word was made flesh (St. John 1:14), our flesh.  Therefore, Adam notes,

“The Catholic cannot think of the good God without thinking at the same time of the Word made Flesh, and of all His members who are united to Him by faith and love in a real unity. The God of Catholicism is the transcendent, absolute God, who became Man for us in His Son, and therefore no solitary God, but the God of angels and saints, the God of fruitfulness and abundance, the God who with a veritable divine folly by the incomprehensible decree of His most free Will takes up into Himself the whole creation that culminates in human nature, and in a new, unheard of supernatural manner, “lives in it,” “moves” in it, and in it “is” (cf. Acts xvii, 28)” (Adam, chapter vii)

We are the communion of saints, a consecrated people joined to the Church, the fullness of Christ, by baptism, the Eucharist (see St. John 6:53-56) and all her other sacramental actions, as well as her teaching (see 1 St. Timothy 3:15), guidance, and prayer. By thus joining us to His ecclesial Person, Christ joins us to the Father Who begets Him in eternity and the Spirit Who proceeds from the Father and Christ in eternity; and also to the Mother and the  People that begot him in time, to His relatives and friends in 1st century Palestine, to the saintly and sinful laity, rulers, nuns, priests, bishops,  popes Who became members of His Body over 2,000 years of very chequered and very sacred history.

“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us…” (Romans 12:3-6 KJV)

The holiness of any one of  us benefits all, and the sin of any member harms all (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:25-26), for we are joined to one another, as we are all joined to Christ.  We believe in the communion of saints!

(All rights reserved. All quotations from The Spirit of Catholicism are taken from the online edition published on EWTN.com, copyright 1954 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.  All quotations from the King James Version are taken from the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library.  We believe that our reproduction of non-substantial portions of the works for non-profit purposes constitutes fair use; but if we are mistaken, we stand ready to remove all objectionable content upon request. Deus vobiscum.)

Conversion is the subjective dimension of justification, the transformation by which flawed nature is elevated and healed by grace… (In honor of the Feast of All Saints, we re-publish the following part of our  earlier post Tony Blair: The Problem Convert?, though with deep sorrow at the former Prime Minister’s persistent Anti-humanism.)

I think many of us are working under a misunderstanding of the Christian doctrine of conversion. Now, theologically, conversion is the subjective dimension of justification, the transformation by which flawed nature is elevated and healed by grace. Note how in the Council of Trent, the one true Church rejected the Lutheran doctrine of forensic justification (sprung from the Manichaeanized side of St. Augustine), which saw salvation as a Gnostic jump from the demiurgic humanity of sin to that of grace. For in truth, the natural and supernatural orders are rooted in the same God, the latter a (supercosmically) higher mode of communion into which one grows by grace. (Thankfully, Kuyper’s revisionist Calvinism, with its emphasis on “common grace”–derived from Calvin’s affirmation of the enduring providence of God–has begun to correct Neochristian theology.)

Conversion, in other words, is a grace-borne process that begins at baptism, and we can’t demand that it happen instantly in everyone: It takes time for the mustard seed to grow; and so the Church understands that the transformation of the Inner Self takes place differently in different people. Thus, in volume 1 of his magisterial Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, the Neochristian (i.e., Protestant) theologian Ernst Troeltsch noted how the  one true Church, while setting up an exacting moral standard for her members, doesn’t demand that they all adopt it once for all on pain of excommunication, but allows them to grow into it according to their station, within the bosom of the Body of Christ.  If this conversion is never completed within our lifetimes, we follow original Christian teaching in believing that it will be completed by the fires of love in the next life (see Matthew 12:32), through the merits of Christ and, in Him, of His Church considered as a mystical organism.

Maybe the problem is that we’re too excessively influenced by the Damascus model of conversion, based on St. Paul’s virtually instantaneous change from militant unbelief to total faith.  Thus, back in the 18th century, so intelligent a Neochristian minister as Jonathan Edwards actually demanded a “conversion experience” from his flock.

What we perhaps fail to note is that conversion in Scripture and in Christian history is more nuanced by far, and more often characterized by fits and starts. St. Peter, after his call by Our Lord, long persisted in his worldly vision of the Messianic mission (hence the Dominical vade retro); and it took the tolle, lege episode, whatever its historicity, to finally effect St. Augustine’s moral conversion. Indeed, conversion for the most part resembles the experience of Elijah: hearing the soft voice of God not in but after the noise and the tempest.

Speaking of double standards, then, we cannot suddenly demand total instant conversion from our initiates simply because we are presently at war with Antihumanism and Liberal Fascism. Whatever the social situation, conversion is ultimately God’s work and follows His pace, notwithstanding RCIAs and catechumenates; and who was it (Simone Weil?) who said that many enter the Church through disapproved ways? It is surely unjust to withhold mercy from presumptively sincere beginners, when even the latae sententiae excommunication of mass-murdering abortionists (who just happen to be cradle “Catholics”) can be lifted upon their repentance. Of course, I don’t mean adopting a big-tent policy in the style of Anglicanism, but a sort of “basilica ecclesiology”, where conversion means walking down the nave to the altar rail to receive the Blessed Sacrament, and entering the church is but the start of the Greatest Pilgrimage.

May God bless us all.

]]> http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/conversion-a-gradual-process/feed/ 0 indi http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/christ-the-king-and-christian-statesmanship/ http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/christ-the-king-and-christian-statesmanship/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:01:19 +0000 indignus http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/?p=1073 ]]>

Yesterday, 25 October 2009, was the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which, in the traditional calendar of the Latin Rite, is celebrated on the last Sunday of October.  Therefore, in honor of Christ the King, we re-publish with minor modifications our earlier post “Politics: a path of holiness“. Viva Cristo Rey!

On the Feast of Saint Thomas More earlier this year, the  Catholic News Agency had reported how the Archbishop of Mexico City, Norberto Cardinal Rivera Carrera, had reminded politicians that their work is not a means for the promotion of personal interest.  Rather, he said, it is a vocation, by which the Lord our God moves them to uphold good laws, promote social justice, and practice Christian social teaching.

Political activity should be carried out with a spirit of service.  It is a true vocation that dignifies those who exercise it, in particular in government, in the establishing of laws and in public administration in its diverse spheres…

His Eminence likeness stressed the need to follow distributive justice (“creating conditions of equal opportunity”) as well as commutative justice (“giving each person his due”), something that liberal  capitalist (i.e., Lockean and most Evangelical Protestant)  ideologies often forget.  Nor is the duty of Christian politicians qua Christians and politicans lessened simply because we live in a pluralistic world.

It’s not a question of going in circles with the problems but of confronting them with the testimony of a coherent faith… In a secular society we must be respectful of believers and non-believers, but we must never be ashamed into silence about our principles and convictions

His Eminence’s remarks were an excellent nutshell summary of Christian political ethics in liberal society, especially because he endeavors therein to correct and complete the mainstream view of politics.

For the mainstream view sees politics as a means to promote the common good in an exclusively materialist sense, and hence often seeks to separate the moral dimension of government from its pragmatic aspect.  “Politics is dirty,” it says, “a necessary evil that we do solely to protect society.”  In contrast, the Christian view is that politics is a part, and indeed an integral and holy part, of the moral life.  For politics is merely the policy-making or action-directing aspect of social life, which lies at the heart of our being made in the image and likeness of God: It is our very dim but very real reflection of the perfect community that lies at the heart of the  Blessed Trinity–the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one almighty God, forever in relation and defining one another by their relation.

We must therefore disabuse ourselves of the individualist-Protestant belief that social life is a mere super-addition or aid to individual moral life and salvation.  For indeed, we are given our natural human lives, our natural participation in God’s being, through the family; and we are bestowed with the supernatural life–which is the communal habitation in us of the Divine Persons (see St. John 14:23)–not separately but together as one Body, the Church that is the fullness of Christ the King (Ephesians 1:22-23) and the pillar and standard of His truth (I St. Timothy 3:15).  In sum, social life is the essential precondition and means of temporal fulfillment and eternal salvation; and so to be more authentically social is to be closer to God in the ontological, ethical, and mystical sense.

Further, we must stress that social life was created by the Lord our God and made subject to His law as an essential part of our humanity; and  nothing created by God is evil (see Genesis 1:31). This is a necessary reminder, lest we fall to the Manichaean-Augustinian view of politics espoused by the mainstream view.  We can twist the gifts of God; we can use them for corruption or oppression; but these do not make them evil.  Rather, our corrupt choices are evil precisely because we are desecrating something that is good and holy; we are polluting the energeia of God.  Thus it is with politics.  It may be used to do evil; but in itself  it is a means by which people can bring themselves and their community closer to what God intends them to be: filled with sacramental holiness and solidarity here and therefore destined for happiness in eternity.

Hence, those who wield politics as God intended, even amid their imperfections–those who use policy for  faith, hope, and love, particularly to help the impoverished and the suffering–become His instruments  for the salvation of the world.  In a sense, they become  “co-redeemers” of Christ our Lord, filling up what is wanting in His sufferings (see Colossians 1:24) through their sacrifices for the common good. Nor is this “co-redemptive” role limited to politicians, for in our lives as Christians of the one true Church, and by our votes or voices in our polities, we too have the chance, and therefore the responsibility, to fulfill the will of God for humanity and society.  Thus His Holiness Pope Leo XIII reminds us that–

“[I]t is the duty of all Catholics worthy of the name and wishful to be known as most loving children of the Church, to reject without swerving whatever is inconsistent with so fair a title; to make use of popular institutions, so far as can honestly be done, for the advancement of truth and righteousness; to strive that liberty of action shall not transgress the bounds marked out by nature and the law of God; to endeavor to bring back all civil society to the pattern and form of Christianity” (Encyclical “Immortale Dei” on the Christian Constitution of States, 46).

St. Thomas More, who said, “I am the king’s good and loyal servant, but God’s first”, gives rulers an excellent example of justice and courage.  In a time of favor he used his office to serve unimpeachable justice to the people of his country; and in crisis, armed only with his knowledge of the law,  he resisted his ruler’s treason against Christ our Lord and His one true Church.   May the memory of  St. Thomas More’s brave example, allied with his meritorious intercession, move us to  glorify God and fulfill the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Viva Cristo Rey!

“The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination.”

–Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter “ Caritas in Veritate” on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth, ii, 27.

The Pope has inaugurated a titanic shift in ecumenical policy with the new norms for Anglican converts.

At The Telegraph, Damian Thompson reports that the progression to the upcoming Apostolic Constitution (regarding the juridical framework for receiving Anglicans and former Anglicans to the one true Church) had not involved the ecumenical establishment and its allies in the local hierarchy.  We write this post to note that, while this “bypassing” of the main players in the Anglican-Catholic dialogue does not  spell the end of the ecumenical movement in the Church, it shows that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is making an major change in the existing policy towards ecumenism and evangelization.  To explain:

The multifarious use of the concept of ecumenism shows that ecumenical dialogue may have any or all of four different objectives; that is, it may seek to (1) facilitate common action among Christians; (2) effect the eventual restoration of unity among Christians; (3) deepen greater mutual understanding among persons with disparate beliefs (e.g., the Catholic-Lutheran declaration on justification); and/or (4) remove barriers to the foregoing (e.g., the removal of the mutual excommunication of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople).  These purposes may be respectively denominated as cooperative and, to borrow the language of mysticism, unitive, illuminative, and purgative purposes.

Notwithstanding the milestones reported by His Eminence Cardinal Kasper, a frank assessment of ecumenical dialogue over the past 50 years manifests the improbability of unitive ecumenism coming to fruition between the one true Church and the Protestant denominations.  Whatever unitive progress may accrue from the production of non-binding common statements on contentious issues, these simply cannot outpace  the increasing divergence caused by mainline Protestantism’s  surrender to  Modernist (actually Postmodernist) theology.  Thus Sandro Magister, noting the show of concord between the (Anglican) Archbishop of Canterbury and the (Catholic) Archbishop of Westminister, remarked:

“This kind of harmony makes one think how close reconciliation would be today between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, if only the latter had not allowed the ordination of women and practicing homosexuals to the priesthood and the episcopate, with the ensuing dramatic divisions between those who agree and those who do not” (from Chiesa, with thanks to Shawn Tribe of the New Liturgical Movement for the heads-up).

Consequently, ecumenical dialogue (with its resemblance to the gruesome bore-fest of diplomatic negotiations) has a better raison d’etre as a basis for common action and mutual understanding among Christian bodies rather than on any prospect of actual reunion. Unfortunately, this fact has not been recognized by ecumenical policy makers, whose dialogues have therefore accomplished much less common action than, say, the “ecumenism of the trenches” of loudly disagreeing Catholics and Evangelicals.

Moreover, and quite problematically from a doctrinal point of view, the ecumenists’ unjustified emphasis on unitive ecumenism, as well as on the mutual concord required for the illusory prospect of reunion, has led to an inclusive “I’m OK-You’re OK” approach to differences that runs contrary not to only to the Church’s missionary mandate but to sound reason.  (Note too that this “ecumenical approach” has infected evangelization efforts, with the emphasis on conversion and salvation being exchanged, or even ignored, for a relativism that is more fitted to cultural anthropology than to missiology.)

Hence the importance of the announcement of the new juridical policy for converts from Anglican Protestantism. Doctrinally, the Holy See’s decision to issue the Apostolic Constitution presages a new and better approach to ecumenism that definitively repudiates practical indifferentism and refuses to let dialogue and common action obscure fidelity to the truth.

Pragmatically, by (momentarily?) shelving the prospect for a general rapprochement with the Anglican communion’s nominal leadership, we think that the Holy Father has  unleashed a titanic shift on ecumenical policy:

First, it implies acceptance of the fundamental limitations of the ecumenical endeavor–that ecumenical dialogue, while a viable basis for common action and mutual understanding, will not lead to reunion any more than would talking together at the United Nations.  The Pope is admitting that unitive ecumenism is dead, and that the energies spent reviving it are better used on illuminative ecumenism and common action against increasingly totalitarian secularism.

Second, and therefore, it shows that His Holiness is beginning to correct the over-emphasis on ecumenical dialogue as an instrument for restoring Christian unity, by reinvigorating a “second channel”–and an older and frankly surer one–for bringing back unity among Christians. As Father George Rutler, a convert from Anglicanism, said on CNA,

“The Apostolic Constitution is not a retraction of ecumenical desires, but rather is the fulfillment of ecumenical aspirations, albeit not the way most Anglican leaders had envisioned it.”

Third, and most importantly for the one true Church, the Holy Father has made it very clear that in case of apparent conflict between the two endeavors, evangelism will be chosen before ecumenism.

This threefold policy is quite justified, on both doctrinal and pragmatic (or perhaps pastoral) grounds.  The pragmatic/pastoral reasons are evident, for it is evidently easier to negotiate and reunite with individuals, families, and  small groups, as the prospective Apostolic Constitution will do, than with a coalition of disparate views and interests such as that represented by the Archbishop of Canterbury. As the Guardian reports, the prospective Apostolic Constitution is appealing to Anglicans on the parish level, whereas little more than speculation can be made about larger bodies like the African Anglican community, whose leaders are “still weighing” the Holy Father’s offer.

As to the doctrinal grounds, it’s pretty simple: Christ our Lord commanded us to preach and baptize, or evangelize; He did not command us to dialogue, or ecumenize; and while neither one excludes the other, it’s pretty clear which is more important to us as Christians of the one true Church.  Against hermeneuticists of discontinuity, we must stress that this  recognition of primacy (lovely word, that) of evangelization subsists (another lovely word) even in the age of aggiornamento. Thus His Holiness Pope John XXIII, in response to the fact that “more and more men of good will in various parts of the world earnestly striving to bring about this visible unity among Christians”,  said that

“We therefore beg and implore Christ Our Mediator and Advocate with the Father to give all Christians the grace to recognize those marks by which His true Church is distinguished from all others, and to become its devoted sons. May God in His infinite kindness hasten the dawn of that long-awaited day of joyful, universal reconciliation.” (from Insight Scoop)

We unite our own prayer with that of the late Vicar of Christ, and we pray to the Lord our God that He may protect our living Pontiff, Pope Benedict the Magnificent. God bless us all.

]]> http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/pope-benedicts-new-ecumenism/feed/ 0 indi http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/what-the-popes-anglican-policy-means/ http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/what-the-popes-anglican-policy-means/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:43:29 +0000 indignus http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/?p=1014 ]]>

For Pope Benedict the Magnificent, we bless and thank you, oh Lord our God!

In the our last post, Traditional Anglicans say “I do”, we had summarized thus the historic events of October 20, 2009:

Earlier today, we had been astonished (…) by the announcement in the Vatican and in England that Pope Benedict XVI will issue an Apostolic Constitution setting the juridical structure for Anglicans returning to the Catholic Church, which the Note of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said will involve the erection of personal ordinariates.  A Joint Statement was also prepared by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster acknowledging that the Constitution was a response to Anglicans who will “accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church”

Then,

[I]in a very moving message, “Traditional Anglican Communion Responds to Pope’s Offer of Ecclesiastical refuge,” posted (here) on Virtue Online, Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, called the announcement of the Apostolic Constitution “an act of great goodness” and generosity.

And so,

The leader of Traditional Anglicans has declared that the process of reunion with Rome “will begin at once”

Our comment: We are beyond words.  The announcement of the Constitution signifies a great many things that can scarcely be noted in one short post, and which we can only, for lack of material time, enumerate thus:

• That policy-setting in the Church on inter-religious matters has, at least this once, shifted away from the old ecumenical establishment  (see Damian Thompson);

• That this presages an approach to ecumenism that definitively repudiates practical indifferentism and refuses to let dialogue and common action obscure fidelity to the truth;

• That the Church has made her position clear: evangelism (saving souls)  trumps ecumenism;

• That the Church has (at least momentarily) shelved the prospect for a general rapprochement with the Anglican communion’s nominal leadership, given the increasing apostasy of their policies;

• That the Pope is thence reminding the faithful that the Great Commission is the surest cure for  the world’s Great Apostasy (and perhaps too for the “post-conciliar” Great Confusion);

• That the territorial principle may no longer be the “default” jurisdictional framework of the one true Church, with a worldwide system of non-geographical ordinariates being added to the prelatures and apostolic administrations that already pepper the dioceses and eparchies (on which, see Father de Souza);

• That this is yet another edifying result of the innovative idea of St. Josemaria Escriva to establish a non-territorial personal prelature for Opus Dei, the approval of which became the precedent that led to the coming Apostolic Constitution;

• That this is (we think) the first time a general juridical framework for organizational reunion with the Church has been enacted for a Protestant group, whereas such norms had been in place for schismatic Eastern churches for centuries;

• That, in effect, the Pope is creating a Catholic liturgical tradition out of a Protestant one and adding it to the great family of traditions of East and West, something never done before for Protestant liturgies save in ad hoc instances (and maybe? maybe? he’s also laying the foundation for the eventual creation in the Catholic Church of an actual Anglican patriarchate, or at least something with an archbishop-major);

• That this augurs a new approach to evangelism that may prove fruitful, especially as the accelerating movement of “mainline” Protestant bodies towards relativism alienates observant members, of which  Conservative Lutherans are Exhibit A;

• That how any reunion plays out will influence the possibility and means for collective reunion with Rome by the schismatic Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Tridentine) churches and by the several Protestant communities;

• That while Anglo-Catholicism will continue (because certainly not all will reconcile with Rome), the return of many from the High Church to the one true Church will probably lead to the irreversible weakening of conservative Anglicanism and, once their position becomes untenable, the fissioning of the Low Church wing away from the numerically powerful liberals;

• That the policy of Pope Benedict XVI follows a definite trend that varies from, but also builds on, the policies of Pope John Paul II, with Pope John Paul making a first response with ad hoc arrangements vulnerable to local recalcitrance (e.g., Anglican use, Ecclesia Dei) that Pope Benedict XVI transforms into juridically more stable systems (the new Apostolic Constitution, Summorum Pontificum);

• That Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented action demonstrates his willingness to look “out of the box” for brilliant pastoral solutions; and

• That, indeed, Pope Benedict XVI–Pope Benedict the Magnificent– is a great gift to the Church from our merciful Lord. For Pope Benedict the Magnificent, we bless and thank you, oh Lord our God!

In sum, if things go as planned, our journey to God through Christ in His Church will be joined by many more sisters and brothers. Such is the at least inchoate fruit of this courageous act of the Vicar of Christ.  Praise the Lord for He is good;  His love is everlasting!

Breaking News: The leader of Traditional Anglicans has declared that the process of reunion with Rome “will begin at once”.

Earlier today, we had been astonished (though not surprised, surely, given the many rumors that had swirled about for years) by the announcement in the Vatican and in England that Pope Benedict XVI will issue an Apostolic Constitution setting the juridical structure for Anglicans returning to the Catholic Church, which the Note of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said will involve the erection of personal ordinariates.  A Joint Statement was also prepared by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster acknowledging that the Constitution was a response to Anglicans who will “accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church”

Now, in a very moving message, “Traditional Anglican Communion Responds to Pope’s Offer of Ecclesiastical refuge,” posted (here) on Virtue Online, Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, called the announcement of the Apostolic Constitution “an act of great goodness” and generosity.  “It more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition of two years ago, ” he declared, “It more than matches our prayers.”  The sentiment was accompanied by a simultaneous appreciation for the  response of Archbishop Williams, which “reflects the understanding that we have gained from him that he does not stand in our way”.

In his message, Archbishop Hepworth confirmed that Traditional Anglican bishops had indeed signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church and were already long on the road to communion with the Holy See.   He said that the Pope’s action would be taken to each of the TAC’s national synods, and declared that the said process would begin “at once”.

Two words: Deo gratias!

]]> http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/traditional-anglicans-say-i-do/feed/ 0 indi http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/after-ondoy-a-photographic-record/ http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/after-ondoy-a-photographic-record/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:16:25 +0000 indignus http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/?p=952 ]]>

Many of them had formerly lived by the side of the river, and had therefore been the first and worst victims when the dangerously-risen waters of Angat dam were released into the rivers. In one instance, this recorder was told, the victims had been 3 children whose mother had left to buy rice from the nearby public market. She had returned amid heavy rain to find water overtopping their home, “at halos mabaliw siya, hanggang ngayon” (and she was driven next to madness, even until now). As seen from the photo on top, that riverside is deserted now, save for persons scavenging for whatever can be salvaged from the remains of their former homes.

The victims are struggling to repair their lives, and we should help them at every step; and if, some would persist in the capitalist line that they should lift themselves by their bootstraps, then we should at least give them boots. Indeed, we note with joy how Church and State, private persons, and various organizations have mobilized to take up the slack and give to the afflicted.  (For example,  on the part of the one true Church, Asianews notes here that Caritas has mobilized 30 million pesos to help the victims, and that figure does not include initiatives by individual parishes, dioceses, and religious orders and associations.)

Thus, in but half an hour in one area, we saw two vans–bearing no banners and flanked by no media persons–anonymously distributing small plastic bags with food and clothing, and as we left we saw various residents returning from yet another vehicle. Note that these donors were private persons acting with no portfolio save an outstanding generosity, and with no expectation of material reward. It is only hoped that we will all continue to give and resist the onset of donor fatigue when it comes, since the afflicted will need help for the long haul.

May God bless us all.

*This was first posted on our other blog speculum.

The following reproduces “A Prayer Before Connecting to the Internet” in Latin, English, Spanish and various Philippine languages, all taken from this post on the weblog What Does the Prayer Really Say. The same was composed by the very admirable Father John Zuhlsdorf, who, after he composed the prayer in Latin, submitted it, with a translation into English, to a bishop who gave it his approval. Therefore, if you would reproduce this prayer, Dear Reader, please give due attribution to Father Zuhlsdorf, and if you can, send him new translations.

Some preliminaries: Fr. Z notes that the invocation of St. Isidore as patron of the Internet is optional, and that other persons have suggested St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. Rita of Cascia, and the Archangel Gabriel.  (This blogger is also thinking of St. Clare of Assisi and St. Francis de Sales.)  We also note that, according to CNS (as quoted here), His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI recommends learning prayers in Latin as well as our usual language; and there’s no reason why we can’t do that for this one.

Oremus:

LINGUA LATINA

Oratio ante colligationem in interrete:
Omni­potens aeterne Deus,
qui secundum imaginem Tuam nos plasmasti
et omnia bona, vera, et pulchra,
praesertim in divi­na persona Unigeniti Fi­lii Tui
Domini nostri Iesu Christi, quaerere iussi­sti,
praesta, quaesumus,
ut, per intercessionem Sancti Isidori, Epi­scopi et Doctoris,
in peregrinationibus per interrete,
et manus oculosque ad quae Tibi sunt placita intendamus
et omnes quos conveni­mus cum caritate ac patientia accipiamus.
Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

ENGLISH

A prayer before logging onto the internet:
Almighty and eternal God,
who created us in Thy image
and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful,
especially in the divine person of Thy Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
grant, we beseech Thee,
that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor,
during our journeys through the internet
we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee
and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.
Through Christ our Lord.   Amen.

ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)
Oración antes de ingresar a Internet:
Dios Todopoderoso y eterno, tú que nos has creado a imagen y semejanza tuya,
y nos has mandado a buscar todo lo que es bueno, verdadero y hermoso,
especialmente en la persona de tu Hijo Unigénito, Señor nuestro Jesucristo.
Te rogamos, que por intercesión de San Isidoro de Sevilla, Obispo y Doctor de la Iglesia,
hagas que durante nuestra peregrinación en la Internet dirijamos nuestros ojos y nuestras manos solamente a lo que te es grato y que tratemos con caridad y paciencia a todas las almas que encontremos.
Por Jesucristo nuestro Señor. Amén.

CEBUANO (Philippines)

Pag-ampo bag-o sa pagsulod sa Internet.
Diyos nga makagagahum ug walay katapusan, nga nag gama
kanamo ingon sa Imong imahen, ug nagingon nga pangitaon
ang tanan nga maayo, tinood ug maanindot, hilabi na sa
sagrado nga persona sa imong Bugtong nga anak, nga
among Ginoong Hesukristo, ihatag, nangaliyopo
kami nga Imong tabangan, gumikan ni San Isidro, Obispo ug Magtutudlo
nga sa among paglawig sa internet hinaut unta
among giyahan ang among mga kamot ug mga mata ngadto
lamang sa makapahalipay Kanimo, ug nga pinaagi unta sa kalooy ug gugma
mahimamat namo ang tanan nga among makita didto.
Kini among gipangayo gumikan ni Kristo nga among Ginoo.  Amen.

FILIPINO (TAGALOG)

Isang panalangin bago pumasok sa internet:
Diyos na makapangyarihan at walang hanggan,
na lumikha sa amin ayon sa Iyong imahen
at nagtagubiling hanapin ang lahat ng mabuti, totoo, at maganda,
lalo na sa  banal na persona ng Bugtong Mong Anak, ang aming Panginoong Hesukristo,
nagsusumamo kami na Iyong tulungan,
sa pamamagitan ni San Isidro, Obispo at Doktor,
sa aming mga paglalakbay sa internet
na akayin lamang ang aming mga kamay at mata sa nakalulugod sa Iyo
at pakitunguhan nang may habag at tiyaga ang lahat ng kaluluwang makikilala.
Sa pamamagitan ni Kristong aming Panginoon. Amen

CAPAMPANGAN (Phillipines)

Pangadi Bayu Tuglung King Internet:
O kipnuan king upaya at alan-anggang Dios,
king anyu Mu lelang Mu kami
at sinabi Mu kekami ing dulapan mi ya ing cayapan, ing catutuan, at ing caniwan,
lalu’t lalu na ing tagle cabanalan na ning Bugtung Mung Anak, Y Jesucristong Guinu mi,
itulut Mu, pagamu-amu mi Keka,
king kapamilatan nang San Isidro, Obispo at Doctor,
a sana king penandit ning pamaglayag mi king Internet
iyungyung mi la ding mata at gamat mi bucud mung king bague munie ligaya Keka
at pakibagayan mi la sana king mitmung lugud at kapakumbaban ding maldang caladwang kekaming akatalamitanan.
Kapamilatan na ning Cristong Guinu mi.  Amen.

See also our other prayer-related posts, Reminders for Lent: Prayer and A prayer for vocations. May God bless us all.

It almost turns classical music into a contact sport…

First, to affirm my ideological credentials:

The existence of the advertising industry is a capitalist affront to human dignity.  Too often, corporate advertising sells blatant superfluities by appealing to pride, greed, envy, and lust, among other base impulses; and even when they do not, commercials influenced by Western barbarism usually exhibit existential mediocrity, ignoring the humanizing realities of community, faith, and family for the emptiness of selfish accumulation and sensual experience.

This, of course, is hardly surprising. Commercials constitute instruments of psychological pressure; and while propaganda per se is not evil, the instrumental role of advertising in the industrial economy means that it must use even the lowest rhetorical artifices to manufacture desire for unnecessary products, to the detriment of virtue, ecology, and the right of small producers to their legitimate market share.

Hence our surprise that Procter & Gamble, that multinational proponent of hirsutic uber-vanity, would come up with the commercial like this. Too late did I see it, regrettably (St. Augustine allusion, anyone?), and it quite merits being watched. A copy is also available (here) on Yahoo! Videos, though I unfortunately can’t make the audio work on Firefox. Thus from Youtube:

Please note 2:59 on the Youtube video. From the Bernsteinesque piano-playing to the head-banging (and hair-bursting) violin interpretation, it almost turns classical music into a violent competitive sport, reinforced by the assault from 1:58 to 2:08 that somewhat reminds one of the Kerrigan-Harding episode.

In any case, the commercial is fascinating; and indeed, I thought it was a movie trailer, and I was flabbergasted to learn that it was an ad for shampoo. Admittedly, the narrative flow suffers from cramming so much material into 4 minutes–the classical unities vanished after the 30th second–; and as noted by one commenter on Youtube, it’s hardly possible that a patched-up violin would play Pachelbel so nicely.  However, I must note that it integrates classical music better into the commercial than does  Axe  with its strange use of Karl Jenkins’ (already strange) Dies Irae.  In any case, with classical music, convincing cinematography, and a nouveau-Capra story, the commercial is wonderful and eminently watchable, especially for its rare audacity of mixing meaning with materialism.

May God bless us all.

]]> http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/classical-music-as-contact-sport/feed/ 3 indi http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/prayers-for-disaster-victims-against-calamities/ http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/prayers-for-disaster-victims-against-calamities/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:51:41 +0000 indignus http://marcusapollo.wordpress.com/?p=866 ]]>

They all need our help in the long term; let us not fail them…

After the loss of life caused by tropical storm Ondoy (international name Ketsana) in Metropolitan Manila and its environs, Pinoy Catholic reports that the outgoing Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop (which we take to mean His Grace the Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz) has urged his flock to pray an oratio imperata for the victims of the disaster.  The prayer, from Pinoy Catholic, states:

Oh, God our Father:

In faith we acknowledge your paternal care over us, your sons, daughters and children. In hope we trust in your divine providence of giving us wisdom and courage as we face the challenges in life. In love we invoke your help and guidance during these difficult days of death and destruction in our dear country.

Our is a prayer of thanksgiving for once again reminding us that ours is an imperfect world, that heaven is not on earth and that nature every now and then tells us not to abuse her. Ours too is a prayer of repentance for calling upon you when we are in need and desperation but forgetting you in favourable times and pleasing occasions. Ours as well is a prayer of petition as we say:

Grant eternal peace to those who lost their lives. Embrace the children who died in their innocence. Help those who are hurt and cure those who are sick.

Encourage those who suffer the destruction of their homes and properties, and to once again stand up and rebuild their future.

Bless all those who extend their helping hands to those in need of food, shelter and clothing, who share their time, talents and resources with others.

Inspire more people to be men and women for their neighbors, convinced that the more they are for others, the taller they stand before you.

Spare us please from other natural disasters and devastations if this be according to Your will and for our own spiritual good and growth.

Likewise, in view of the advent of a possible supertyphoon, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that Auxiliary Bishop Lucilo Quiambao of the Archdiocese of Legazpi  has requested Filipinos to pray an oratio imperata for deliverance from calamities.  The text of the prayer, from this post on The Splendor of the Church, is reproduced thus:

Almighty Father, we raise our hearts to You in gratitude for the wonders of creation of which we are part, for Your providence in sustaining us in our needs, and for Your wisdom that guides the course of the universe.

We acknowledge our sins against You and the rest of creation. “We have not been good stewards of Nature.

We have confused Your command to subdue the earth.

The environment is made to suffer our wrongdoing, and now we reap the harvest of our abuse and indifference.

Global warming is upon us. Typhoons, floods, volcanic eruption, and other natural calamities occur in increasing number and intensity.

We turn to You, our loving Father, and beg forgiveness for our sins.

We ask that we, our loved ones and our hard earned possessions be spared from the threat of calamities, natural and man-made.

We beseech You to inspire us all to grow into responsible stewards of Your creation, and generous neighbors to those in need.

Amen.

We note too that the Most Reverend Angel N. Lagdameo, Archbishop of Jaro, has approved the recitation of a slightly modified version of this prayer, according to The News Today. The difference is that it ends thus:

This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Lady of salvation, pray for us. (May be substituted with the patron saint of the parish)

Let us unite in prayer through Christ our Lord, for as the angel assured our Blessed Mother, “with God nothing is impossible” (St. Luke 1:37).   Nor do we pray alone, for Pinoy Catholic reports that our brethren in the one true Church, even amid their own tribulations, are also storming heaven for our people: “Pray for your brothers and sisters in the Philippines,” said Patrick Madrid, the renowned convert.  Pope Benedict XVI himself, according to Asia News, conveyed at some length his sympathy with the Philippines  through its Ambassador. Therefore, for all who perished we pray the ancient prayer of the Body of Christ: “Eternal rest grant unto them, oh Lord,/ and let perpetual light shine upon them./  May they rest in peace.  Amen.”

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine;

Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Requiescant in pace. Amen.

We should also include  in our prayers the other victims of Ketsana in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the casualties of the earthquakes in Sumatra, Indonesia, as well as the tsunami victims in the Samoas and Tonga.  Finally, let us also not stop giving aid to those who survived, those whose homes were destroyed or inundated, and those who, having returned to their homes, saw their means of their livelihood destroyed.  They all need our help in the long term, and not merely in the week after the deluge; let us not fail them.

May God bless us all.

*Clarification: Oratio imperata literally means ‘commanded prayer’ (from the Latin oratio, ‘prayer’ and imperare ‘to command’). In the usage of the one true Church (cf. Catholic Culture, citing John A. Hardon, S.J.), an oratio imperata is a special prayer, not otherwise included in the liturgy, that the Pope or the local ordinary may direct to be said at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Technically, then, the above orationes imperatae of Archbishop Cruz and Lagdameo and Bishop  Quiambao are not obligatory in the canonical sense, at least not outside their respective dioceses; but Filipinos may voluntarily pray them, or some other appropriate prayer, in the spirit of solidarity.  We ourselves will, due to theological reservations, replace the second prayer; but in any case, let us pray.

The weblog Conservative Colloquium defends objective morality and authentic Christianity…

http://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com

Maintained by Tony Listi (a.k.a. foospro86), the Conservative Colloquium contains posts that defend objective morality and explain the bases of authentic Christianity, sometimes by reproducing excellent essays by writers like C.S. Lewis.

For example, persons who recognize objective (or natural) morals will find value in the following posts, like “Flawed Premises of the Homosexual Agenda”¹ and “The Decline of a Nation”², which reproduced an excellent article by Kerby Anderson. Likewise, those who also adhere to authentic Christianity will be edified by posts like “The Visible Hierarchical Apostolic Church in the Bible”³. Indeed, any person of good will who desires readings relevant to modern debate may benefit from reading posts on the Colloquium, if only as a key to understanding alternative positions.

Our only cavil is that some posts seem to espouse economic neoliberalism and political neoconservatism, which we think are inconsistent with the logical consequences of Christianity and natural law, such as the need to enact appropriate measures of social justice. An example is the pro-capitalist post “What causes poverty? is the Wrong Question”⁴. However, we recognize that this reservation is not fundamental, since most disagreements on social and political structures inhere only in the accidents but not in the substance of Faith. Whether we follow Adenauer or De Maistre, Belloc or Novak, we remain one Body.

Therefore, we would like express our support for and solidarity with the author(s) of the weblog Conservative Colloquium, and we pray for their continued success by the grace of God.

My God bless us all.

“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must…

“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”

–G.K. Chesterton’s short story “The Paradise of Thieves”, in the collection The Wisdom of Father Brown.

Our brief note: In this connection, in response to the opinion that judges value–whether of individuals or families, nations or religions–by material wealth or “success”, we recall the words of Christ our Lord:

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (St. Matthew 19:24)

Please see also our earlier posts In criticism of Earth Hour and Capitalism is not the Answer, both written from a secular (i.e., natural) perspective. May God bless us all.

The primacy of Rome was immediately acknowledged in the early Church; it was only its practical consequences that needed fine-tuning… (formerly “The Historical Context of Papal Authority”)

For the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul on 29 June, the Gospel reading in the Divine Liturgy of the Mass centered on the 16th chapter of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew. The passage recounts Simon song of John’s profession of the Apostles’ faith in Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God”, and Christ’s subsequent commissioning of Simon Peter to become the rock (Aramaic kepha, Greek petros/petra) on which He would build His Church (St. Matthew 16:18); that is, as the viceroy of Christ, Himself the Rock of our salvation.

Anti-papalists object that these words of our Lord did not vest St. Peter with any special role, and in any case, did not extend to his successors, since (they allege) the Roman pope was by no means juridically supreme in the Church, as seen for instance in the Quartodeciman controversy.  However, this objection betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian history.  For in fact, the theoretical primacy of Rome and her bishop was immediately acknowledged in the early Church; it was only the exact practical consequences of Roman authority that required some juridical fine-tuning, as it were.

As to the first, the theoretical primacy of Rome and its Petrine  origin was immediately acknowledged by the earliest Christians.  Because of St. Peter’s mandate and  authority, the early Church recognized the pre-eminence of Rome, as well as the lesser but still eminent status of the other Petrine sees of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria–that is, those local churches whose bishops were recognized to be successors of St. Peter.

Indeed, the early Christians  acknowledged that,  because her continuity of bishops from St. Peter guaranteed continuity of the Apostolic Tradition, Rome had the authority to (passively) establish the standards of orthodoxy in the one true Church. In the words of St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, who studied under  the Apostle John’s pupil St. Polycarp:

“[W]e do put to confusion all those who… assemble in unauthorized meetings [...] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul… For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.” (Against Heresies, III, iii)

Therefore, against the belief of hardline anti-papalists that the Roman primacy was nothing but a later political development, we must acknowledge that the special authority of St. Peter and his successors was part of the original Faith of the one true Church, pursuant to the Apostolic Tradition as written down in Scripture and attested by the early Christians.

The practice of the primacy, however, it was more complicated, and we should not make the mistake of thinking that the Papacy  immediately exercised its spiritual power in a juridical fashion.  Thus, in an earlier post, we noted that–

In the early Church, Rome was accorded a passive primacy (i.e., in “soft” power); hence Irenaeus’ dictum that the whole Church must agree with Rome–“which presides in charity”, according to Ignatius of Antioch.  Active primacy (i.e., in “hard” power), however, was another matter; for while Eastern patriarchs like John Chrysostom, Athanasius, etc. would appeal to, and be championed by, Rome when beleaguered by secular and ecclesiastical politics, they would often resist Papal authority in other times.

In other words, while the bishops recognised Rome’s (passively) setting the standards, they did not  agree among themselves on what extent Rome had to (actively) enforce the doctrinal standards it (passively) affirmed.  Or perhaps it’s better to say that they championed Papal authority when they theorized about it, when it was used against other bishops, and when it was used to protect them; but not when it was used to discipline them.  For example, St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, vigorously defended Papal authority in theory, but resisted it when the Pope ruled against St. Cyprian’s erroneous sacramental theory.

Indeed, not even the authority of metropolitans/archbishops over their areas of jurisdiction was generally acknowledged by local bishops who often resented the check on their authority. The result was widespread tension and disorder among bishops, especially during the Arian heresy of the 4^th century AD, which was only partially solved by the use of local and general councils and the growth of patriarchal authority.

The solution that predominated from the 4^th to the 11^th centuries was the assumption (or perhaps the usurpation) of  enforcement powers in the Church by the temporal ruler, especially the Roman, East Roman, Carolingian Roman, and Holy Roman Emperors.  Under what the Protestant historian Ernst Troeltsch (in his excellent history of Christian social teaching) called the systems of the imperial Church and the landeskirche or territorial church, emperors and princes freely appointed and deposed bishops, dominated councils, and governed the Church as a department of the State. This was an unsurprising development given 3 considerations:

• First, as the triumph of Christianity made society and Church practically co-extensive, it was only logical that the rulers of society would step in to govern a Church that seemed unwilling to govern herself.
• Second, this was a time when temporal rulers were deemed to have sacral functions as quasi-priests of the nation, with kings like the English Alfred the Great actually assuming the title “Vicar of Christ” without serious opposition.
• Third, the popular election of bishops (which is being re-proposed today) gradually led to the domination of episcopal elections by the most powerful laity, such as the noble families of Rome and the princes of the various realms.

To be fair, one must say that the territorial church system was not entirely bad for the Church, for many rulers were conscientious, even overzealous, in their care of the Faith in their lands. However, the arrangement resulted in the relative subservience of Church to State, as seen in the tragic career of St. John Chrysostom. Worse, especially in the West, it led to the absorption of ecclesiastical authority into dynastic power and the use of strictly spiritual goods for temporal ends  (so that in Rome, the papacy became the plaything of the nobles, who led the Petrine office into the worst corruption in its history). What’s more, all this was inconsistent with the original Christian stress on the distinctly supernatural origin, nature, and mission of the Church vis-à-vis the State; and it amounted in practice to a reversion of Christian ecclesiology to the pre-Christian type of religious government, whereby temporal rulers had full authority to govern the cult of deities.

There therefore grew a widespread desire to correct this situation and restore the Church to her ancient freedom, which in Latin Christendom exploded as the Reform of the 11th century, variously called the Gregorian, Hildebrandine, or Cluniac Reformation or the Investiture Controversy, but which we shall herein call the Latin Revolution. In the course of the Reform, the Church attempted to break free of the State control that had characterized both East and West for centuries, and to remove dynastic control of Church offices, such as by having Popes henceforth elected by the principal Roman clergy.  One of the main objectives of what  was therefore to unambiguously affirm the active primacy of the Pope as a necessary consequence of his passive authority, so as to  limit, and if possible eliminate, the exercise of (active) enforcement authority in the Church by political rulers.

This was a radical change in the whole structure of the State–it was, in fact, the first great ideological revolution in history–and was bitterly resisted as such, for with Church and society being co-extensive, whoever exercised central jurisdiction in the former would a fortiori do so in the latter. It was also resisted within the Church itself, for the bishops and patriarchs had grown accustomed to power structures dominated by the princes, and resented being placed under the direct jurisdiction of a fellow bishop, however pre-eminent. Besides, the established bishops didn’t take kindly to the confrontational tactics of Reformers like Hildebrand (later Pope St. Gregory VII) and Silva-Candida.

Nonetheless, despite massive resistance, the incomplete triumph of the Concordat of 1122, and the imperfection of its  leaders, the achievements of the Latin revolution were epochal. In the Church, the Reformers largely liberated the Church in the West from direct State control, and, by stressing Papal primacy, revived an alternative manner of ecclesiastical government other than internal chaos and subservience to princes.  Politically, it led to supranational papal leadership, which functioned in Latin Christendom with somewhat the same power and weakness as the UN does in today’s international system.  It also strengthened the juridical distinction between Church and State, as well as the tradition of an intelligentsia independent of political power that would distinguish the West from all other civilizations.

However, the Latin Revolution was not without cost.  The Reform and the Reaction against it thus nearly tore apart the West; and they led directly to the schism of the East, which the attempted unions of succeeding centuries failed to repair through Eastern hostility and Western stupidity–though the West would still send a Crusade to help the East against Muslim attack as late as 1396.  More importantly, perhaps, from a political perspective, the synthesis of the Latin Commonwealth did not sit well with the princes, especially the monarchs of the rising nation-states, who desired to create a monist regime in their states under a regime of absolute royal supremacy.

Therefore the whole history of the West after the 13^th century is the story of how the princes used papal weakness and Protestant heresy to erode the rights of the Church and establish absolute royal power; and how, when princely absolutism was established, the bourgeoisie fought to replace royal with popular (i.e., propertied middle class) absolutism; and so on. Each of these movements was intrinsically eager to concentrate power, and was often accompanied by some centralizing ideology like Gallicanism, Liberalism, Socialism et cetera.  So it is little wonder that they always targeted the Papacy, for there was a fundamental clash between her authority over the Church and the totalizing jurisdictional claims of the modern State…

This historical sketch will be continued, perhaps, at a later date.  We may point out here that we have since witnessed the papacy’s loss of its political independence, amid betrayal by, and perhaps worse, alliance with France; the legislated annihilation of the religious orders, school systems, and social structures of the Church; and the collapse of Christian society.  That the Church survived, with the papacy’s ancient authority triumphantly defined amid its gravest defeat–we may say that these manifest our Lord’s promise that the gates of death shall not prevail against His Church, or perhaps His other promise that one who loses his life for the sake of Christ will save it.  And so, as one true Church we say:

St. Peter and St. Paul, pray for us, to the greater glory of God!