Theology

[wizards8507]

Brace yourselves this October. The synod ought to be a doozy.

 

[ickythump1225]

Here's an article in the Catholic Herald about Arnaud Beltrame, a French Catholic police officer who volunteered to take the place of a female hostage during a terrorist attack in Trebes last week. He died of his wounds on Saturday. His marriage was sacramentally convalidated before he died in his wife's arms. Hero:

Here's a recent blog post by Rick Yoder (@AmishCatholic) about a variety of topics:


And here's an article by First Things' Matthew Schmitz titled "What Young Catholics Want":

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Left: What young Catholics want<br>Right: What old Catholics want young Catholics to want<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Synod2018?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Synod2018</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/whatyoungcatholicswant?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#whatyoungcatholicswant</a> <a href="https://t.co/Q9jExi9nLZ">pic.twitter.com/Q9jExi9nLZ</a></p>— Petrus Damianus (@StPeterDamian1) <a href="https://twitter.com/StPeterDamian1/status/978309216153698304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Top: What young Catholics really want<br>Bottom: What liberal boomer Catholics wants young Catholics to want<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Synod2018?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Synod2018</a> <a href="https://t.co/2y8nSHrBvj">pic.twitter.com/2y8nSHrBvj</a></p>— Miseri Cordia (@MisericordiaPax) <a href="https://twitter.com/MisericordiaPax/status/977625416948121601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Rod Dreher just published an interview with Ross Douthat about his new book on Pope Francis. The whole thing is worth reading, but this part especially:

You’re 38 years old. I am 51. I have noticed in recent years, both here and in my travels in Europe, a big difference in the way your generation perceives the Church and its place in the world, and the way people of my generation and (especially) older, do. Am I right? If so, how does that relate to the Francis controversy?

Well, look, both you and I are getting very partial and self-selected snapshots, so a certain modesty is in order. But my impression is that Christians and Catholics younger than myself are very aware of their countercultural position, very aware of the decline or (in Europe) the nearly-complete death of cultural Christianity, and thus more skeptical of all paradigms that imagine Christianity fitting easily into the political-cultural order of the Western world right now, playing the kind of role that older Christians (liberal and conservative, in different ways) are conditioned to expect their faith or their faith leaders to play.

Thus for younger conservative Catholics, the weakness of the John Paul II-era conservative paradigm I was just talking about isn’t theoretical or abstract; they’re living their lives in a world created by the church’s continued institutional decline, the hangover from the sex abuse scandal, the repeated cultural-political defeats and growing isolation. So it’s not surprising that you have a lot more traditionalism or quasi-traditionalism among serious young believers, a lot more interest in looking at pre-Vatican II ideas and arguments and practices – because if the post-Vatican II synthesis brought the church to this place, maybe there were deeper flaws in it than the older John Paul II generation wanted to believe.

And in a similar way, my impression is that the most popular aspect of the Francis pontificate for a lot of young people who consider themselves “left-Catholics” of some sort isn’t all the “let’s make peace with the Sexual Revolution” business; it’s this pope’s more radical critiques of modern capitalism and the whole technocratic world order, which the young see – not unreasonably – as a kind of effective enemy of Christianity. Which is why you have more overlap between younger left-Catholics and younger right-Catholics – between the would-be “Tradinistas” and the would-be integralists – than you had between the neoconservative and neoliberal Catholics who set the terms of intra-Catholic debate after the 1960s … because for the rising generation, there’s a general loss of confidence in the whole system of liberalism that manifests itself whichever end up the spectrum you swing toward.

Again, there’s selection bias at work here: These kind of right-Catholics and left-Catholics are overrepresented on Catholic Twitter and among the writerly set, and there are plenty of young Catholics and young Christians who are less discontented and disillusioned, who aren’t interested in esoteric debates about liberalism, and who either like Francis in much the same way they liked John Paul II (without necessarily paying close attention to intra-church debates), or else like him for the same reasons that the secular press likes him – because he’s a “cool pope” who doesn’t make them feel guilty about having premarital sex or supporting same-sex marriage.

But it still seems to me that there is more genuine radicalism among Catholics younger than myself than in the recent past, and as the church shrinks and their radicalism becomes more influential, it will have some very interesting and very unpredictable implications for the fights within the church that I’m writing about and the way the church relates to the secular world.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

 

[wizards8507]

I'm boycotting Holy Week. The Passion according to Luke is the GOAT and we don't get it this year. The repentant thief is the best character in the Bible. "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Gets me every time.

 

[NorthDakota]

I'm boycotting Holy Week. The Passion according to Luke is the GOAT and we don't get it this year. The repentant thief is the best character in the Bible. "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Gets me every time.

After the stunt you pulled in the movie thread today you probably should stay indoors for fear of your peers this week anyway.

 

[zelezo vlk]

I'm boycotting Holy Week. The Passion according to Luke is the GOAT and we don't get it this year. The repentant thief is the best character in the Bible. "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Gets me every time.

If I catch you disparaging the Gospel of John one more time, I'm gonna drive up to Connecticut myself, have a beer and nice meal with you, crash on your couch and NOT WRITE A THANK YOU NOTE.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

PBXVI = BAWS

Eff the haters

 

[zelezo vlk]

Benny is bae

 

[wizards8507]

https://www.americamagazine.org/art...-ross-douthat-dont-be-so-worried-about-church

This is a shockingly bad take. The author acts as if the East-West schism and the protestant reformation never happened.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

https://www.americamagazine.org/art...-ross-douthat-dont-be-so-worried-about-church

This is a shockingly bad take. The author acts as if the East-West schism and the protestant reformation never happened.

She writes for America. What did you expect?

 

[wizards8507]

She writes for America. What did you expect?

Have you read Douthat's book or just reviews so far?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Have you read Douthat's book or just reviews so far?

Just reviews. Not sure when I'll get around to it, as I'm still working through Before Church and State and A Reader in Catholic Social Teaching.

 

[zelezo vlk]

She writes for America. What did you expect?

Hasn't Mrs Bruening written for America?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[wizards8507]

Hasn't Mrs Bruening written for America?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

She also tweeted this last night.

"as a kid i imagined in new england it was always a late october afternoon, w dimming sun like molasses in the foliage and the smell of wood fires burning. this is like the temperamental opposite of sebastian flyte wishing it could always be summer in the english countryside"

 

[Cali_domer]

Interesting.... As I enter R.C.I.A. the church seems to be in a giant fight with itself. Lord knows I have experience with this as a former Methodist.
Thank you for all the articles and viewpoints y'all present.

 

[NorthDakota]

PBXVI = BAWS

Eff the haters

 

[zelezo vlk]

Interesting.... As I enter R.C.I.A. the church seems to be in a giant fight with itself. Lord knows I have experience with this as a former Methodist.
Thank you for all the articles and viewpoints y'all present.

Ayyyy a fellow convert!

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Interesting.... As I enter R.C.I.A. the church seems to be in a giant fight with itself. Lord knows I have experience with this as a former Methodist.
Thank you for all the articles and viewpoints y'all present.

I'm also a convert but come from a non-mainline protestant group. Don't be disillusioned by the loud voices. The Church is always under attack and it's always carefully deciding it's next step along the narrow, dim path of history. Danger is beset on all sides and She even has dangers within but it doesn't take away Her beauty and purpose.

Keep faith and keep yourself fed, it's far too easy to do the opposite.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Hasn't Mrs Bruening written for America?

Yes. She's written 6 articles for America over the past several years.

My point was simply that Catholic liberals have a vested interest in defending the status quo, and especially the image of Pope Francis as a heroic reformer. So it's not at all surprising that America, one of the most liberal Catholic publications in the US, would choose to handwave away Douthat's thesis without seriously refuting it.

I'm also a convert but come from a non-mainline protestant group. Don't be disillusioned by the loud voices. The Church is always under attack and it's always carefully deciding it's next step along the narrow, dim path of history. Danger is beset on all sides and She even has dangers within but it doesn't take away Her beauty and purpose.

Keep faith and keep yourself fed, it's far too easy to do the opposite.

The Church here on earth isn't called the "Faith Militant" for nothing.

 

[zelezo vlk]

Yes. She's written 6 articles for America over the past several years.

My point was simply that Catholic liberals have a vested interest in defending the status quo, and especially the image of Pope Francis as a heroic reformer. So it's not at all surprising that America, one of the most liberal Catholic publications in the US, would choose to handwave away Douthat's thesis without seriously refuting it.

Oh I know, Whiskey, I'm just messing with ya.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Oh I know, Whiskey, I'm just messing with ya.

[webm]https://i.imgur.com/TB5clix.mp4[/webm]

 

[zelezo vlk]

Holy Thursday Mass tonight with Adoration in our beautiful chapel following.

I'll be mostly off the Internet following the Mass, (hopefully) finishing the last chapter of Confessions and rereading Dante's Inferno for an upcoming book club I'm leading.

 

[connor_in]

Pope Francis: 'There Is No Hell'

Scalfri says to the Pope, "Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?"

Pope Francis says, "They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls."

...

 

[zelezo vlk]

Just to let you know, Scalfri is very unreliable as a source.

 

[connor_in]

Just to let you know, Scalfri is very unreliable as a source.

Thanks Z.

I saw that and had no idea who it was and figured I would post to find out what any of you knew or had heard about this.

 

[zelezo vlk]

A 93 year old man who doesn't record his interviews and has been known to post wild things before. Nobody should worry about this haha

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Just to let you know, Scalfri is very unreliable as a source.

And yet Il Papa continues granting interviews to a 93 year old Italian atheist who has repeatedly twisted his words. Why is he choosing to communicate this way?

 

[zelezo vlk]

And yet Il Papa continues granting interviews to a 93 year old Italian atheist who has repeatedly twisted his words. Why is he choosing to communicate this way?

Old men like the company of fellow old men? Idk man

 

[Whiskeyjack]

A few things to remember:

• Papal infallibility only applies to statements made ex cathedra.
• One should pay exactly as much attention to Vatican politics as required to meet your daily obligations; which for most people is close to 0%.
• Pray for the Pope.