Catholic Culture : Commentary: Off the Record:
The Archbishop of Canterbury is annoyed with England's Labor government, and particularly with the way the government treats religions: as if "it's an eccentricity, it's practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities."
Read the whole thing.
(Via Catholic World News.)
EARLY RETURNS | Midwest Conservative Journal:
The RCC can reach into its sofa cushions and find more peeps than attend Episcopal churches.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)
As the Second Vatican Council developed, traditional Catholics in England were distressed because they saw Rome giving up the Old Latin Mass for a vernacular both shallow and shabby. Further, as Evelyn Waugh put it, "This was the Mass for whose restoration the Elizabethan martyrs had gone to the scaffold. St. Augustine, St. Thomas à Becket...
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(Via New Advent World Watch.)
Liberals are beginning to twit.
They are just warming up, but soon it will be a grand mal twit.
Read the whole thing.
Standing on My Head: Personal Ordinariate - the Background:
Daily Telegraph religion journalist Damien Thompson is sometimes a bit gossipy for my liking, but in this article he does an inside analysis on some of the other major things happening in and behind this week's stunning announcement of Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans.
Read the whole thing.
(Via Lex Communis.)
the News from Rome is the inspiration for this break in silence. My reading of this is that the old man is moving the establishment against it's will. One report from England seems to confirm this. Four-plus years in and the Pope is slowly but steadily moving the bureaucracy towards his idea of ecumenism.
And the announcement before an actual Apostolic Constitution is finalized signals two things to me. First, the Vatican is getting a little more media-savvy. Second, there were rumblings from the establishments (in London and Rome) that the move would be sabotaged with malicious "leaks" if Rome waited for the text to be ready. Talks with the Anglicans will continue, of course. It's just that there will be less and less to talk about.
Consider what some wiser heads than mine have to say about this news:
Fr. George Rutler (convert from Anglicanism) on new Anglican provision:
On CNA Fr. George Rutler comments on the new Anglican provisions. My emphases and comments:
October 20, 2009
Fr. Rutler discusses Vatican’s Anglican provision
By Fr. George Rutler *
Editor’s Note: Fr. George Rutler, a convert from Anglicanism, was asked by CNA what his reaction is to the Vatican’s new Anglican provision. Fr. Rutler’s reply follows.
It is a dramatic slap-down of liberal Anglicanism and a total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and [this is important] the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism.
Read the whole thing.
In the recently completed Art History course I learned about scientific or one-point perspective painting. It originated with Brunelleschi in early Fifteenth Century Italy and was documented by his contemporary Alberti. It's an attempt to create the illusion of three dimensions in the two dimensional work of art. But it is also a way of focusing the viewers attention: an early example of it is, in fact, the three-dimensional San Lorenzo church in Florence, where Brunelleschi orients the entire structure towards the tabernacle.
One of the finest examples of this technique, now sadly in a very poor state of repair, is Leonardo's The Last Supper. The various lines of the painting, for example, the lines where the walls meet the "ceiling" and the "floor" in the painting, when extended, converge at Christ's head, the exact centre of the painting. This point is called the vanishing point, since it is where the orthogonal lines meet and disappear.
And what does all of this have to do with ecclesiology? Well, during the Pope's recent visit I was pondering the meaning of the convergence of so many people with the Pope. He isn't charismatic, like his predecessor. He is a very humble, scholarly, unassuming man. His sermons are long, difficult and challenging. There are no "Applause Here" notes in his text. His late, great predecessor paused frequently for audience reaction. Not so for papa Bendetto. You have to struggle to following the complexity of his thought. If you really want to understand his thought, you have to download and read the text.
So why are all these people drawn to this quiet intellectual? He's the vanishing point that draws our attention to Christ. He never fails to step aside, metaphorically, to point to Christ. Those who are drawn to Christ's body will sometimes find themselves focused on the Pope. When that Pope understands his role properly, he steps aside, so that they are properly focused on Christ Himself.
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"Thinking with the Church begins with thinking"
Father Richard Neuhaus
