"the group was disappointed with what it saw as the Vatican's relatively slow response."I think this is a good sign. The Catholic Church shouldn't feel that she needs to have a chair at the ecumenical round table. The Holy Father is the Vicar of Christ, not the moderator of something like the Lutheran World Federation. Can you imagine a group of fifth century Manicheans sending an invitation to Pope Leo the Great and then expecting the pope to give a speedy response and then show up as a participant?
"The cardinal [Tauron] said Christians could not discuss theology seriously with Muslims because [Muslims] did not question the Koran. He also said any talks should discuss why some Muslim states limit church building while Muslims can build mosques in Europe."The Cardinal is not pulling any punches and I salute him. It's not like Muslims and Christians are unaware of their differences, and the good cardinal tells it like it is. Great men and great institutions know what they are about and move forward. Viva Papa!
However, with regard to the salvation of those who die without baptism, the word of God says little or nothing. It is therefore necessary to interpret the reticence of Scripture on this issue in the light of texts concerning the universal plan of salvation and the ways of salvation. In short, the problem both for theology and for pastoral care is how to safeguard and reconcile two sets of biblical affirmations: those concerning God's universal salvific will (cf. 1 Tm 2:4) and those regarding the necessity of baptism as the way of being freed from sin and conformed to Christ (cf. Mk 16:16; Mt 28:18-19).These are the two doctrines on which HOSFI centers the debate. The conclusion of the documents will follow from these premises. Primarily, HOSFI seeks to amplify 1 Tm 2:4 - that God desires that all men be saved. This is the major premise of their argument. If it is the case that God desires all men to be saved, then He also desires that all babies be saved. Babies cannot ask for baptism or refuse it. So HOSFI looks for another way in which salvation might be applied to infants - a way not necessitating the waters of baptism.
2. In these times the number of infants who die unbaptized is growing greatly. This is partly because of parents influenced by cultural relativism and religious pluralism who are nonpracticing, but it is also partly a consequence of in vitro fertilization and abortion. Given these developments, the question of the destiny of such infants is raised with new urgency.More thoughts coming soon.
In such a situation the ways by which salvation may be achieved appear ever more complex and problematic. The church, faithful guardian of the way of salvation, knows that salvation can be achieved only in Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Yet as mother and teacher, she cannot fail to reflect on the destiny of all human beings, created in the image of God,2 and especially of the weakest.
On the contrary, Augustine says: "God is not the cause of tending to nothing." But this sacrament is wrought by Divine power. Therefore, in this sacrament the substance of the bread or wine is not annihilated.To sum up, if the substances of bread and wine were destroyed and annihilated, transubstantiation would not render a miraculous transformation but a miraculous replacement.
Because the substance of the bread and wine does not remain in this sacrament, some, deeming that it is impossible for the substance of the bread and wine to be changed into Christ's flesh and blood, have maintained that by the consecration, the substance of the bread and wine is either dissolved into the original matter, or that it is annihilated.
Now the original matter into which mixed bodies can be dissolved is the four elements. For dissolution cannot be made into primary matter, so that a subject can exist without a form, since matter cannot exist without a form. But since after the consecration nothing remains under the sacramental species except the body and the blood of Christ, it will be necessary to say that the elements into which the substance of the bread and wine is dissolved, depart from thence by local motion, which would be perceived by the senses. In like manner also the substance of the bread or wine remains until the last instant of the consecration; but in the last instant of the consecration there is already present there the substance of the body or blood of Christ, just as the form is already present in the last instant of generation. Hence no instant can be assigned in which the original matter can be there. For it cannot be said that the substance of the bread or wine is dissolved gradually into the original matter, or that it successively quits the species, for if this began to be done in the last instant of its consecration, then at the one time under part of the host there would be the body of Christ together with the substance of bread, which is contrary to what has been said above. But if this begin to come to pass before the consecration, there will then be a time in which under one part of the host there will be neither the substance of bread nor the body of Christ, which is not fitting. They seem indeed to have taken this into careful consideration, wherefore they formulated their proposition with an alternative viz. that (the substance) may be annihilated. But even this cannot stand, because no way can be assigned whereby Christ's true body can begin to be in this sacrament, except by the change of the substance of bread into it, which change is excluded the moment we admit either annihilation of the substance of the bread, or dissolution into the original matter. Likewise no cause can be assigned for such dissolution or annihilation, since the effect of the sacrament is signified by the form: "This is My body." Hence it is clear that the aforesaid opinion is false.
The wife of a Church of Ireland bishop has converted to Catholicism in a move unprecedented in modern Irish church history.Read the whole store from Independent.ie.
The close-knit Anglican community in the west has been stunned by the shock conversion of the wife of Richard Henderson, Bishop of the United Diocese of Tuam, Killala and Achonry.
African-born Anita Henderson -- who is also the daughter of a Church of Ireland clergyman in Cork -- was received into the Catholic Church at a Sunday evening prayer service in the private chapel of the Catholic Bishop of Killala, John Fleming.
In N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God, Wright shows how politically minded St Paul's (and therefore Christ's) Gospel was at the time. This is something missed by commentators since the Enlightenment because we've come to believe that politics and religion are distinct.
If a confessor has been placed in chains for the Name of the Lord, hands are not laid upon him for the office of deacon or presbyter. He has the honor of the office of an presbyter through his confession. If he is instituted as a bishop, then hands will be laid upon him.According to this document, if a man physically suffers for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, he can be enrolled as a presbyter or deacon without the normal laying on of hands by a duly consecrated bishop.
St Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 10.1
Some years ago, I was attending a noon weekday Mass at a downtown parish where I used to live. Father was well into the Eucharistic Prayer when suddenly a man, who had been sitting quietly in a pew halfway up the nave, stood up and began shouting. In this huge gothic church, his words weren't intelligible to me, but they were very angry words, that's certain. He walked back and forth across the nave while yelling and then began walking toward the sanctuary. The small congregation of retirees and office workers turned to watch him, but all of us seemed frozen by this so-unexpected outburst of hate.
Before the shouter could move farther forward, a parish usher spoke out. He didn't move toward the man; he didn't even stand up from his kneeler. He just gestured toward the man and said in a loud, steady voice: "I adjure you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to keep silent." The words hit me like a blow; I can only imagine how they hit the shouter. He may have repeated that phrase or said another sentence--I don't remember. I only know that as soon as the shouter heard the words, he fell silent. I believe he couldn't have spoken at that point, if he wanted to. Within a minute, he turned and exited from the church's side door. Father had not had to miss a beat.
I assume that usher had been taught, in his training in years past, how to react as he did. I know for a fact he was a prayerful man. I wish not only Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, San Francisco, but all parishes had ushers like him.
trespinos | 10.12.07 - 7:17 pm |
We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin (Nature and Grace 36:42).Like Augustine, Martin Luther also affirmed that the Blessed Virgin Mary was preserved from original sin "from the very moment she began to live":
"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin." (Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, trans. and ed. J. Pelikan. Concordia: St. Louis, Volume 4, 694)It is quite remarkable that Luther got the immaculate conception correct. This is likely because Luther drank deeply of the nominalists who were Franciscans. The Franciscans at that time were generally proponents of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination and a third party campaign is backed by Christian conservative leaders, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third party option rather than Giuliani. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that a three-way race with Hillary Clinton would end up with the former First Lady getting 46% of the vote, Giuliani with 30% and the third-party option picking up 14%. In head-to-head match-ups with Clinton, Giuliani is much more competitive. (Read the rest from Free Republic.)Honestly, I think I'd rather see Hilary Clinton win and send a message to the Republican party than have the Republican party lie to me and continue to compromise their ethics platform. What do you think?
It is impossible for man's happiness to consist in wealth. For wealth is twofold, as the Philosopher says (Aristotle, Polit. i, 3), viz. natural and artificial. Natural wealth is that which serves man as a remedy for his natural wants: such as food, drink, clothing, dwellings, and such like, while artificial wealth is that which is not a direct help to nature, as money, but is invented by the art of man, for the convenience of exchange, and as a measure of things salable. (ST Ia-IIa, q. 2, a. 1)There is no sin in desiring food or a house. This is in accordance with nature. However, Thomas goes on to say that even natural wealth is not the greatest good of human life - it is a means to an end.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."Read the whole thing here from A.P.
Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.
She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."
The theological claims of the Protestant Reformers, especially the unbending views of John Calvin, made such questions almost inevitable ones for Catholic theologians to face, but the results were not always satisfying. The Jesuits in fact argued that the Dominican position was indistinguishable from that of Calvin, whereas the Dominicans resorted that the Jesuits had reintroduced Pelagianism into the Christian life. Even after years of patience debate and commission work, no authoritative declarations were delivered by the Holy See, which instead preferred to counsel forbearance to both parties.[1]The Dominican (i.e. the Thomist) doctrine of predestination is not identical to that of Calvin. It differs in its anthropology; however, there are similarities. In both views, divine predestination to eternal life is ante proevisa merita. The Calvinist would call this “unconditional election”. In other words, God does not predestine anyone to salvation because he “previews” how they will act when given the chance to receive divine grace. The Jesuits (and especially Luis de Molina, S.J.) posited that predestination was based on God’s choice post proevisa merita – that is to say, after God “previews” how a certain perrson would respond to grace.
ST. LOUIS - Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, who made headlines last presidential season by saying he'd refuse Holy Communion to John Kerry, has his eye on Rudy Giuliani this year. Giuliani's response: "Archbishops have a right to their opinion."Read the whole thing here.
Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis, was asked if he would deny Communion to Giuliani or any other presidential candidate who supports abortion rights.
"If any politician approached me and he'd been admonished not to present himself, I'd not give it," Burke told The Associated Press Wednesday. "To me, you have to be certain a person realizes he is persisting in a serious public sin."
Archbishops have a right to their opinion, you know. There’s freedom of religion in this country. There’s no established religion, and archbishops have a right to their opinion. Everybody has a right to their opinion.
As a rational appetite, will differs from (merely) natural appetite by being an inclination that follows cognition, while it differs from sensitive appetite by being an inclination that follows intellectual cognition and by doing so from one's free decision...It inclines toward universal good and those goods that are naturally ordered toward teh agent's attainment of universal good. Second, Aquinas affirms in both his earlier and later works that the intellect has a certain causal priority over the will and that the intellect has a certain causal priority over the will and that the intellect moves the will by presenting the will its object. Third, Aquinas maintains consistently throughout his works that although on one level reason moves the will, on another level the will moves reason: the will has a role in shaping reason's practical judgments. (p. 25, emphasis mine)The third point is important and provides insight into Thomas' teaching on the will. The intellect moves the will, but the will molds reason's practical judgments. This shows that there is a dynamic relationship between intellect and will.
In a noteworthy change of personnel, if not of surname, the Vatican announced today that Monsignor Guido Marini will replace Archbishop Piero Marini as the pope’s Master of Ceremonies, meaning the official in charge of how the pope celebrates the Mass and the other rites of the church.Read Allen's article here.
Where are preternatural gifts called "Preternatural"?
1. Infused KnowledgeAdam and Eve were also constituted in original righteousness (justitia) on account of the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace:
2. Immortality
3. Integrity (human appetites being completely submitted to the human intellect)
4. Original RighteousnessThese four gifts correspond to the four Cardinal Virtues:
Prudence (relating to knowledge)On account of sin, humanity lost the preternatural gifts and the supernatural gift and fell to a natural state. Man's intellect became darkened, he became subject to disease and death, concupiscence or the "lust of the flesh" arose in man, and he lost his original righteousness and thus gained original sin.
Fortitude (relating to immortality)
Temperance (relating to integrity)
Justice (relating to original righteousness)
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