A reader commented on my devotion to the English Martyrs, and it was only then that it really hit me how big a part they have played in my faith. I always tell people that my decision to 'go Roman' was purely intellectual, but if I've learned anything from the Existentialists (there is a kernal of truth in every heresy), it is that we are whole beings, and I guess my emotions have followed my education.
I am a student of English history and while that makes me appreciate the Anglican tradition, I feel like there is an undercurrent all throughout English history. The story of Christ begins with St. Augustine of Canterbury - sent by the Pope!, St. Gregory the Great no less - and continues to make England the 'most obedient child of the see of Peter' I believe the Venerable Bede says.
St. Thomas Beckett died as a papal martyr, refusing to serve the king over Rome, as did St. Thomas More. Eventually one begins to see that England never saw itself as seperate from the jurisdiction of the Roman bishop.
Such learned and holy men like St. Edmund Campion, and St. Robert Southwell, as well as all the Tyburn martyrs (mostly Jesuits), inspire me and show how far people were willing to go for sometimes only 1 doctrine (in the Anglican communion's more conservative days). St. Margaret Clitherow likewise showed the same determination, as well as all the executed priests I had to study for my project on the Old Bailey courthouse, where Catholic priests were executed until 1701 and after that, received the 'merciful' Hanoverian sentence to life in prison.
As St. Thomas and the scholastics knew the obstinate denial of even one de fide dogma was a damnable offense. While there is room for invincible ignorance, etc, the English martyrs prove by their devotion and self-sacrifice that Papal Supremacy is such a doctrine (as the Apostles' martyrdom bore witness to the truth of the Resurrection).
The example of the English saints teach me another doctrine of the faith. By seeing the transformed life of those like the Venerable John Henry Newman, St. Aelred of Rivaulx, or the English Dominicans like Fr. McNabb, I am reminded that justification by infused grace which makes the person righteous, is not just a theory, but an empirically observable fact.
These two prime doctrines which have set Traditional Protestantism apart from the Roman Church, I feel, are best argued against by the life witness of the martyrs of the English tradition. While there are counter examples like John Donne, I feel that when reading G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and Timothy Radcliffe O.P., the spirit of the English tradition is the spirit of the Roman Church, and that it is the Holy Spirit.
That might be a little triumphalistic or weak philosophically/theologically, but this is only a blog after all. I do not consider myself a part of the English tradition (I'm Canadian after all, and only half British, half German Anabaptist), but I am an avid follower of it. I love talking with Anglicans, and even seeing marxist English historians like E.P. Thompson pick up on it.
When the Venerable Cardinal wrote his great philosophical work "An Essay on the Grammar of Assent" he preferred to go in the school of the English philosophical tradition even if it was at discord with Catholic Realism. He employed it and sanctified it.
I need to remember to invoke the intercession of the English saints more often, and find some more female ones.
Thanks for reading, God bless.
Showing posts with label Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Some Marian Prayers
I know it annoys the Protestant readers, I'm sorry, but Marian devotion is a large part of Catholic spirituality, so I'm going to post stuff on it. I've sort of been trying to understand the catholic doctrine of Mary as mediatrix lately, and Newman has been helpful as usual. Currently I'm in grave sin and so these might reflect that reality (Our Lady obtain for me a good death). Marian devotion (mainly the rosary) in the last year for me has been the main change in my spiritual life.
"You will comfort me in my discouragements,
solace me in my fatigues,
raise me after my falls...
You will show me your Son,
my God and my all.
When my spirit within me is excited,
or relaxed,
or depressed,
when it loses its balance,
when it is restless and wayward,
when it is sick of what it has,
and hankers after what it has not,
when my eye is solicited with evil
and my mortal frame trembles
under the shadow of the tempter,
what will bring me to myself,
to peace and health,
but the cool breath
of the Immaculate..." -Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman
"I pray also that, at the end of my life,
you, Mother without compare,
Gate of Heaven and Advocate of sinners,
will protect me with your great piety and mercy.
and obtain for me,
through the blessed and glorious Passion of your Son
and through your own intercession,
received in hope,
the forgiveness of all my sins. "- St. Thomas Aquinas
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Weekend Musings
I used this verse in a debate the other day and I found it interesting.
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord" - Ephesians 2:19-21
It's an interesting idea that Cardinal Newman suggested, that while the deposit of faith is the same, the 'unpacking' or development of doctrine is still happening. This verse struck me the other day. Mainly because it says that the Church is build upon apostles. Calvin said that meant 'apostolic teaching' by which he meant the Bible, by which he meant the Protestant canon. I personally think that it means apostolic succession, but I would say that wouldn't I. I like this verse though, as well as the preceding chapter.
On Ash Wednesday I met a deacon who is a professor of neuroscience at my university and he found out I was a convert and he told me a story about Mother Teresa. A reporter once asked her why she was Catholic, she said because she hadn't found a better religion yet.
Today I was driving to get my haircut and there was a brilliant English Monsignor who was preaching, and I really enjoyed his sermon, so I sat and listened to it for a while. By the time I walked up to the barber shop it was closing for the day. Typical Andrew haha. But I wasn't angry, it was worth it, I'll get my hair cut later.
I started reading Dietrich Von Hildebrand's book that a friend sent me the other day. It's about St. Francis (of Assisi's) message to laymen today. As a 20th century Philosopher von Hildebrand is fascinating and attacks relativism greatly. St. Francis' story was a big influence in his conversion to the Church. It's really great and I'm learning a ton about St. Francis. I have a picture of him and a small figure my mom got me in Assisi as devotional aids in my room, and it's embarrassing how little I knew about him until recently. When I read that he called his order the minores fratres 'lesser brethren', it immediately made me want to join, it felt like the religious order invented for me.
I'm really excited to go to Mass tonight again. I'm trying to figure out a Catholic definition of love, and I think I've almost got it. I think the locus classicus for understanding it is Jesus' statement in St. John's Gospel "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I feel like love might be defined in a Catholic sense as 'self-giving'. Christ gave himself for us to the Father on the Cross, to merit the grace which makes us able to be offered to the Father by Christ. Something like that maybe? The Evangeli-speak would be 'give your life to Christ'. That sort of thing.
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord" - Ephesians 2:19-21
It's an interesting idea that Cardinal Newman suggested, that while the deposit of faith is the same, the 'unpacking' or development of doctrine is still happening. This verse struck me the other day. Mainly because it says that the Church is build upon apostles. Calvin said that meant 'apostolic teaching' by which he meant the Bible, by which he meant the Protestant canon. I personally think that it means apostolic succession, but I would say that wouldn't I. I like this verse though, as well as the preceding chapter.
On Ash Wednesday I met a deacon who is a professor of neuroscience at my university and he found out I was a convert and he told me a story about Mother Teresa. A reporter once asked her why she was Catholic, she said because she hadn't found a better religion yet.
Today I was driving to get my haircut and there was a brilliant English Monsignor who was preaching, and I really enjoyed his sermon, so I sat and listened to it for a while. By the time I walked up to the barber shop it was closing for the day. Typical Andrew haha. But I wasn't angry, it was worth it, I'll get my hair cut later.
I started reading Dietrich Von Hildebrand's book that a friend sent me the other day. It's about St. Francis (of Assisi's) message to laymen today. As a 20th century Philosopher von Hildebrand is fascinating and attacks relativism greatly. St. Francis' story was a big influence in his conversion to the Church. It's really great and I'm learning a ton about St. Francis. I have a picture of him and a small figure my mom got me in Assisi as devotional aids in my room, and it's embarrassing how little I knew about him until recently. When I read that he called his order the minores fratres 'lesser brethren', it immediately made me want to join, it felt like the religious order invented for me.
I'm really excited to go to Mass tonight again. I'm trying to figure out a Catholic definition of love, and I think I've almost got it. I think the locus classicus for understanding it is Jesus' statement in St. John's Gospel "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I feel like love might be defined in a Catholic sense as 'self-giving'. Christ gave himself for us to the Father on the Cross, to merit the grace which makes us able to be offered to the Father by Christ. Something like that maybe? The Evangeli-speak would be 'give your life to Christ'. That sort of thing.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Newman or Aquinas
I was sitting at my university doing Latin homework today when I overheard an interesting discussion. A girl and a guy were talking about Creation and the essay they were writing. The girl began talking about Aquinas' arguments for God's existence and she kept saying that he believed in the eternality of the universe (a belief Aristotle held, but which Aquinas opposed vehemently), it made me really annoyed - to the point that I almost got up and said something to her. But I waited patiently trying to understand that life would go on, and that all over the world people were misunderstanding the scholastics. At the end of their conversation, she said something to the effect of: 'but it's all ridiculous speculation anyway, your mind can't even wrap itself around the concepts, I'm just trying to get the paper done'.
As a converted Thomist I took great affrontery to such a claim - that the Thomistic 'proofs' for God were meaningless in everyday life. Though as I sat there it reminded me of another thinker who I respect equally (whether this is right ethically or not) to Aquinas, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.
He was a man of the people and as Catholic Encyclopedia says "a mystic not a skeptic". Even as a convert, he had no great love for the Scholastics and Medievals and indeed said very little about them. His most philosophical work was his essay usually called "Grammar of Assent" which took him 30 years to write. Now in Aquinas, Kant, and Heidegger, there is a complete phenomenology and ontology, a 'way of knowing' statements about belief and reason, etc.
Contrary to all of this, Newman set out what he believed to be - not the 'proper' or most logical way - but the real way people came to believe things. He argued that we actually have alot more faith than one might imagine, and that in all sorts of things we act using "Illative Sense" which bridges the gap between what we logically are certain of, and what we think is probably true and act on.
His whole point in "Grammar of Assent" (according to the summaries I've read) is that you don't need a volume on how to believe, because you already know how to do it.
This philosophy appeals to me greatly because it's something that everyone can understand. It's not removed to ivory towers and complex irrelevant discussions about Being and Time. It's a sort of everyman apologetics. I haven't read it yet - it will take a while. But I think perhaps I might end up switching my philosophical structure from 'pure'(?) Thomism to a sort of Thomistic Personalism which Newman and Papa JP II espoused.
As a converted Thomist I took great affrontery to such a claim - that the Thomistic 'proofs' for God were meaningless in everyday life. Though as I sat there it reminded me of another thinker who I respect equally (whether this is right ethically or not) to Aquinas, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.
He was a man of the people and as Catholic Encyclopedia says "a mystic not a skeptic". Even as a convert, he had no great love for the Scholastics and Medievals and indeed said very little about them. His most philosophical work was his essay usually called "Grammar of Assent" which took him 30 years to write. Now in Aquinas, Kant, and Heidegger, there is a complete phenomenology and ontology, a 'way of knowing' statements about belief and reason, etc.
Contrary to all of this, Newman set out what he believed to be - not the 'proper' or most logical way - but the real way people came to believe things. He argued that we actually have alot more faith than one might imagine, and that in all sorts of things we act using "Illative Sense" which bridges the gap between what we logically are certain of, and what we think is probably true and act on.
His whole point in "Grammar of Assent" (according to the summaries I've read) is that you don't need a volume on how to believe, because you already know how to do it.
This philosophy appeals to me greatly because it's something that everyone can understand. It's not removed to ivory towers and complex irrelevant discussions about Being and Time. It's a sort of everyman apologetics. I haven't read it yet - it will take a while. But I think perhaps I might end up switching my philosophical structure from 'pure'(?) Thomism to a sort of Thomistic Personalism which Newman and Papa JP II espoused.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Salve Regina
"I went to see him (Chesterton) as he died. I asked to be alone with the dying man. There that great frame was in the heat of death, the great mind was getting ready, no doubt, in its own way, for the sight of God. It was Saturday, and I think that perhaps in another thousand years Gilbert Chesterton might be known as one of the sweetest singers to that ever-blessed daughter of Sion, Mary of Nazareth. I knew that the very finest qualities of The Crusaders was one of the endowments of his great heart, and then I remembered the song of the Crusaders, Salve Regina, which we Blackfriars sing every night to the Lady of our love. I said to Gilbert Chesterton: "You shall hear your mother's love song." And I sang to Gilbert Chesterton the Crusader's song: "Hail, Holy Queen!" - Fr. Vincent McNabb
I remember reading part of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's autobiography where he taught his prison guards how do sing the Salve Regina and they would sing it together - even though they didn't know what it was. It's a beautiful prayer - I think.
I was thinking about St. Louis de Montfort and how he argued that the person most devoted to Mary is most devoted to Christ, and how he said that Mary is not great because of anything she is in and of herself. She is great because she was the home, mother, and earthly teacher of Christ. Everything she does points to him, and so the quickest way to understand true Christian devotion, true emptiness of self and love for Jesus, is to look to Mary (through Mary?).
Cardinal Newman has a great line where he says that for Catholics, our beliefs don't contradict our belief in scripture, etc because we see no contradiction, only harmony. He writes 'they say we ought to be disturbed, but we aren't'. That's what I try to tell people when they question Catholic Mariology: when they ask 'why?' answer 'why not?'. It's the 'default' Christian position from Patristic times to the Reformation, and they saw no problem with it. Mother Teresa once was asked why she was Catholic and she replied that it was because she hadn't found a better religion yet. That's my general standpoint.
I want to learn how to sing the Salve Regina in Latin. I love it when we occasionally get to sing it in English for a recessional hymn.
I remember reading part of Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's autobiography where he taught his prison guards how do sing the Salve Regina and they would sing it together - even though they didn't know what it was. It's a beautiful prayer - I think.
I was thinking about St. Louis de Montfort and how he argued that the person most devoted to Mary is most devoted to Christ, and how he said that Mary is not great because of anything she is in and of herself. She is great because she was the home, mother, and earthly teacher of Christ. Everything she does points to him, and so the quickest way to understand true Christian devotion, true emptiness of self and love for Jesus, is to look to Mary (through Mary?).
Cardinal Newman has a great line where he says that for Catholics, our beliefs don't contradict our belief in scripture, etc because we see no contradiction, only harmony. He writes 'they say we ought to be disturbed, but we aren't'. That's what I try to tell people when they question Catholic Mariology: when they ask 'why?' answer 'why not?'. It's the 'default' Christian position from Patristic times to the Reformation, and they saw no problem with it. Mother Teresa once was asked why she was Catholic and she replied that it was because she hadn't found a better religion yet. That's my general standpoint.
I want to learn how to sing the Salve Regina in Latin. I love it when we occasionally get to sing it in English for a recessional hymn.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Random Musings: Vocation, Newman, Priesthood
As I read the venerable Cardinal's spiritual autobiography, I cannot help but be swayed towards studying theology at the least, and entering the priesthood at the most.
Throughout Lent, I've been trying to pray for clarity in my vocation. This is difficult as I find God rarely speaks to me, or more accurately, I rarely discern his Providence until I look back in reflection. But as I read stories about the greatness of saints (in my opinion) of folks like Newman and anti-Nazi clerics and others in Germany inspired by his theology of conscience, I feel like there could be no greater honor than to give me life in the service of our Lord.
I don't know what I'll do with my life, but to phrase things this way I thought: 'what do I want my wikipedia page to say?' My first thought was: how many amazing Christians who have given their lives in labouring for Christ's Kingdom do not have wikipedia pages. I don't want one either. But if by the felicitous grace of God I one day have one, I want it to say Priest.
I am far too tempted to this life in favor of titles or glory in service of so great a thing as the Catholic Church. The only thing that helps me avoid this temptation to pride is the title Priest.
Contrary to what many Protestants think, Catholics (Orthodox, and Anglican as well) do not believe there to be a Catholic Priesthood, there is only the priesthood of Christ. To be a Catholic priest is to be one who offers himself to act in persona Christi to share in Christ's eternal priesthood, and to offer the same perfect sacrifice that only Christ could offer. In the same way that the only ministry is the sharing of the apostolic ministry, the only priesthood is the sharing of the priesthood of Christ.
So if you remember that you are a priest, it is not to remember that you are greater than someone else, but to remember that you are imitating someone else, namely, Jesus.
I'm uncertain, I'm still far too undisciplined for such a life. But if I could persevere to the level of holiness befitting to one of the servants of God, how awesome would life be?
At present, I am terrified to participate in the Mass at all because of my fear of upsetting the divine liturgy/screwing up (I remind myself of Luther, except far less holy than he). Luckily our assistant Chaplain forced me to do a reading the other day, and hillariously on the way back to my seat, I tripped once or twice (without falling face down though) and everyone was disappointed that such a potentially entertaining disaster was avoided.
Anyway, all this self-reflection is probably unhealthy, I should even consider the priesthood until I can actually successfully live the Christian life as a layman. God has given me a head and a bit of a heart, so I do theology and teach the faith wherever possible, he would have to move my hands if I were to become a priest.
Throughout Lent, I've been trying to pray for clarity in my vocation. This is difficult as I find God rarely speaks to me, or more accurately, I rarely discern his Providence until I look back in reflection. But as I read stories about the greatness of saints (in my opinion) of folks like Newman and anti-Nazi clerics and others in Germany inspired by his theology of conscience, I feel like there could be no greater honor than to give me life in the service of our Lord.
I don't know what I'll do with my life, but to phrase things this way I thought: 'what do I want my wikipedia page to say?' My first thought was: how many amazing Christians who have given their lives in labouring for Christ's Kingdom do not have wikipedia pages. I don't want one either. But if by the felicitous grace of God I one day have one, I want it to say Priest.
I am far too tempted to this life in favor of titles or glory in service of so great a thing as the Catholic Church. The only thing that helps me avoid this temptation to pride is the title Priest.
Contrary to what many Protestants think, Catholics (Orthodox, and Anglican as well) do not believe there to be a Catholic Priesthood, there is only the priesthood of Christ. To be a Catholic priest is to be one who offers himself to act in persona Christi to share in Christ's eternal priesthood, and to offer the same perfect sacrifice that only Christ could offer. In the same way that the only ministry is the sharing of the apostolic ministry, the only priesthood is the sharing of the priesthood of Christ.
So if you remember that you are a priest, it is not to remember that you are greater than someone else, but to remember that you are imitating someone else, namely, Jesus.
I'm uncertain, I'm still far too undisciplined for such a life. But if I could persevere to the level of holiness befitting to one of the servants of God, how awesome would life be?
At present, I am terrified to participate in the Mass at all because of my fear of upsetting the divine liturgy/screwing up (I remind myself of Luther, except far less holy than he). Luckily our assistant Chaplain forced me to do a reading the other day, and hillariously on the way back to my seat, I tripped once or twice (without falling face down though) and everyone was disappointed that such a potentially entertaining disaster was avoided.
Anyway, all this self-reflection is probably unhealthy, I should even consider the priesthood until I can actually successfully live the Christian life as a layman. God has given me a head and a bit of a heart, so I do theology and teach the faith wherever possible, he would have to move my hands if I were to become a priest.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Mass-ive Disasters, Modernism, and Tradition
"Now I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me and keep my ordinances (tradidi) as I have delivered them to you." - 1 Corinthians 11:2 (Douay-Rheims)
After listening to a standard Pietistic sermon at my parents Baptist ecclessial community on Christmas Eve my mom - being the 'genius' she is - decided to bring up the Perpetual Virginity of Marriage. This broke the uneasy truce our family has and led to "the troubles" of the evening. I defended the doctrine from a position that no one had called it into question until the Enlightenment (Calvin, Luther, and Wesley all affirmed it). Of course my chief tool was Tradition not even in a specifically Roman Catholic, but just in a general Western Christian way, and I realized these modernists (N. Amer. Evangelicals / post-great awakening Prots.) were not the Classical Protestants or the Catholics or Orthodox I know and respect but a beast of Kant and the Anabaptists...
Anyway, after a vitriolic attack on Our Lady, closed communion, relics/saints, and indulgences (why can't our Roman Church accept Trent's recommendation and just give up on indulgences... not to say we deny them, but they're SO misunderstood, it's basically a lost cause). We arrived home on what proved to be the worst Christmas I've had.
I told them not to come to Mass with me, but my Catholic friends basically said I had to because it would "turn their hearts" and "lead them to the truth" and (insert Papal BS here). I knew it wouldn't, it only makes them hate Catholicism more. And I'm fine with them hating Christ's Church, it's not like it falls within the realm of nature to convert, that's God's business (grace) and their own (free will). I think the Anabaptist tradition irredeemable anyway...
Something interesting happened though. I was reading Jaroslav Pelikan's 5th installment on the history of the Christian Tradition (1700-present) and I discovered his opening story where he juxtaposes 2 different figures who attended Maundy Thursday Mass in St. Peter's Basillica in Rome. One was John Henry Newman, and the other Ralph Waldo Emerson. One chose the 'purely scriptural' and private judgment modernist/enlightenment view and ended up a Unitarian, and the other accepted the authority of Tradition and became the Venerable Oxford Cardinal who helped my conversion as well as many others since 1845.
I felt again a companionship with Newman, I see the more and more I read, that there are two paths really. One of reductionistic modernism (Atheistic materialism, American Evangelicalism, etc) and the other of traditional Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Classic Protestantism) which sees Scripture and Tradition as complimentary. I would argue of course that the roots of modernism are in Luther's rebellion, and the Protestants would of course argue that the roots of modernism are in the Catholic view of human reason. Both are oversimplifications I think.
So on this Christmas as I gather myself together, I want to thank God for the gift of Christ first and foremost, but also for the gift of History, which is the story of Jesus, and for his Church and it's Tradition which guides me through the wrecks of theology so prevalent in our day.
After listening to a standard Pietistic sermon at my parents Baptist ecclessial community on Christmas Eve my mom - being the 'genius' she is - decided to bring up the Perpetual Virginity of Marriage. This broke the uneasy truce our family has and led to "the troubles" of the evening. I defended the doctrine from a position that no one had called it into question until the Enlightenment (Calvin, Luther, and Wesley all affirmed it). Of course my chief tool was Tradition not even in a specifically Roman Catholic, but just in a general Western Christian way, and I realized these modernists (N. Amer. Evangelicals / post-great awakening Prots.) were not the Classical Protestants or the Catholics or Orthodox I know and respect but a beast of Kant and the Anabaptists...
Anyway, after a vitriolic attack on Our Lady, closed communion, relics/saints, and indulgences (why can't our Roman Church accept Trent's recommendation and just give up on indulgences... not to say we deny them, but they're SO misunderstood, it's basically a lost cause). We arrived home on what proved to be the worst Christmas I've had.
I told them not to come to Mass with me, but my Catholic friends basically said I had to because it would "turn their hearts" and "lead them to the truth" and (insert Papal BS here). I knew it wouldn't, it only makes them hate Catholicism more. And I'm fine with them hating Christ's Church, it's not like it falls within the realm of nature to convert, that's God's business (grace) and their own (free will). I think the Anabaptist tradition irredeemable anyway...
Something interesting happened though. I was reading Jaroslav Pelikan's 5th installment on the history of the Christian Tradition (1700-present) and I discovered his opening story where he juxtaposes 2 different figures who attended Maundy Thursday Mass in St. Peter's Basillica in Rome. One was John Henry Newman, and the other Ralph Waldo Emerson. One chose the 'purely scriptural' and private judgment modernist/enlightenment view and ended up a Unitarian, and the other accepted the authority of Tradition and became the Venerable Oxford Cardinal who helped my conversion as well as many others since 1845.
I felt again a companionship with Newman, I see the more and more I read, that there are two paths really. One of reductionistic modernism (Atheistic materialism, American Evangelicalism, etc) and the other of traditional Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Classic Protestantism) which sees Scripture and Tradition as complimentary. I would argue of course that the roots of modernism are in Luther's rebellion, and the Protestants would of course argue that the roots of modernism are in the Catholic view of human reason. Both are oversimplifications I think.
So on this Christmas as I gather myself together, I want to thank God for the gift of Christ first and foremost, but also for the gift of History, which is the story of Jesus, and for his Church and it's Tradition which guides me through the wrecks of theology so prevalent in our day.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
A Beautiful?, Hillarious, and Sophistical Defense of the Papacy
Now I think it's pretty much an article of the Roman Church that the Papacy was instituted by Christ and always existed though it developed into the wonderful benevolent dictatorship it is today. But lots of liber- I mean historians say that the early Roman Church was actually ruled by presbyters and was all about peace, love, grooviness and women's ordination etc. This is the usual protestant and liberal Catholic story.
The other day I was reading a review of Eamon Duffy's book on the Papacy, and thought it would be orthodox as he pretty much destroyed the notion that people in England wanted Protestantism with his classic "The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England: 1400-1580". A great book I've had to read parts of for multiple courses on popular piety etc. Anyway his papacy book basically said the same Protestant thing that the Papacy/Universal Roman Bishopric was an innovation. Now as someone who has done no study of the issue beyond the basics I was a bit shaken.
But I was in Chapters (think Canadian Barnes and Noble) and picked up a book by a guy named Gary Wills called "Why I Am A Catholic" who described Newman's and his view of the Papacy (I think he attributed it to Waugh as well).
He said that the Ven. Cardinal saw Matt. 16:18 as a PROPHETIC statement about what would develop over time. So it was divinely prophesied by Christ even if it didn't really exist in the beginning.
That was the highest level of sophistry I'd ever seen haha. It's like when Presbyterians tell you "Justified by works and not by faith alone" means "justified before men". You just have to laugh as such a painful eisegesis (whatever the one is where you force your interpretation into the text).
But I thought about it for a second and laughed. Genius, really. I mean it's just the ultimate way of making whatever happens the fullfilled prophecy of Christ.
I need to study the history of the papacy some more (i'm hoping to get Steve Ray's "Upon This Rock") but in the mean time I feel strangely ok with that ultraliberal sophistical interpretation. I feel like the Emperor who said to Luther of the papacy 'divine or human in origins still it stands'. And from a post-modern legitimacy argument, you can't beat it for church organization and unity.
The other day I was reading a review of Eamon Duffy's book on the Papacy, and thought it would be orthodox as he pretty much destroyed the notion that people in England wanted Protestantism with his classic "The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England: 1400-1580". A great book I've had to read parts of for multiple courses on popular piety etc. Anyway his papacy book basically said the same Protestant thing that the Papacy/Universal Roman Bishopric was an innovation. Now as someone who has done no study of the issue beyond the basics I was a bit shaken.
But I was in Chapters (think Canadian Barnes and Noble) and picked up a book by a guy named Gary Wills called "Why I Am A Catholic" who described Newman's and his view of the Papacy (I think he attributed it to Waugh as well).
He said that the Ven. Cardinal saw Matt. 16:18 as a PROPHETIC statement about what would develop over time. So it was divinely prophesied by Christ even if it didn't really exist in the beginning.
That was the highest level of sophistry I'd ever seen haha. It's like when Presbyterians tell you "Justified by works and not by faith alone" means "justified before men". You just have to laugh as such a painful eisegesis (whatever the one is where you force your interpretation into the text).
But I thought about it for a second and laughed. Genius, really. I mean it's just the ultimate way of making whatever happens the fullfilled prophecy of Christ.
I need to study the history of the papacy some more (i'm hoping to get Steve Ray's "Upon This Rock") but in the mean time I feel strangely ok with that ultraliberal sophistical interpretation. I feel like the Emperor who said to Luther of the papacy 'divine or human in origins still it stands'. And from a post-modern legitimacy argument, you can't beat it for church organization and unity.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Newman - The Development of Doctrine (Part 1)
"Till positive reasons grounded on facts are adduced to the contrary, the most natural hypotheses, the most agreeable to our mode of proceeding in parallel cases, and that which takes precedence of all others, is to consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues a real continuity of doctrine; that, as Christianity began by manifesting itself as of a certain shape and bearing to all mankind, therefore it went on so to manifest itself...this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this...Our popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant...this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical Christianity is a plain fact" - Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman "Development of Christian Doctrine"
I'm going through this monumental work of Cardinal Newman's. I'm on # 14 of the intro and very much enjoying how he's taking the argument so far and destroying Anglicanism & Protestantism.
I'm going through this monumental work of Cardinal Newman's. I'm on # 14 of the intro and very much enjoying how he's taking the argument so far and destroying Anglicanism & Protestantism.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Welcome
I'm just getting things started here at Recusant Corner. I'm a Roman Catholic convert from Anabaptist/Evangelical Protestantism and plan on writing my thoughts here (probably mostly theology, but other stuff as well).
It's hopefully going to be a refuge from Polemics where I can try to operate on the principle 'live and let live'.
Why Call it Recusant Corner?
I'm a history major and my niche in Catholicism is a movement known as Recusancy (wikipedia it). Recusants were the Catholics who refused to submit to the Established Church of England and resisted to the point of martyrdom and persecution at first, and in later years at least were forbidden from public worship.
I find it a fascinating movement and some English Catholics even today like to style themselves Recusants. St. Thomas More, St. Edmund Campion (and all the Tyburn martyrs), John Donne (for a while), William Shakespeare (probably), were Recusants, as well as later figures like: Alexander Pope, Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Lord Acton, G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others.
Canada (where I live) is technically ruled by the English Monarch who is the spiritual head of the Anglican Church, so technically, and in a very vague impractical sense I am a Recusant.
Many Recusants were Jacobites, and on this blog, you'll find a strong support of the Stuart line rather than the Hanoverian usurpers of the inGlorious Revolution of 1688-9.
Some abbreviations you might want to know so they don't confuse you:
CofE : Church of England - Anglican Church - Established Church
R.C : Roman Catholic
Papist : Roman Catholic
Puritan : Reformed Protestant
Prelate : Anglican
Fr. : Father (indicating a Catholic Priest)
Bp. : Bishop
Abp. : Archbishop
Ven. : Venerable (Level in sainthood/canonization after blessed)
Bl. : Blessed (1st Level in canonization)
It's hopefully going to be a refuge from Polemics where I can try to operate on the principle 'live and let live'.
Why Call it Recusant Corner?
I'm a history major and my niche in Catholicism is a movement known as Recusancy (wikipedia it). Recusants were the Catholics who refused to submit to the Established Church of England and resisted to the point of martyrdom and persecution at first, and in later years at least were forbidden from public worship.
I find it a fascinating movement and some English Catholics even today like to style themselves Recusants. St. Thomas More, St. Edmund Campion (and all the Tyburn martyrs), John Donne (for a while), William Shakespeare (probably), were Recusants, as well as later figures like: Alexander Pope, Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Lord Acton, G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others.
Canada (where I live) is technically ruled by the English Monarch who is the spiritual head of the Anglican Church, so technically, and in a very vague impractical sense I am a Recusant.
Many Recusants were Jacobites, and on this blog, you'll find a strong support of the Stuart line rather than the Hanoverian usurpers of the inGlorious Revolution of 1688-9.
Some abbreviations you might want to know so they don't confuse you:
CofE : Church of England - Anglican Church - Established Church
R.C : Roman Catholic
Papist : Roman Catholic
Puritan : Reformed Protestant
Prelate : Anglican
Fr. : Father (indicating a Catholic Priest)
Bp. : Bishop
Abp. : Archbishop
Ven. : Venerable (Level in sainthood/canonization after blessed)
Bl. : Blessed (1st Level in canonization)
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