Presidential Moral Disenfranchisement – “[I]n a week where it seemed that Trump’s would be the most blasphemous action of a leading politician, President Biden outdid him at the last minute, declaring that this year Easter Sunday would be an official day of trans visibility, and predictably characterizing any who disagreed with him as motivated by hate.” Trumpite Evangelicalism or Bidenist Catholicism? (First Things)
Sharing Life Together – “One of the things I’ve noticed consistently across the country is that young adult movements typically are structured around events, with little follow-up beyond that. Events are necessary and fruitful – but if there is no ongoing support, things quickly lose momentum.” Keeping young adults in the Church (Southern Nebraska Register)
Infinite Dignity – “Unfortunately, what’s good in it is not new, and what’s new is not. . .” A Dignity Still to be Determined (The Catholic Thing)
Campus Crusade for Christ – “All through history, God has launched powerful movements to serve alongside the Church. They begin with His people doing marvelous things in His name, their momentum lasts years or even decades … but in time nearly all of them falter, fade, and eventually fail.” Is Cru Losing Its First Love for Christ? (The Stream)
The NPR Mold – “Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.” I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust. (The Free Press)
Less Religious Generation – “For years, religious leaders in the U.S. have raised concerns about the rise of the ‘nones’ – people who profess to adhere to no faith tradition.” The faith of the next generation (The Pillar)
Gender-Confusion Study – “The researchers concluded: ‘The results of the current study might help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common.'” Most gender-confused children grow out of it, landmark 15-year study concludes – as critics say it shows being trans is usually just a phase for kids (DailyMail.com)
Anti-Speaker Activity – “Students harassed their peers and imposed on the free speech of others under the guise of silent protesting.” Anti-Israel Protest At Georgetown Law Tests Limits Of Free Speech
Risk of Grave Scandal – “Last Wednesday, the Lepanto Institute and Population Research Institute published an explosive report proving that Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is advancing gravely sinful ideologies in Africa.” Moral Theologian Calls on Bishops to Withdraw Support from Catholic Relief Services (Lepanto Institute)
J.K. Rowling on Womanhood – ” I do not … believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies.” (J.K. Rowling post on X)
Street-Level Leftists – “[L]ocals protesting against a refugee centre in Coolock, Dublin were confronted by leftist journalists and other antifa types.” Antifa Battered In Coolock, Their Phones Seized By Nationalists Apparently Revealing Seedy Links Between Media, NGOs, and Far Left (The Burkean)
No One Liked It – “When the eclipse ended and the light returned, I found myself holding my prayer rope and whispering, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ There was a palpable sense of relief, bewilderment, and shame in our field.” The Eclipse Was a Moment of Holy Dread (The American Conservative)
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About “Street-Level Leftists”, what can be done to witness Christ to Antifa persons and win their hearts over to that of Christ’s?
And he said: So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth, And should sleep, and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not. For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear. And when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
I have planted, Apollo watered: but God gave the increase. Therefore, neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth: but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth, are one. And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour.
@ Infinite Dignity
We read: “Because in roughly the first half of its sixty-six paragraphs, the document seeks to situate itself in line with recent popes and classical Catholic teaching. It cites Paul VI, JP II, Benedict, Francis (about half the citations, of course). And in a footnote even reaches back to Leo XIII, Piuses XI & XII, and the Vatican II documents Dignitatis humanae and Gaudium et spes.”
Such is actually very biblical! In the time of Moses, Pharaoh Ramses II enhanced his own image partly by carving his name on the monuments of his predecessors. But, then there’s the 16 citations of wrap-around (?) Fratelli Tutti also to consider! Plus the contradictory actions listed here by author Robert Royal.
Cardinal Fernandez was recently quoted on this site as saying that he was aware of Veritatis Splendor (St. John Paul II, VS, 1993), but “[I] do not think in went far enough.” Meaning what? Two quotes and a Question:
FIRST, yes, on moral absolutes Dignitatis Vitae (DV) walks with the seminal VS, but curiously omits any mention or citations. Even one, at least, might have included:
“[the Magisterium] has the task of ‘discerning’ by means of judgments [NO LONGER ‘Who am I to judge?’] normative for the consciences of believers [not only DV’s society at large], those acts which in themselves conform to the demands of faith and foster their expression in life and those which, on the contrary, because intrinsically evil, are incompatible with such demands” (n. 110).
SECOND: DV then upholsters its case with some sixteen direct references to Fratelli Tutti (2020). About such “fraternity,” the earlier VS does make a direct connection:
“Without the rational determination of the morality of human acting […], it would be impossible to affirm the existence of an ‘objective moral order’ [natural law…as a whole] and to establish any particular norm the content of which would be binding without exception. This would be to the detriment of human fraternity [!] and the truth about the good, and would be injurious to ecclesial communion as well [!]” (n. 82), (the detrimental optics of DV remaining coupled with the not-retracted “irregular couples” in Fiducia Supplicans).
QUESTION: where did Veritatis Splendor “not go far enough”?
Is it that FV locates our dignity in being created in the “image and likeness of God;” while VS ALSO finds, about such transcendent human dignity, that “we are in a certain way our own parents, creating [!] ourselves as we will, by our decisions” (VS, n. 71)?
VS includes a focus on our particular and personal (!) moral judgments and actions. And, it broadly dismantles personal access to the fallacy of the Fundamental Option. Or, to any sociological calculus that would obscure or even replace concrete judgments about what is, in fact, either intrinsically good or evil.
Just askin’.
You were expecting a response from Fernandez? I think you’ll like this better as it affirms your (Royal’s, Morello’s, Elias’, mine, etc.) point: Section 31 of VS: “This heightened sense of the dignity of the human person…,certainly represents one of the positive achievements of modern culture. This perception, authentic as it is, has been expressed in a number of more or less adequate ways, some of which however diverge from the truth about man as a creature and the image of God, and thus need to be corrected and purified in the light of faith.”
Fr. Matthew Lamb refers to a new class of theologians prominent after VCII: ‘popularizers.’ Dissenting from traditional Catholic orthodoxy, they pronounced themselves learned when they wrote why, e.g., one could in good conscience reject the likes of Humana vitae.
Fr. Lamb: “The dissent is not based upon serious theological scholarship but on superficial popularized distortions. Orthodox Catholic faith enlightens human intelligence. Dissent weakens both faith and intelligence.”
ORTHODOX CATHOLIC FAITH ENLIGHTENS HUMAN INTELLIGENCE. DISSENT WEAKENS BOTH FAITH AND INTELLIGENCE.
Edit: “Dignitas Infinita” DI
@ Infinite Dignity
“It’s good to have a document, however, that affirms two fundamental Biblical notions ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.’ Hence, ‘infinite’ dignity” (Robert Royal).
Royal continues to infer the tragic consequences of the assumption by Cardinal
Fernández that this dignity somehow encompasses all that a person is, whether egregious sinner or saint. Wherein is the crux of the error. Man lost that dignity in the fall from grace:
“As we recall year by year the mysteries by which, through the restoration of its original dignity, human nature has received the hope of rising again (from Collect for today’s Mass Weds 2nd Wk of Easter)”. The mind of the Church expressed in the sacred liturgy speaks of loss of dignity inasmuch as its coherence with one’s life in relation to his God. Apparently indelible, as a priest and the baptized retain that imprint on the soul, even if when condemned in eternal hell.
Man must respond to grace for consistency in practice of the natural law within. Moreover, salvation requires further adherence to moral principles infused by the gift of the Holy Spirit that exceed in essence anything within Man’s human nature. Such as the willingness to suffer and die for the salvation of others including our opponents in imitation of Christ.
@ No One Liked It
Humans are complex, almost as the God who created us though not nearly as comprehending. Michael Davis’ dread differed sharply from similar, the exuberantly excited elsewhere. Sociologists call this phenomenon collective anxiety, an emotive response that affects a few and quickly spreads throughout, as does a moment of manageable fear turn into mindless panic. Why so is as complex as the human intellect or mind.
As a wild guess [with a dash of reason] perhaps those who arrived later at the periphery of the event were those who were somewhat hesitant with underlying feelings of fearful awe. On the other hand it seemed as Davis said some in that more naturally wild setting had a deeper flash of the spiritual and end times, that this writer believes all of us mostly Christian whether nominally, are by inculcation in a primarily Christian America have sense of. Then too, it may be part of our inner nature created in God’s image, that the eclipse sparked an awareness of the distance between darkness and light, evil and good that awaits us all at Judgment.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. iv, 6,7): “God is truly and absolutely simple.”
So you’ve got God all figured out Outis. Good on you as they say in Australia where I’m not from..
Actually, St. Thomas Aquinas had it all figured out, and note he was quoting St. Augustine. But then, who would expect a 21st-century Internet priest to notice that?
Although you raise a significant truth in theology and philosophy. While it is true as Augustine says on the absolute simplicity of God in relation to the Trinity, that it’s always the same God whose present in each Person of the Trinity, that simplicity essentially is most profound. The most profound truths are the most simple that elude the comprehension of most who don’t press the intellect beyond self evident first principles.
“For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Cor 2).
Maybe the reference to complexity is not about God.
And, yes, God is “absolutely simple”. No composite of existence and essence as with all of His Creation. God IS what He does, and DOES what He is. “God IS Love” (1 Jn 4:16), but also much else, which is to say that love alone, without truth or justice, is not God.
Our linear language of subject and predicate is part of our finite and, therefore, complex blindness.
Can you explain what Aquinas meant by God’s ‘simplicity’?
On “Infinite Dignity”, man’s dignity is finite even in grace.
Good point, Elias.
Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”
Aquinas explains the ‘in’ and ‘after’ to mean that God is both our first and final cause. Created in God’s image, our purpose is to return to Him. Returning is a continual conversion or progress toward His life, growing in sanctity and in virtue with the help of His grace through the aids the Church provides.
“You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley. ”
*********
I do appreciate his candor but that kind of sums up the problem with NPR. If they want to do what they do on their own money- it’s a free country, but not on my tax dollars.