A defense of Scott Hahn and the Hahn School (Catholic Culture): “Readers of this column know that I occasionally opine on matters of Biblical scholarship about which I have no expertise. Buckle up because I am about to do it again.”
Lenten Virtue that Lasts (What We Need Now): “Lent is nearly here and I find myself asking: what if all American Catholics embraced the challenge of the season and fostered lasting change?”
Why I’m Done with Notre Dame (First Things): “After twenty years on the faculty, I could no longer do Notre Dame. So I’ve bailed, without being sure what will come next.”
Notre Dame must choose courage (The Observer): “Over its history, Notre Dame survived and excelled because it was always unafraid of the danger before it and advanced toward its goals unapologetically.”
Notre Dame’s Leaders Are at Odds With Pope Leo (National Catholic Register): “By elevating an abortion advocate to head its Asian studies institute, the university’s administration is advancing a fatally fractured vision of ‘integral human development.’”
“Protestant” SSPX? Mark Brumley: “When your only tool is a hammer, you tend to approach everything as if it were a Protestant.”
Cardinal Ouellet on lay people in positions of authority in Roman Curia (Vatican News): “Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for Bishops, reflects on the appointment of laypeople to positions of authority in the Roman Curia, asking if it is a concession to be reviewed or an ecclesiological advance.”
Doubling down on Pope Francis’ reforms (Catholic Culture): ” If the new Pontiff wanted to change the composition of the group, and thereby change the sort of clerics chosen to become diocesan bishops, he could have done so last week, when he made his own appointments to the dicastery. He didn’t.”
The Good Bishop According to Leo. An Analysis of His Latest Appointments (Diakonos.be): “Hicks’s appointment, among those made by Leo, is not the only one that will mark the path of the Catholic Church in the United States in the coming years.”
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
@ Doubling Down; AND @ The Good Bishop According to Leo
Was distressed to read Phil Lawler’s lament that Pope Leo has retained Francis’s lineup for the dicastery for the appointment of diocesan bishops (with Cupich and Dolan as the only Americans); but then am reassured by Sandro Magister that the recent and actual appointments paint a better picture: with Ianonne as the prefect for the dicastery, and then with the appointments of Hicks in New York and Rodriguez in Palm Beach, plus Pribyl (Prague) and Lejeusne (part of Belgium).
And while the old-guard Timothy Radcliffe OP (age 81) gave the introductory meditations at the consistory of cardinals last January…the Church faces the future with the Trappist bishop Erik Varden (Norway, age 52) called to preach the spiritual exercises at the beginning of Lent—to the pope and the leaders of the Vatican curia.
(Radcliffe’s meditation was not out of step: https://www.op.org/memory-and-newness-cardinal-radcliffes-meditation-at-the-extraordinary-consistory/)
Leo = Francis 2.0, sorry.
Less abrasive, blustery, condescending and dismissive but objectively Francis 2.0.
Old adage of management: Personnel is policy.
Regarding “notre dame must choose courage” I fo believe in the desire to see ND in a positive light, but I think somewhat naive…Notre Dame is not a catholic college anymore. It is a secular college doing catholic things, and has been for quite some time…it is beyond the tipping point and I am afraid will not right itself and return to its catholic roots that the article rightly explained….
Mr. Beaulieu above (8:18 a.m.) – amen re both articles.
New bishop of Namur, Belgium, Fabien Lejeusne, is impressive. A good sign. Hope springs eternal (even in Belgium).
@ A defense of Scott Hahn and the Hahn School
Like Peter Wolfgang I’m not a biblical scholar. The Seder argument favored by scholar Scott Hahn rests on a strictly ritualized format developed after 70 AD. Christ crucified circa 33 AD.
John’s Gospel has the reader believe the Last Supper was during the evening prior to the Preparation Day for the Lord’s Day, the Sabbath. His crucifixion, then, is positioned on Preparation Day, preparation for the Sabbath. Jesus was taken down from the cross due to the Sanhedrin request to honor the Sabbath.
Luke differs, marking the Last Supper on the day of unleavened bread and the sacrifice of the lamb. Passover. Mark coincides. As does Matthew to complete the three Synoptic Gospels. As such the argument that the Last Supper did not follow the Seder ritual appears superfluous.
However, Matthew places the Last Supper on the evening of Preparation Day, rather than the Sabbath. The scholars who edited and annotated the Jerusalem Bible suggest: the Synoptics give this title, ‘first day of the week for unleavened bread’ to the preceding day. “Further, if we take into account Jn 18:28 it seems fairly certain that in this particular year the Passover supper was celebrated on the evening of the Friday for Preparation Day. Christ’s Last Supper would be placed on Thursday evening. Christ would then have anticipated this on his own initiative – celebrating the Passover in his own person on the cross.
I do not know enough about Hahn School to say it falls outside/offends my comments here.
The call in the Gospel, Repent and Believe, is addressed to the Jews as well as everyone else, it is not as if the Jews are just there to roll out some red carpet and “Receive” the Lord “on account of what was promised them”. Depending on where a person is -any person, Jew or not,- this could be a great let down and something too much below him. Some Jew or Jews could find it especially “undignifying”; yet so can anyone else.
Apostle Paul is truly pinnacle evangelical figure and this is on account of answering Christ, “Why dost thou persecute Me?” according to the graces offered him. It is not possible for the Church to “embrace” all Jews “fixed as Paul might have had it AD 55”; and it would not even be Paul’s intention or mission. And such would be the case whether they were converted or conceding some self-satisfying pact “between them and Christ”.
These seem to me to be relevant and necessary distinctions that always apply.
Christ’s redeeming chalice is mentioned at the end of the paschal meal consistent with the Seder as held by Scott Hahn. Christ provides us with the words of consecration that this is his blood poured out for the Apostles and for the salvation of the many.
That he chooses to initiate the sacrament of our salvation temporally prior to his crucifixion reveals its transcendence. That the consecration of the Holy Eucharist and the pouring out of his blood from the cross are one and the same, inextricably related one to the other. It is the singular supreme act of love. Transcendent of time and place, re-presented as it was at Calgary.
A priest, consecrated by the Church with the faculty for consecration, by repeating the words of Christ participates by God’s grace with the act. Whether the priest may be deficient in faith, the words are the voice of the Church, and the consecration is thereby valid.
If he, by choice and faith identifies with Christ’s sacrifice offering himself with Christ, as he should, his oblation to the Father for himself and the people acquires fragrance from Christ’s entirely unique act of love.
@ A Defense of Scott Hahn
Also not a biblical scholar—and maybe not much of a scholar!—yours truly paused at the passing references to the German Wellhausen. I was reminded of the also-German Wickenhauser who offers a very basic insight surely not popular with the historical-critical school.
First, a question….does the historical-critical school locate Matthew’s Gospel later in time than the other gospels, because of the apostolic succession reported in Mt 28:16-20?
….The implication being that this part of Matthew—and the Catholic claim—is revisionist history. Instead, both Matthew and Luke are said to be dependent on the earlier Mark and on a second source lost to history: Source Q. The non-Catholic Two Source Theory. But, Wickenhauser (once a professor emeritus of New Testament literature at the University of Freiburg) offered what “may be called a Catholic Two Source Theory”:
“…Mark is the oldest Gospel composed in Greek; canonical Greek Matthew depends on Mark, and does Luke, in the narrative sections. The common source (Q) of Matthew and Luke consisted principally of discourse material: the author of Q is the Apostle Matthew [!]; it was a sayings source in Aramaic, substantially identical with our canonical [Greek] Matthew…” (John J. Dougherty, “Searching the Scriptures,” Image 1963, pp. 118-119).
BIBILICAL CHECKMATE: Applying a historical-critical critique to the historical-critical school, itself, do we see Source Q as an inventive way to undermine the Tradition of the Catholic Church tracing back to Christ’s commission as recorded first in the Aramaic and then in the Greek Mt. 28:16-20?