Preparation for Mass and Thanksgiving After Mass Required

Patronage of the Immaculate Conception, Puebla Cathedral Sacristy

Sacristia, Catedral de Puebla, Mexico

Did you know that The 1983 Code of Canon Law requires the priest to pray in preparation for Mass and to pray in thanksgiving after Mass. That Law is edifying for priest and laity alike and for the sanctification of all and of the whole world.

Canon 909 -- A priest is not to omit to dutifully prepare himself by prayer before the celebration of the Eucharist, nor afterwards to omit to make thanksgiving to God.

Prayer for Washing of Hands (From Vesting Prayers)

Puebla Cathedral Sacristy Sink

P.S. A prayer for the holiness of priests.

Lord, I pray you, for the sanctification of the priests of the whole world!

P.S.S. Under Pope Benedict XVI the Vatican issued an "Aid" to foster these priestly prayers before and after Mass.

Pope Francis Relishing His Latin

During today's canonization Mass, entirely in Latin, it is evident that Pope Francis is paying close attention to the prayers he is saying and texts he is reading in Latin.

You can tell that he is liking it and going over it in his mind, a development from the initial stages of his Papacy when he just mumbled uncertainly and carelessly over the various declensions not paying much attention to what he was saying.

In Spanish it is common and often OK to cut off the ends of words, that's how people talk, e.g dropping the s's. In Latin that type of sloppiness is fatal to the meaning and makes the sentences completely unintelligible. Pope Francis is getting that! His early Jesuit classical scholastic training of the late 50's, early 60's is paying off!

Pay attention to your Latin! Love it in your love of Christ and His Church! Romanitas! Latinitas!

Archbishop Fouad Twal's Latin diction was impeccable. He is the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. It is so significant for the Holy Father's Mass with that Jerusalem Patriarch (of Jordanian origin) to use Latin for the Mass! an instrument of unity: "Ut unum sint!" Jn. 17:21. (From the Gospel of the 7th Sunday of Easter [B]).

Ut unum sint linguam latinam bene calleant! May they know their Latin well in order to be one with one another, with the truth and, indeed, with Christ!

Cf. Canon 249 of The 1983 Code of Canon Law: "The Program of priestly formation is to provide that the students...are also well versed in Latin...!" Shameful indeed if the Supreme Pontiff should give evidence of a shabby priestly formation!

All the more reason that the traditional Latin Mass should be an essential ingredient of every Cathedral of the world and of every Catholic bishop's personal piety. It's the spirit of the law! Know it, love it, do it! It grows on you!, languages are like that. They become part of you and identify you, where you're from, to what nation you belong! Romam pertineo!

From the start the Holy Father's preferred self-referential title has been "The Bishop of Rome." He repeated it eight times in impromptu his election speech. Well, Latin is the language Romae Aeternae, Urbi et Orbi!

P.S. Notice also the Holy Father is again using the ferula of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI as you see in the picture below. There seems to be some type of pattern. He deliberately uses Benedict's staff for certain occasions. Not sure what that pattern is.

A New Letter by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: Full Text in English

Wrangler Pope: "Intellectual Love" is Essential in the Pastor of Souls: A Pastor Must Involve Himself in the "Wrestling (das Ringen) of Humanity"

Below you will find Plinthos' translation of the recent letter sent by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone on the occasion of the publication of the latter's new book La fede e il bene comune. Offerta cristiana all societa contemporanea.

Vatican City, 21 April 2015
The Feast of Saint Anselm of Canterbury

Your Emminence!

Upon reading the text of your new book which you kindly sent me, Faith and the Common Good: The Christian Contribution to Contemporary Society, I have the years of our common work at the service of the Petrine ministry lively represented before my eyes. It has become again very evident to me how many dimensions impinge upon the pastoral office of a Pastor in the Church of Jesus Christ today. Indeed the Pastoral Office does not mean merely that we carry out the ministry of the Sacraments and Preaching of the Word of God for the faithful in the Church. Above all it has become clear to me that the Pastoral [Office] also decisively includes the intellectual dimension with which the collaborators of Cardinal Ruini have coined the term "amor intellectualis" (intellectual love).* Only if we think together with the perspectives and the questions of our time will we be able to grasp the Word of God as addressed to us in the present. Only if we join in the concern for the possibilities and the needs  of our time can the Sacraments come to men with their real power.

There is another element contained therein: Inasmuch as the care of the faithful who directly seek the faith is first of all entrusted to us, so also the service of the Shepherd cannot be limited to the Church. The Church is a part of the world and so can only rightly carry out its proper service looking after the entire world. For it's part the Word of God likewise regards the whole of reality, and it's accomplishment places a responsibility upon the Church for the whole. The argument of the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which you very impressively expound, shows the interrelation of various levels: the Church must involve itself in the struggles which humanity and society undertake for the right path and for this purpose must find a way to debate which also goes out to non-believers. Only if She goes out of Herself and assumes the responsibility for all of humanity does [the Church] remain also true to Herself.

All of this is made clearly evident by the insights of your book. I think that finding presented anew this process which encompasses the struggle of the entire breadth of the spectrum of the responsibilities of our age will make also the readers who are not members of the Church reflect. Thus it remained clear to me that our collaboration could not limit itself only to concrete acts of governance but should be involved in the depth of the struggle to find the right way to serve the Word of God, the Logos of God.

I take this opportunity to thank you for these years of collaboration and I hope that the book will make many people reflect and will also be able to open to them the way of faith.

Benedict XVI

* Pope Benedict XVI Catholic University of America Address on Intellectual Charity.

Society...has high expectations of Catholic educators. This places upon you a responsibility and offers an opportunity. More and more people – parents in particular – recognize the need for excellence in the human formation of their children. As Mater et Magistra, the Church shares their concern. When nothing beyond the individual is recognized as definitive, the ultimate criterion of judgment becomes the self and the satisfaction of the individual’s immediate wishes. The objectivity and perspective, which can only come through a recognition of the essential transcendent dimension of the human person, can be lost. Within such a relativistic horizon the goals of education are inevitably curtailed. Slowly, a lowering of standards occurs. We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom. We witness an assumption that every experience is of equal worth and a reluctance to admit imperfection and mistakes. And particularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of ‘risk’, bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love.

How might Christian educators respond? These harmful developments point to the particular urgency of what we might call “intellectual charity”. This aspect of charity calls the educator to recognize that the profound responsibility to lead the young to truth is nothing less than an act of love. Indeed, the dignity of education lies in fostering the true perfection and happiness of those to be educated. In practice “intellectual charity” upholds the essential unity of knowledge against the fragmentation which ensues when reason is detached from the pursuit of truth. It guides the young towards the deep satisfaction of exercising freedom in relation to truth, and it strives to articulate the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life. Once their passion for the fullness and unity of truth has been awakened, young people will surely relish the discovery that the question of what they can know opens up the vast adventure of what they ought to do. Here they will experience “in what” and “in whom” it is possible to hope, and be inspired to contribute to society in a way that engenders hope in others.

This letter is the third public text so far given by the Pope Emeritus.
The first was the letter in response to the atheist mathematician's book.
Second was the Address to the Pontifical Urban University.

Original German Text

An Italian Version below

Eminenza!

Scorrendo i testi del Suo nuovo libro, La fede e il bene comune. Offerta cristiana alla società contemporanea, che gentilmente mi ha inviato, mi si sono ripresentati in modo vivo davanti agli occhi gli anni del nostro comune lavoro nel servizio del ministero petrino. Mi è di nuovo risultato molto evidente quante dimensioni oggi abbraccia l’ufficio pastorale di un pastore nella Chiesa di Gesù Cristo. Ufficio pastorale in verità non significa solo che noi nella Chiesa svolgiamo per i fedeli il servizio dei sacramenti e dell’annuncio della Parola di Dio. Mi è risultato chiaro in modo particolare che l’ufficio pastorale abbraccia decisamente anche la dimensione intellettuale, che i collaboratori del cardinale Ruini hanno definito con il termine “amor intellectualis”. Solo se condivideremo le prospettive e le domande del nostro tempo potremo comprendere la Parola di Dio come rivolta a noi nel presente. Solo se parteciperemo alle opportunità e alle necessità del nostro tempo, i sacramenti potranno giungere agli uomini con la loro vera forza.

C’è un altro elemento incluso nell’ufficio pastorale: per quanto in primo luogo ci sia affidata la cura dei fedeli e di chi direttamente è alla ricerca della fede, il servizio del pastore non può limitarsi solo alla Chiesa.

La Chiesa è parte del mondo e perciò essa può svolgere adeguatamente il suo servizio solo prendendosi cura complessivamente del mondo. Allo stesso modo, anche la Parola di Dio, a sua volta, riguarda la totalità della realtà, e l’attualità di essa impone alla Chiesa una responsabilità complessiva. L’impegno profuso nell’enciclica Caritas in veritate, che Ella ha esposto in modo tanto incisivo, mostra l’intreccio dei diversi piani: la Chiesa deve coinvolgersi negli sforzi che l’umanità e la società in quanto tali compiono per un giusto cammino e deve per questo trovare un modo di argomentare che riguardi anche i non credenti. Solo se essa va oltre se stessa e assume la responsabilità per l’umanità nel suo complesso, la Chiesa rimane anche se stessa nel modo giusto.

Tutto questo emerge chiaramente nei saggi del Suo libro. Penso che trovare rappresentato il procedere di un impegno che abbraccia in tutta la sua ampiezza l’intero spettro dei compiti del nostro tempo farà riflettere anche molti lettori che non appartengono alla Chiesa. Così mi è risultato evidente anche che la nostra collaborazione non poteva limitarsi unicamente a concreti atti di governo, ma spingersi, più in profondità, fino all’impegno di servire oggi nel modo giusto la Parola di Dio, il Logos di Dio.

Profitto della circostanza per ringraziarLa per questi anni di collaborazione e auguro che il libro possa far riflettere molti uomini e possa aprire loro anche la via che porta alla fede.

Benedetto XVI

(Traduzione di Pierluca Azzaro, ©copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2015)

Plato Foretells Christ's Crucifixion

The cross is revelation.

It does not reveal any particular thing, but God and man. It reveals who God is and who man is.

There is a curious presentiment of this situation in Greek philosophy: Plato's image of the crucified "just man".

In the Republic the great philosopher asks what is likely to be the position of a completely just man in this world. He comes to the conclusion that a man's righteousness is only complete and guaranteed when he takes on the appearance of unrighteousness, for only then is it clear that he does not follow the opinion of men but pursues justice only for its own sake.

So according to Plato the truly just man must be misunderstood and persecuted in this world; indeed, Plato goes so far as to write:

"They will say that our just man will be scourged, racked, fettered, will have his eyes burnt out, and at last, after all manner of suffering, will be crucified..." Republic, Book II, 361e-362a.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, Herder and Herder: New York, 1970, p. 222.

Pope Benedict XVI and Saint Augustine

Basilica of Saint Augustine, Hippo (Annaba, Algeria)

Basilica di San Pietro in Ciel D'Oro - Pavia (8th Century)
The Tomb of Saint Augustine

BENEDICT XVI, THE GREAT AUGUSTINIAN 

by Timothy George First Things

19 February 2013

Not long ago, Pope Benedict XVI made a personal donation to the restoration of the Basilica of St. Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, the site of the ancient town of Hippo Regius, where the greatest theologian of the ancient church served as bishop from 395 to 430. It was here on September 26, 426, that Augustine met with his flock to name his successor as the bishop of Hippo, the presbyter Heraclitus.

Looking back over his long life of service in the church, Augustine ruminated, “How long old age may be prolonged is uncertain . . . . I came to this town”for such was the will of God”when I was in the prime of life. I was young then, but now I am old” (Ep. 213, 1). He wanted to spend the rest of his days, Augustine said, in prayer and the study of the Scriptures (Ep . 213, 6).

Popes are not allowed to choose their successor, though Benedict and his predecessor have chosen all the people who will choose his successor. However, one suspects that the precedent of Augustine’s retirement was not absent from the pope’s thinking as he considered how he could best fulfill his calling during his remaining days on earth.

Pope Benedict was once asked which two books he would take with him to read on a deserted island. His answer was the Bible and Augustine’s Confessions ”precisely the two I would choose (though I would also like to sneak in Luther’s two catechisms and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion , and maybe a Baptist hymnal).

As he retires to his monastic retreat near St. Peter’s to devote himself to meditation, prayer, and reflection, the Holy Father (we can still call him that until February 28) will not be restricted to such a limited canon. With the Vatican library at his fingertips, its inventory increasingly online for the newly computer-savvy pope, Benedict will perhaps continue to serve the church by fulfilling his first calling as a theologian, a vocation he received prior to his summons to serve as bishop, cardinal, and pope.

Soon after Benedict emerged as the surprise choice of the most recent papal conclave in 2005, I wrote an essay on why Evangelical Protestants, among orthodox believers of all persuasions, should be pleased at his election. I summarized the promise of his new pontificate in five points. I emphasized that:

 • he takes truth seriously , an antidote to what he called on the eve of his papal election “the dictatorship of relativism”;

• his theology is Bible-focused , building on the declaration of Vatican II that “easy access to sacred Scripture should be provided for all the Christian faithful”;

• his message is Christocentric , boldly asserting that Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God and the only Redeemer of the world;

• he is a fierce champion of the culture of life , advocating for the most vulnerable members of the human community, the children still waiting to be born.

To these four items I added a fifth: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is an Augustinian . Those familiar with his intellectual biography will find no surprise in this statement. As he himself noted, “I have developed my theology in a dialogue with Augustine.” His doctoral dissertation was on “The People and the House of God in Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church.” His Habilitationsschrift was on the great medieval Augustinian Bonaventure, whose theology he found more agreeable than that of Thomas Aquinas. His bent toward Augustine was early and deep, arising in part from his encounter with the thought of Martin Buber, whose personalism he found both winsome and in keeping with the gospel.

Benedict’s Augustinian orientation has led him to emphasize the triumph of grace in God’s salvific work in Jesus Christ. If St. Augustine is the doctor gratiae (doctor of grace) then Pope Benedict has been the papa gratiae par excellence. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger played a key role in the historic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999), the most important ecumenical statement since Vatican II.

The Joint Declaration was a statement of differentiated consensus that left many important issues remaining to be resolved. However, for the first time since the sixteenth century, Catholics and Protestants were able to say together, “By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and received the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”

Other motifs from St. Augustine that have marked the pontificate of Benedict XVI are the priority of love (the theme of his first encyclical) and the coinherence of faith and reason. Protestants, especially those with Barthian proclivities, might want to ask whether the pope’s emphasis on reason has fully taken on board the reality of human sinfulness and the (other) Augustinian idea that concupiscence corrupts not only the body and the will but also the mind.

Theological anthropology is one of the loci on which confessional Protestants and traditional Catholics still have different emphases. But who can deny the pope’s understanding of reason as a good gift of God, something to be harnessed in the service of faith, and used to advance the common good including the stewardship of creation. The churches of the East have found a common platform with “green” Pope Benedict on this point.

St. Augustine is the granddaddy of us all. Pope Benedict has done the entire church a great service by inviting us to become a “traveling companion” with the most contemporary of the ancient Fathers. Benedict is the greatest theologian to become pope since the Reformation. The only other pope to come close in comparable depth and breadth is Leo XIII ( 1878-1903). When we become students in the school of Pope Benedict we sit at the feet of St. Augustine.

The New Evangelization to which he has called the church includes a strong focus on Christian unity, a renewed commitment to religious freedom, and the unshackled proclamation of God’s good news, news that the world is literally dying to hear afresh: that the almighty Creator of all that is has acted in space and time to reveal himself in nature and history and to redeem the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For his bold advocacy of this truth, Evangelical Christians, with all believers everywhere, must say Grazie Santità!

As Augustine lay dying in August 430, the Vandals had already reached the coasts of North Africa and were pillaging the city of Hippo. Augustine had the penitential Psalms printed in large letters, and he prayed them constantly as his eyes dimmed and his world fell apart. The world has grown old with age, he said.

This is something Augustine’s disciple, Pope Benedict, also knows. He affirmed this on Ash Wednesday by receiving the mark of the cross on his forehead, a sign of true humility and mortality--but also a confession of the deepest meaning of the paschal mystery: that if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). In this Lenten moment, both Benedict and Augustine admonish the church, in the words of the great saint: “Do not refuse to be rejuvenated, united to Christ, even in the old world. He tells you: Do not fear, your youth will be renewed like that of the eagle” (Serm. 81, 8; Is. 40:30-31).

Timothy George is the founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, a member of the First Things advisory council, and co-chair with Fr. Thomas Guarino of Evangelicals and Catholics Together. 

N.B. Even as Pope, Joseph Ratzinger gave numerous discourses on Saint Augustine. Here is the five-part series of Wednesday Audiences he dedicated to that Doctor of the Church.

9 January 2008 (Saint Augustine [1])

16 January 2008 (Saint Augustine [2])

30 January 2008 (Saint Augustine [3])

20 February 2008 (Saint Augustine [4])

27 February 2008 (Saint Augustine [5])

The Altar that Was

Impending Disaster! Freestanding Altar simultaneous with Original High Altar, Before Wreckage!

Former Soviet spy: We created Liberation Theology

Ion Mihai Pacepa on Raul Castro's yacht in Cuba, 1974. Photo courtesy of Ion Mihai Pacepa

Washington D.C., May 1, 2015 / 03:34 pm (CNA).- Espionage deep in the heart of Europe. Secrets in the KGB. Defection from a communist nation. Ion Mihai Pacepa has seen his share of excitement, serving as general for Communist Romania’s secret police before defecting to the United States in the late 1970s.

The highest-ranking defector from communism in the ‘70s, he spoke to CNA recently about the connection between the Soviet Union and Liberation Theology in Latin America. Below are excerpts of the interview. All footnotes were provided by Pacepa.


In general, could you say that the spreading of Liberation Theology had any kind of Soviet connection?

Yes. I learned the fine points of the KGB involvement with Liberation Theology from Soviet General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, communist Romania's chief razvedka (foreign intelligence) adviser – and my de facto boss, until 1956, when he became head of the Soviet espionage service, the PGU¹,  a position he held for an unprecedented record of 15 years.

On October 26, 1959, Sakharovsky and his new boss, Nikita Khrushchev, came to Romania for what would become known as “Khrushchev's six-day vacation.” He had never taken such a long vacation abroad, nor was his stay in Romania really a vacation. Khrushchev wanted to go down in history as the Soviet leader who had exported communism to Central and South America. Romania was the only Latin country in the Soviet bloc, and Khrushchev wanted to enroll her “Latin leaders” in his new “liberation” war.


I learned about Sakharovsky from your writings, but I could not find any other relevant information about him. Why?

Sakharovsky was a Soviet reflection of the Cold War's hot years, when not even all the members of the Israeli and British governments knew the identity of the heads of Mossad and MI-6. But Sakharovsky played an extremely important role in shaping Cold War history. He authored the export of communism to Cuba (1958-1961); his nefarious handling of the Berlin crisis (1958-1961) generated the Berlin Wall; his Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.


Was the Theology of Liberation a movement somehow "created" by Sakharovsky's part of the KGB, or was it an existing movement that was exacerbated by the USSR?

The movement was born in the KGB, and it had a KGB-invented name: Liberation Theology. During those years, the KGB had a penchant for “liberation” movements. The National Liberation Army of Columbia (FARC), created by the KGB with help from Fidel Castro; the “National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created by the KGB with help from “Che” Guevara; and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), created by the KGB with help from Yasser Arafat are just a few additional “liberation” movements born at the Lubyanka -- the headquarters of the KGB.

The birth of Liberation Theology was the intent of a 1960 super-secret “Party-State Dezinformatsiya Program” approved by Aleksandr Shelepin, the chairman of the KGB, and by Politburo member Aleksey Kirichenko, who coordinated the Communist Party's international policies. This program demanded that the KGB take secret control of the World Council of Churches (WCC), based in Geneva, Switzerland, and use it as cover for converting Liberation Theology into a South American revolutionary tool. The WCC was the largest international ecumenical organization after the Vatican, representing some 550 million Christians of various denominations throughout 120 countries.


The birth of a new religious movement is a historic event. How was this new religious movement launched?

The KGB began by building an intermediate international religious organization called the Christian Peace Conference (CPC), which was headquartered in Prague. Its main task was to bring the KGB-created Liberation Theology into the real world.

The new Christian Peace Conference was managed by the KGB and was subordinated to the venerable World Peace Council, another KGB creation, founded in 1949 and by then also headquartered in Prague.

During my years at the top of the Soviet bloc intelligence community I managed the Romanian operations of the World Peace Council (WPC). It was as purely KGB as it gets. Most of the WPC’s employees were undercover Soviet bloc intelligence officers. The WPC’s two publications in French, Nouvelles perspectives and Courier de la Paix, were also managed by undercover KGB – and Romanian DIE²  - intelligence officers. Even the money for the WPC budget came from Moscow, delivered by the KGB in the form of laundered cash dollars to hide their Soviet origin. In 1989, when the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, the WPC publicly admitted that 90% of its money came from the KGB³.


How did the Theology of Liberation start?

I was not involved in the creation of Liberation Theology per se. From Sakharovsky I learned, however, that in 1968 the KGB-created Christian Peace Conference, supported by the world-wide World Peace Council, was able to maneuver a group of leftist South American bishops into holding a Conference of Latin American Bishops at Medellin, Colombia. The Conference’s official task was to ameliorate poverty. Its undeclared goal was to recognize a new religious movement encouraging the poor to rebel against the “institutionalized violence of poverty,” and to recommend the new movement to the World Council of Churches for official approval.

The Medellin Conference achieved both goals. It also bought the KGB-born name “Liberation Theology.”


Theology of Liberation had key leaders, some of them famous “pastoral” figures, some others intellectuals. Do you know if there was any involvement of the Soviet bloc in promoting either the personal image or the writings of such personalities? Any specific connection with Bishops Sergio Mendes Arceo from Mexico or Helder Camara from Brazil?  Any possible direct connection with liberation theologians such as Leonardo Boff, Frei Betto, Henry Camacho or Gustavo Gutierrez?  

I have good reason to suspect that there was an organic connection between the KGB and some of those leading promoters of Liberation Theology, but I have no evidence to prove it. For the last 15 years of my life in Romania (1963 - 1978), I managed that country's scientific and technological espionage, as well as the disinformation operations aimed at improving Ceausescu's stature in the West.

I recently glanced through Gutierrez's book A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation (1971), and I had the feeling that it was written at the Lubyanka. No wonder he is now credited with being the founder of Liberation Theology. From feelings to facts, however, is a long way.
 

...........................................................
Footnotes:

1) Pervoye Glavnoye Upravleniye, or First Chief Directorate of the KGB
2) Departamentul de Informatii Externe, Romania’s foreign intelligence service.
3)  Herbert Romerstein, Soviet Active Measures and Propaganda, Mackenzie Institute Paper no. 17 (Toronto, 1989), pp. 14-15, 25-26. WPC Peace Courier, 1989, no. 4, as cited in Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 629.

See also: Communists spied on Joseph Ratzinger.

A Call to Christians of Germany

Cologne 1945. Iconically, the Cathedral Was Spared!

The end of the Second World War has left Germany and the whole of Central Europe in a state of material ruin and social disintegration such as we have not known since the Thirty Years War. And behind the blasted cities and the ruined lives there is the deeper spiritual tragedy of Europe's fate. For during the last 100 years Western Man has had an opportunity unique in the history of humanity. Science has given us powers over nature and man which surpass the wildest dreams of former constructions of utopias. But then powers have been perverted to the service of death, so that they now threaten to destroy the very civilization that has created them. What is the cause of this tremendous failure? It is the result of a profound dislocation that has taken place between the spiritual and material development of our civilization.

The knowledge of our men of science has outstripped the wisdom of our statesmen and the latter have lost touch with the spiritual foundations on which our civilization was founded. Europe was built on Faith and Freedom and Law.

A godless society becomes a society without law, and a lawless society becomes a society without freedom. The 19th century believed that liberty was the panacea for all human ills and that it had only to be applied to politics, to economics, and to culture to bring about the millenium. But we have now seen that freedom may mean the rule of lawlessness and oppression and the unleashing of the dark forces of cruelty and destruction which have been partially controlled by the age long discipline of Christian civilization. Freedom is not enough. Even Law is not enough, unless it stands on something deeper and higher than the will and power of man. This foundation is Faith and so long as this remains it is still possible to rebuild the shattered order of our society and our civilization.

It is therefore to the Christians of Germany that I speak tonight--to the men and women who have kept the truth through these dark years when the forces of evil seemed triumphant--for they have at once the heaviest task and the greatest opportunity that has ever fallen to the lot of man. It is true that the task and the responsibility is common to us all, but it is in Germany that the power of destruction has gone furthest and where the necessity of restoring the shattered foundations of social order is more pressing and unavoidable. We in the West have talked a great deal about the problem of reeducation--often, I fear, in a superficial political sense. But it is very certain that if European civilization is to survive, it is necessary to carry out a profound revision of our political and social ideas, to eradicate the false ideologies that have led the nations to destruction and to restore the essential moral principles on which the life of states no less than the life of individuals depends. The modern state--and above all the totalitarian party state--has forgotten what justice means. It has founded itself upon a conception of mass power and mass interest which is sub-moral and inhuman.

In the past when Christian peoples chose their rulers they did not ask them what was their political ideology or their party allegiance. They asked them if they would do equal justice in mercy and truth, defend the cause of the weak and keep the laws committed to them as a sacred trust.

Even today in the English coronation rite, when the bishop takes the sword from the altar, he says "with this sword do Justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss and confirm what is in good order; that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue and faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ." No doubt it will be said that all this is merely of archaeological interest and means nothing to modern man. Nevertheless these were the ideas that shaped the political institutions of Christian Europe and they bear witness to a deep seated instinct that something higher than power and material interest is essential to the constitution of the state. The loss of this intuitive recognition of divine justice as the supreme principle of social and political order is, (as Pius XII has said) the ultimate source of all the evils that afflict the modern state. It is not easy to restore this foundation when political life has become profoundly demoralized and when public opinion is hopeless and bewildered. But the greatest of the present catastrophe calls for great remedies and after all we have seen in the last years, it is clear that neither political violence nor technical efficiency can provide the solution. It is here that Christians can give a lead, for they stand for just those principles and values which the totalitarian state lacked and for the lack of which it has brought the nation to destruction. What Europe needs is not men of violence who embody the will to power and the lust of conquest, nor yet cunning politicians who can juggle skillfully with group interests and party combinations. She needs just men--what our Christian ancestors called good "justicians"--who will restore the lost prestige of Law.

The "common man," of whom we hear so much, has a natural will to justice. He may be guided by error and prejudice and passion, but he never consciously and deliberately desires an unjust government, any more than he desires a corrupt judge or a dishonest banker or an adulterous wife. The poor burg gets these things in the same way as he gets famine and war, not because he wants them but because he can't help it. If he cannot find good rulers, he chooses the bad ruler who promises him most--the most eloquent or the most efficient or the most formidable of the claimants to political power. But it is the business of Christians to see that the will to justice of the common man is not permanently frustrated in this fashion: to guide and enlighten public opinion in the true interests of the people; even, if necessary, to seek out men of good will who will stand up before the people as champions of justice for the reestablishment of true social order. That was how the Christian state was founded amidst the anarchy and confusion of the dark ages in Western Europe and it is only in this way that the present breakdown of European civilization can be checked and the foundations of a new international order created.

Christopher Dawson, BBC Talk to the Christians of Germany September 1, 1945.

The main ideas of this historic address on the unique Christian responsibility before the demands of Justice and good social order is very much akin to the more recent Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament for which he was roundly applauded and received a standing ovation, despite the minority boycotting nay-saying (intolerant) bigots.

The Greatest Theologians

Saint Paul: the theologian of the Gospel.

Saint Thomas Aquinas: the theologian of Saint Paul.

A.D. Sertillanges, OP, Catechisme des Incroyants, I, Flammorion: Paris 1930, p. 62.

The Greatest Error of "Democratic" Education: The Assumption that Skepticism is Not Biased

"A major fallacy of...skepticism is the assumption that, while religious believers are fatally biased, skeptics are objective and disinterested." James Hitchcock, History of the Catholic Church, 2013.

You cannot leave Christ and the Christian (especially Catholic) cultural heritage out of the equation and presume objectivity. That is a gross bias! It is the bias of atheism. This error had even creeped into theology by way of the historical critical method. But, as Ratzinger has forcefully shown (e.g. Jesus of Nazereth especially volumes one and two) "...we have learned something new about the methods and limits of historical knowledge..."

Knowledge Always Includes the Knowing Mode of the Knower!
“Werner Heisenberg verified in the area of the natural sciences, with his 'Unsicherheitsrelation', [the relation of uncertainty] that our knowing never reflects only what is objective, but is always determined by the participation of the subject as well, by the perspective in which the questions are posed and by the capacity of perception. All this, naturally, is incomparably most true where man himself enters into play and where the mystery of God is made perceptible. Faith and science, Magisterium and exegesis, therefore, are no longer opposed as worlds closed in on themselves. Faith itself is a way of knowing. Wanting to set it aside does not produce pure objectivity, but comprises a point of view which excludes a particular perspective while not wanting to take into account the accompanying conditions of the chosen point of view. If one takes into account, however, that the Sacred Scriptures come from God through a subject which lives continually--the pilgrim people of God--then it becomes clear rationally as well that this subject has something to say about the understanding of the book.” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, On the 100th anniversary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission “Relationship between Magisterium and exegetes ”May 10, 2003. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030510_ratzinger-comm-bible_en.html.

Saint Thomas Aquinas said that long ago, this way: modus cognitionis sequitur modum naturae rei cognoscentis: the way of knowing follows the natural way of the knower! In other words, one's knowledge is always influenced by one's specific way of being and of knowing. He uses this as a proof for why human beings cannot see the essence of God in this life. (Summa Theologica, I, q. 12, art. 11, corp.)

The twentieth century advances in the science of relativity repeatedly affirm the ancient medieval Catholic wisdom! Would that our educators were more scientific, they would then be more religious, and hence more honest! Close-mindedness (even to Christ, even to Catholicism) is dishonest! We could say that it is a one-sided skepticism which needs to broaden and indeed critical of it's own presuppositions. The problem with the modern skeptic is that he is not skeptical enough, he needs to be wary of his own prejudice against faith and against the immense wisdom contributions of our Christian heritage which must not be ignored or denied!

Petrified Neo-Thomism

"The student is bound to take Thomism largely on faith since there is no competition of rival schools, as in the medieval university, and so one is in danger of having a solid monolithic structure of infallible knowledge which includes philosophy as well as theology and treats the two as coequal, so that Catholic education becomes identified with an authoritarian ideology, like Marxism."

Christopher Dawson, "The Study of Christian Culture." quoted in Bradley J. Birzer Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson, Christendom Press: Front Royal, 2007, p.68.

This is a theme which was prevalent in the Munich University of Ratzinger's formation, hence his interest in Augustine and Bonaventure as a corrective, while continuing to study Thomas.

"Thomism may represent the philosophia perennis of the Western world, and it may be potentially the philosophia perennis of the whole world. But it is not so actually, and it cannot become so until it has incorporated the philosophical traditions of the rest of the world in the same way that it incorporated the philosophical traditions of Hellenism."
Ibid., p.66 quoting Dawson's "The Relation of Philosophy and Culture" article of September 7, 1955.

That idea of the need for the Catholic faith to appropriate the enlightenment has been often repeated by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI as the most pressing need of our age!

Books in Latin: Search Made Easy

Always in search of books to buy in the Latin language, I have finally come across a very efficient resource.

bookdepository.com (with Latin filter on)

Free worldwide shipping too!

Just click Latin in the Advanced search, Language box. Tens of thousands of titles available! An extraordinary and unique resource. (Just click above, the image or their web address, and you will be on your way). No need to buy the expensive and somewhat bland Loeb classics anymore! So many options on so many classical works in the original and/or with translations to your preferred language!

There is also an Ancient Greek language filter! Wunderbar!

If I buy Latin or Greek books with translation, I usually like to get them in a language which is not English, e.g. German, so as to improve my modern foreign languages along the way! That also forces you to pay closer attention to the Latin than in the Loeb dummy editions with English on the facing page!

Neither Abebooks, Bookfinder or Amazon have this easy Latin language filter. My library just acquired dozens of new titles in lingua latina! Deo gratias! Enjoy!

P.S. I am happy that these booksellers are out competing Amazon, which I somewhat detest for it's unfair monopolizing strategies.

In any case, the other book search engines should upgrade to include this Latin language filter.
And while they are at it, they should add a parallel Greek function with the Greek classics, more difficult because of the modern Greek literature.

The Theological and Philosophical Origins of the Liturgical Movement

Ratzinger mentions Odo Casel as the source of the mystery theology of the liturgical movement of the 1920's and 1930's.

"[Gottlieb] Söhngen]...ventured out with great competence into the mystery theology founded by Odo Casel, the Benedictine monk from Maria Laach. This theology had grown directly out of the liturgical movement, and its very existence posed with new acuteness the basic question concerning the relationship between rationality and mystery, the questions concerning the place of the Platonic and the philosophical in Christianity, and, indeed, the question about the essence of Christianity."
Milestones, pp. 55-56.

There is a lengthy article on Odo Casel's mystery theology here.

Casel's had a doctorate in philosophy from Bonn (1919) with the thesis title: De philosophorum graecorum silentio mistico. He also had a theological doctorate from the Benedictine Athenaeum of Sant' Anselmo in Rome with a thesis on the eucharistic theology of Justin Martyr.

Ratzinger and Sacred Scripture

Judaism as we know it today is a late appropriation of the Sacred Scripture.

With the Old Testament professor Friedrich Stummer..."the Old Testament was opened up and became precious for me.

"More and more I came to understand why the New Testament is not a different book of a different religion that, for some reason or other, had appropriated the Holy Scriptures of the Jews as a kind of preliminary structure.

"The New Testament is nothing other than an interpretation of 'the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings' found from or contained in the story of Jesus.

"Now, this 'Law, Prophets, and Writings' had not yet, at the time of Jesus, grown together to form a definite canon; rather, they were still open-ended and, as such, offered themselves spontaneously to Jesus' disciples as a testimony to him, as the Sacred Scriptures that revealed the mystery.

"I have ever more come to the realization that Judaism (which, strictly speaking, begins with the end of the formation of the canon, that is, in the first century after Christ) and the Christian faith described in the New Testament are two ways of appropriating Israel's Scriptures, two ways that, in the end, are both determined by the position one assumes with regard to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

"The Scripture we today call Old Testament is in itself open to both ways."

Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones, pp. 53-54.

Answering Supreme Court Logical Errors in Marriage Case

Marriage March 2015

Below is Plinthos' summary of the corrections made in today's Witherspoon Institute article "Correcting Six Mistakes from the Same-Sex Marriage Oral Arguments Last Week" by James Phillips.

1. Opposite-sex marriage rates have declined since the legalization of same-sex marriage, in every case.

2. Same-sex marriage disconnects marriage from the long-held norm that the institution of marriage binds children to their biological father and mother.

3. Marriage law is not made simply for the bestowing of dignity but to regulate the institution and the benefits thereof for the good of society.

4. Procreation's natural context and children's rights are both contradicted and trampled with same-sex marriage.

5. With this case there is a disproportionate rush toward legalization, like never in the history of jurisprudence.

6. The heterosexual nature of marriage is an essential distinction of the institution of marriage (similar to monogamy).

Homosexual Chastity

DESIRE OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS

Here is a documentary film  (starting at the 4:55 minute) of Courage International done by people with homosexual attraction, a window to this reality. Courage is a Catholic resource for any (family, friends, perpetrators, victims, etc.) who need help in this area.

FSSP New (First) Seminary in Mexico, Guadalajara

Couldn't they find a native Spanish speaker to do the video? Why not?

Perhaps what Latin America needs more than FSSP is their own Spanish homegrown Traditional Religious Order like the FSSP and the Institute of Christ the King, etc. In the meantime this is a step in the right direction!

There should be no reason for Latin America to import the Catholic Tradition of which she should have a solid and proud memory in her own right. At least her benefactors should come her "Mother Country:" Spain!

What this iconic event signifies, though, is the gross and long-time Spanish and Latin American episcopal neglect of the proper Catholic liturgical formation of the priests and the faithful. Thank God for the European missionary work on our American Catholic soil, even today!

¡Viva la Tradición Católica en la Misa de Siempre, hoy, en la fiesta de su Patrón, San Pío V!

Short Prayer for the Holiness of Priests (English, Spanish, Latin)

Lord, for the holiness of priests throughout the world, I pray.

Señor, te pido por la santidad de los sacerdotes del mundo entero.

Domine, pro orbem terrarum sanctitas sacerdotum precor. (Hope this is right, Plinthos' poor translation).

Sober and Realistic Christian Life

Bonaventure objected to the kind of utopia that deceives man [àla Joachim of Fiore => Hegel => Marx].

He also opposed an enthusiastic, spiritual-anarchical concept of the Franciscan movement and prevailed with a sober and realistic concept, something that offended many, and still does.

But he saw the answer to the question of utopia precisely in such non-utopian communities that were nonetheless driven by the passion of faith.

They don't work for a world beyond tomorrow; they work instead so that there may be something of the light of paradise present in this world today.

They live in "utopian" fashion, as far as possible, by renouncing possessions, self-determination, and eros and its fulfillment.

So a breath of fresh air comes into the world, breaking through its constraints and bringing God very close, right into the midst of this world.

--Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth, p. 63.


Plinthos comments: What the Cardinal here describes is manifested in a special way for example in the home-schooling movement and in the traditional Latin Mass, a small realistic way to live heaven on earth as far as possible, in the midst of great difficulties and limitations but striving for perfection in Christ on the earth today! "Something that offends many!"

We could also say that the Lay Movements in the Church are particular dynamisms of this Christian effort, at the same time needing to constantly temper the whimsical aspect of religious fervor.

Qui melius scit pati, majorem tenebit pacem!

Therein lies the essence of the Mystery of Redemption and the apex of all authentic human and religious sentiment and action.

Greatness is measured by the greatness of one's gift. He who gives the most is the greatest!

And the greatest gift is to give oneself.

And the greater the person giving himself the greater the gift.

God being the Greatest Giver and the Greatest Gift, when He gives Himself in the Crib and on the Cross that is the greatest action in history and the model and source of everything else before or after, and in eternity!

"The one who knows best how to suffer will have the greatest peace! That one is victor over himself and lord of the world, a friend of Christ and heir of heaven!" --Imitation of Christ III,3,3 (Plinthos translation)

Qui melius scit pati, majorem tenebit pacem. Iste est victor sui et dominus mundi, amicus Christi et haeres coeli.

Fine thoughts the week before mother's day! Every mother gives the greatest gift in the natural world: a man. And every man has received himself from that greatest natural giver, his mother (and his father). The maternal aspect not excepting Christ. he being exceptional in his divine Paternity which is solely heavenly.