"I Carefully Block My Ears With Wax": Marcel De Corte to Jean Madiran

Today is the final day of 2023. What a momentous year it has been, for better and certainly for worse. But rather than offer my poor commentary, I'm going to post a correspondance from the respected Belgian philosopher Marcel De Corte (1905-1994) to French journalist Jean Madiran. De Corte was a neo-Thomist who taught philosophy at the University of Liège, specializing in ancient philosophy and moral philosophy. Like many Catholic intellectuals, Marcel De Corte was deeply troubled by the reforms following Vatican II. In February 1970, he wrote a letter to his friend, the journalist Jean Madiran (1920-2013), who at that time was chief editor of the traditional Catholic journal Itineraries, which Madiran had founded in 1956 to combat the errors of progressivism. The following letter was published in Itineraries, wherein De Corte describes his disgust with the New Mass as he witnessed it's early implementation in Belgium in the fall of 1969 and his disillusionment with the pontificate of Pope Paul VI, whom he sees as a man of frustrating contradictions.

Bad Humanae Vitae Parallels

In the wake of scores of bishops rejecting Fiducia Supplicans globally, popesplainers have resorted to comparing Fiducia Supplicans to Humanae Vitae as a way to deflect criticism of the document. The hyperpapalist website Where Peter Is has said that critics of Fiducia Supplicans "need to be reminded of the reception of Humanae Vitae...before asserting that the public reactions to magisterial documents are markers of its "failure.'" Then there is this little gem, which was followed by a piece from the same influencer on all of the similarities between Fiducia Supplicans and Humanae Vitae. 

Six Books I Worked On This Year

Happy Advent brethren! I wanted to take this opportunity to draw your attention to several excellent new books I've had the privilege of working on this year in an editorial capacity. Some of these are original works, others  reprints of Catholic classics, but all are excellent additions to any Catholic library. These were all published through my publishing imprint Cruachan Hill Press over the course of 2023.

How to Tell Christian Prayer from New Age Meditation

A "Centering Prayer" group, encrusted with Boomers as to be expected

We live in a world which rejects Catholic tradition while simultaneously professing great interest in spiritualities influenced by the New Age. Christians have been traditionally reluctant to embrace such practices, as they contain elements that are fundamentally opposed to the most basic tenets of Christianity. Some, however, have merged various elements of eastern mysticism and New Age neo-paganism with traditional Catholic spirituality, thrown in some Christian vocabulary and are now peddling these practices as compatible with Catholicism. For example, the method of "Centering Prayer" promoted by the late Cistercian monk Basil Pennington is a good example, but there are others. These practices are promoted as Christian forms of "contemplation", and Catholics are encouraged to participate. In this article we will look at how to discern whether a spiritual practice is authentically Catholic or just New Age esoteric mysticism in a Christian veneer. We will use the 'Centering Prayer' spirituality developed by Fr. Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington as an example, but what we will say can be applied to any questionable spirituality.

In What Sense is the Pope Above Canon Law?

A common refrain when from hyperpapalists when the pope disregards canon law by his actions is, "So what? He can do that. The pope is not bound by canon law." 

It is, of course, true that the pope is not bound by any human law, including ecclesiastical law. Not only is this due to the pope's status as the supreme juridical authority within the Church, but also because the pope himself is a source of canon law. Since canon law is subject to the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, it is clear that is cannot be bound by it in any coercive sense.

Does this literally mean, however, that the pope can break canon law at will as a normal exercise of his authority? When the pope violates canon law, is this to be understood as a legitimate exercise of his juridical authority?

"Strict Consistency with the Past"

Whilst casually flipping through my old copy of the 1929 New Catholic Dictionary, I looked up its entry for "Pope" and found an interesting little nugget. After a rather boiler-plate explanation of papal authority (universal, immediate, perpertual, etc.), it addresses the question of whether pontifical power is to be understood in an absolutist manner. After discussing the pope's practical dependence on the curia for his governance, the article answers the question in the negative: 

The Last Gasp of Our Akhenaten

Pope Francis's new motu proprio Ad Theologiam Promovendam has called for a "paradigm shift" in Catholic theology, citing the "profound cultural changes" of the modern world as the justification. The pope insisted on a "courageous cultural revolution" within Catholic thought, calling for our theology to become "fundamentally contextual." Among other things, he called for theology to be primarily "inductive," focused on "dialogue and encounter between different traditions and different knowledge, between different Christian confessions and different religions, openly engaging with everyone." He contrasted this new approach with "abstractly re-proposing formulas and themes from the past," which the pope characterized as "desk bound theology." 

A 1971 Proposal for a New Form of First Confession for Children

Bishop Pieter Jan Antoon Moors of Roermond, who in 1964 became one of the first bishops to revise how the Sacrament of Penance was administered to children.

[Oct. 15, 2023] Franz Heggen (b. 1930) is a Dutch theologian who was a peritus for Bishop Pieter Jan Antoon Moors of the Diocese of Roermond, Netherlands. Before the Second Vatican Council had even ended, Bishop Moors (1964) issued directives in his diocese for a reevaluation of how penance was administered, asking priests to consider preparing children for confession in stages through prayer and song rather than traditional catechesis (1). Franz Heggen was a part of these discussions and an advocate for a restructuring of the sacrament in such a way that absolution was conferred collectively in order to stress the communal character of the sacrament.

Another Older Catechism on Capital Punishment

[Sept. 24, 2023] Back in June of 2019, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski published a piece at Rorate Caeli exploring on how pre-Vatican II catechisms treated the subject of capital punishment. Entitled "What Good is a Changing Catechism?", the article demonstrated a consistent teaching on the liceity of the death penalty going back to Council of Trent at least. I also published an article on the subject ("Pre-Vatican II Catechisms on the Capital Punishment") arguing the same. These collections of pre-Conciliar catechism quotes are important pieces of evidence displaying an indisputable continuity of the Church's teaching across the generations.

An Injustice from the Beginning

[Sept. 14, 2023] I was baptized Catholic as a baby in an ethnically Catholic household (Sicilian-Irish-Polish), where getting children baptized was just what one did. But I never saw the inside of a Catholic Church, nor received any instruction or sacraments as a child. I had, in every respect, a totally secular upbringing.

Book Review: Blosser & Sullivan's Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination

[Sept. 3, 2023] It is getting tougher and tougher for me to get around to book reviews these days what with the sheer quantity of material that people send me, not even counting my own voluminous "to-read" pile that seems to grow larger no matter how much reading I accomplish. But when I received the book that is the subject of today's post, Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination, by Philip Blosser and Charles Sullivan, I knew I had to make the time for it. Speaking in Tongues (published by Pickwick Publications) is the first in a three volume series dealing with the subject of tongues. Volume 1 is subtitled The Modern Redefinition of Tongues and concerns how the understanding of tongues has been revolutionized in modern Christianity.

The Church's Historical Blindspot

[Aug. 26, 2023] If you have never read it, I highly recommend my readers pick up a copy of the British historian R.I. Moore's 1977 book The Origins of European Dissent. Moore's book focuses on the emergence of heresy in Western Europe between 1000 and 1200 and chronicles the Church's attemps to respond to the rising tide of heterodoxy, with emphasis on how the increasing challenge posed by heterodox sects went beyond the ability of local bishops to manage, leading to the eventual interventions of the papacy and civil authorities. It is a very scholarly work that I think is integral to anyone interested in the origin of medieval heresy.

On the Superior Merit of the Traditional Mass

[Aug. 13, 2023] I just reviewed an old article by Fr. Chad Ripperger entitled "The Merit of a Mass." The article originally appeared in the Summer 2003 edition of the Latin Mass Magazine.

The article concerns the question of the "merit" of the two forms of the Roman rite. Fr. Ripperger concludes that the Traditional Rite of Mass is objectively more meritorious. He argues that

Since one of the primary obligations of those in authority in the Church is the glory of God through the salvation of souls, they have the obligation to encourage, and, in some cases, require the ritual of the Mass which is most efficacious.

Stop Using This Word So Recklessly

[August 10, 2023] Imagine the spectacle of members of the laity proclaiming, based on their own convictions and by their own authority, that Pope Francis has lost the papacy or is not the validly elected pope. How ridiculous! How arrogant! How absurd! 

Now imagine, if you will, the spectacle of members of the laity proclaiming, based on their own convictions and by their own authority, that certain fellow Catholics (who have never been censured or labeled as such by the Church) are in the canonical state of schism and under anathema. How equally ridiculous! How equally arrogant! How equally absurd! 

"The Pope's Authority is Bound to the Tradition"

[Aug. 8, 2023] Just a friendly reminder that the idea of the pope's boundedness to Sacred Tradition is not some invention of Trad Catholic bloggers. Going back 23 years to the publication of Joseph Ratzinger's pivotal work The Spirit of the Liturgy, we find the following: