Notes: Thursday, January 12-Tuesday, January 17, 2012

1. More Modernism from Dr. Elmer?

Ultimately, the scriptures are not straight-forward historical and objective texts that yield reliable information akin to say a police crime report or a thoroughly researched documentary on current events. Ultimately the Gospels specifically and the Bible generally are the products of faith communities that have preserved, augmented and passed on these stories as relevant to their lived faith experience. …
[…] I agree with Johnson’s view that the only “real Jesus” is not the one found in history books, but “he” who we encounter in the lived and living traditions of the community of faith. …
[http://scecclesia.com/?p=6111&cpage=1#comment-27258]

Labels: Ian Elmer, modernism, Scripture, theology

2. H.H. The Pope on how, according to His Holiness, "[a]t the Last Supper, with its overtones of the Passover and the commemoration of Israel’s liberation, Jesus’ prayer echoes the Hebrew berakah"

General Audience of Wednesday, January 11, 2012
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20120111_en.html

"THE PRAYER OF JESUS AT THE LAST SUPPER"
VIS 20120111 (880)
http://www.news.va/en/news/the-prayer-of-jesus-at-the-last-supper

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Jews, liturgy, Scripture, theology

3. More from Msgr. Williamson on the State's religious duties

Eleison Comments Number CCXXXV (235), January 14, 2012, "STATE RELIGION? III",
http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40390

(In posting "STATE RELIGION? III" at AQ, the poster omitted the following formatting of the e-mail version:

• In the second paragraph: The text from the start of the paragraph up to, but not including, the word "Answer" was italicised in the e-mail, and the "not" in "Our Lord is not here separating Church from State" and the "social beings" in "what they owe to him as social beings, namely" were underlined.

• In the third paragraph: The text from the start of the paragraph up to, but not including, the word "Answer" was italicised in the e-mail, and the words "cannot" and "will not" in "that is not because its citizens cannot discern, but because for a variety of reasons they will not, or do not" was underlined.

• In the fourth paragraph: The text from the start of the paragraph up to, but not including, "It is for the glory of God" was italicised in the e-mail.

There were also "Â"s distributed here and there throughout the e-mail version, but presumably that was just a typographical problem.)

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, morality, political science, theology

4. "Italian bishop suggests registration of civil unions, not same-sex marriage"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40381

Labels: civil unions, Paolo Urso

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Anthony, Abbot, A.D. 2012

Notes: Some previously-unpublished items from 2011 (part 2 of 2)

4. Dr. McGavin on the "pastoral function" of "Magisterial teaching" in the thought of Benedict XVI.:

… The present Holy Father when Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith treats the issue of ["discriminating the grades of ["Magisterial"] teaching"], and questioningly instances particular aspects of the anti-Modernist decisions of the Church (implicitly involving the decisions of Pope St Pius X. He speaks of their having fulfilled their pastoral function in the situation of their time. On this, see particularly page 106 in his volume The Nature and Mission of Theology (Ignatius Press San Francisco, 1995), where he speaks of applications of the principles that he develops in that book.
["Not ‘dead wrong’", a letter by The Rev. Dr. P. A. McGavin, from the Sydney Catholic Weekly of November 6, 2011, downloaded from The Catholic Weekly's website:
http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=2&subclassID=5&articleID=9266&class=Comment&subclass=Letters]

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Magisterium, modernism, theology

5. "Benedict XVI to Further Alter 1962 Missal"

http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2011/10/benedict-xvi-to-further-alter-1962.html

(See also item 2 of this edition of Notes.)

Labels: liturgy, Roman Curia, T.L.M.

6. "Families-- not autonomous individuals-- are basic units of society, Pope writes"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39659

"UNEMPLOYMENT UNDERMINES HUMAN DIGNITY"
VIS 20111110 (590)
http://www.news.va/en/news/unemployment-undermines-human-dignity

Message on the occasion of the Second National Family Conference [Ecuador, 9-12 November 2011] (1 November 2011):
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/pont-messages/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111101_familia-ecuador_en.html

Labels: families, political science

7. "POPE SENDS GREETINGS TO CHIEF RABBI FOR ROSH HASHANAH"

"POPE SENDS GREETINGS TO CHIEF RABBI FOR ROSH HASHANAH"
VIS 20110929 (150)
http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-sends-greetings-to-chief-rabbi-for-rosh-hasha

http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2011/10/pope-greets-his-brother-rabbis-for.html

(See also the item headed "The Old Law: A bringer of blessings, or a bringer of death?" at the following post:
http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-some-recents-pronouncements-by-hh.html)

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Jews, theology

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Anthony, Abbot, A.D. 2012

Notes: Some previously-unpublished items from 2011 (part 1 of 2)

In no particular order:

1. "HUMANITAS MAGAZINE TO HAVE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION"

"HUMANITAS MAGAZINE TO HAVE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION"
VIS 20111129 (280)
http://www.news.va/en/news/humanitas-magazine-to-have-english-language-editio

This is the linked U.R.L. for Humanitas Review's website:

http://www.humanitas.cl/

Of particular interest in the first issue of Humanitas Review is the posthumous contribution on pp. 27-41 by His late Eminence Avery Robert, Cardinal Dulles S.J. on Bl. John Paul II. and Dignitatis humanæ (though you might be familiar with the content of that contribution already, since that contribution is based, according to footnote 21, on a lecture given at Oxford University under the sponsorship of the Becket Fund on October 26, 2000).

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, Dignitatis Humanæ, John Paul II. Wojtyla, religious liberty

2. Some points of interest from a recent AD2000 article on Russia:

[…] In early July this year, the Russian Orthodox Church declared it was against becoming the state religion: "The Moscow Patriarchate's position on what relations between the state and the Church should be is invariable. We do not want the Church to become part of the state apparatus, state machinery, to assume secular functions," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, said.

He was commenting on a poll conducted by the Sreda Agency along with the Public Opinion foundation, of 1,500 people across 44 Russian regions, 100 towns and villages. According to the poll, 30% of Russians want Orthodoxy to become the state religion, 48% are against it and 23% did not have an opinion.

[…] According to Russia's census, the country's population plummeted by more than 12 million between 1992 and 2008, and stands at around 143 million today. Legalised abortion has accounted for a significant part of that drop, with some 1.5 million abortions reported in the country in 2007 - nearly the same as the number of children born in that year. Unofficial estimates indicate that there are nearly four million abortions per year in Russia yet only 1.7 million live births. The UN has predicted that by 2050 the Russian population will have dipped to 116 million. Russia's population will not be able to support its elderly citizens and the nation faces an acute worker shortage.

[…] WCF [World Congress of Families] Managing Director, Larry Jacobs, noted the Summit was coming at a crucial time. "It's not Russia alone that's experiencing demographic winter," Jacobs observed. "Worldwide, birthrates have declined by more than 50% since the late 1960s. By the year 2050, there will be 248 million fewer children under five years of age in the world than there are today. This birth dearth will be one of the greatest challenges confronting humanity in the 21st century," he said.

[…] A member of the Duma (Russia's parliament) Viktor Zvagelsky, said ads for abortion had made "young girls believe they won't have any problems interrupting a pregnancy." Another Duma member, Valery Draganov, said the "number of abortions in our country reaches six to eight million a year. Every minute, two abortions are carried out in Russia. Due to botched abortions, 20 percent of families lose the ability to become parents. One in every five pregnant women who dies, dies as a result of abortion. These are catastrophic statistics."

[…] Russian lawmakers have now passed a bill requiring all abortion advertisements to carry health warnings. Under this law, passed by the the Duma in early July, ten percent of the space used in abortion ads must carry a list of possible negative consequences for women, including infertility. The bill also stipulates that mothers who don't want to keep their babies will be able to leave their newborn children anonymously in special adoption centres.

Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, followed the Duma in approving the measure and President Dmitry Medvedev signed the legislation into law in mid-July.

[…] One of Russia's most visible pro-life leaders, is Svetlana Medvedeva, wife of Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev. At a "Sanctity of Motherhood" forum last year Mrs Medvedeva spoke about the "rights of a child to life," and about the "general lack of support" that usually drove women to "artificial termination of pregnancy."

[…] In a recent speech, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged to raise the nation's birthrate by up to 30% in just three years. Putin's plan calls for spending the equivalent of $53 billion to encourage Russian families to have more children. But Larry Jacobs says that more than cash incentives and government benefits will be needed to raise Russia's well below replacement birth rate. Family & Demography Foundation, which represents the World Congress of Families in Russia, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has announced the launch of its latest project: The Life-Family Medical Centers Network. These will be opened in all of the major cities in Russia and the CIS.
[My square-bracketed interpolations, everything else as in the original,
"Glimpses of a new dawn in Russia", by Babette Francis, from the September 2011 issue of AD2000, downloaded from the AD2000 website:
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2011/sep2011p8_3606.html]

Labels: abortion, Church and State, Confessional State, demography, R.O.C., Russia, Vladimir Putin

3. Fr. Harrison on God's creation of Eve

"Old or young earth?", a letter by The Rev. Fr. Brian Harrison O.S., from the October 2011 issue of AD2000, available on-line here:
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2011/oct2011p14_3634.html

"First Parents", a letter by The Rev. Fr. Brian Harrison O.S., from the November 2011 issue of AD2000, available on-line here:
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2011/nov2011p13_3657.html

"DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?[:] A DEFENCE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE - PART I", by The Rev. Fr. Brian Harrison O.S., in Living Tradtion, No. 97, January 2002
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt97.html

"DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?[:] A DEFENCE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE - PART II", by The Rev. Fr. Brian Harrison O.S., in Living Tradtion, No. 98, March 2002
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt98.html

I was glad to see that there was someone else who agreed with me that "we must necessarily admit the special creation of … Eve" (source). For convenience, here are Fr. Harrison's sources, taken from those two letters to AD2000, for his contention:

• the Profession of Faith of Pope Pelagius I., DS 443, Dz. 228a, available here:
  http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma3.php

• the Profession of Faith of The Ecumenical Council of Vienne, DS 901, Dz. 480, available here:
  http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma5.php

• the Encyclical Letter Arcanum, Leo XIII., A.D. 1880, available in English here:
  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_10021880_arcanum_en.html
  and in the original Latin, from the Acta Sanctae Sedis, 12, 1879-1880, p. 386, available here:
  http://www.vatican.va/archive/ass/documents/ASS%2012%20[1879]%20-%20ocr.pdf

• the Response of the Biblical Commission, June 30, 1909, to Question III, Dz. 2123, available here:
  http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma22.php

• I Cor. 11:8, 12

Labels: Adam (Patriarch), Creation, theology

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Anthony, Abbot, A.D. 2012

Notice regarding changes to this blog's lay-out

This post is just to point out that I have finally got round to making some changes to this blog's lay-out. (I have saved in a Notepad document the html text of the old lay-out, so if there's something from it which you want but which is not in the new lay-out, then let me know and I can e-mail it to you.)

Reginaldvs Cantvar
12.I.2012

Notes: Wednesday, December 21, 2011-Wednesday, January 11, 2012 (part 2 of 2)

8. H.H. The Pope's homily at a Mass on the 2012 World Day of Peace (January 1): In at least one respect, a vast improvement on His Holiness's Message ("Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace") for the celebration of the 2011 World Day of Peace:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20120101_world-day-peace_en.html

(That homily came to my attention via this item in a recent edition of the Vatican Information Service's (V.I.S.'s) daily e-mail bulletin:

"IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE IN JUSTICE AND PEACE"
VIS 20120102 (1090)
http://www.news.va/en/news/importance-of-educating-young-people-in-justice-an

See also this V.I.S. daily e-mail bulletin item:

"ANGELUS: PRAYING THAT THE NEW YEAR MAY BE A TIME OF PEACE"
VIS 20120102 (440)
http://www.news.va/en/news/angelus-praying-that-the-new-year-may-be-a-time-of)

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, religious liberty

9. On the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011

9.1 "ALL new laws will be checked to see whether they stack up against Australia's human rights commitments, after Attorney-General Nicola Roxon declared the sharper focus on rights would ensure legislation lived up to the nation's obligations"

"Laws to face human rights check", by Patricia Karvelas, dated January 4, 2012, downloaded from The Australian's website:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/laws-to-face-human-rights-check/story-fn59niix-1226235954400

Labels: Bill of Rights, human rights

9.2 Two editorials in The Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-case-for-trusting-the-judgment-of-parliament/story-e6frg71x-1226236809315

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-right-to-common-sense/story-e6frg71x-1226237750214

Labels: Bill of Rights, human rights

9.3 In relation to the so-called Malaysia Solution:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/the-malaysia-solution-ducks-rights-scrutiny/story-fn9hm1gu-1226236845046

Labels: Bill of Rights, human rights

10. A major new initiative for propagating the teachings of Vatican II

"Note with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith", from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated January 6, 2012:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20120106_nota-anno-fede_en.html

See here for the accompanying "Communiqué on the Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith".

(The web-page for the text of the Note came to my attention via this post by Terra; originally, the Note came to my attention via the following V.I.S. e-mail bulletin items:

"PASTORAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE YEAR OF FAITH"
VIS 20120105 (770)
http://www.news.va/en/news/pastoral-recommendations-for-the-year-of-faith

"PASTORAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE YEAR OF FAITH"
VIS 20120107 (1430)
http://www.news.va/en/news/pastoral-recommendations-for-the-year-of-faith-2)

Labels: C.E.C., Roman Curia, Vatican II

11. "[Catholics and others] will either have to change their views [on marriage] or be treated in the same way that white supremacists and the segregationist Senators were treated"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40323

Labels: discrimination, G.L.B.T., marriage, religious liberty

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Hyginus, Pope, Martyr, A.D. 2012

Notes: Wednesday, December 21, 2011-Wednesday, January 11, 2012 (part 1 of 2)

Firstly, let me say that I hope that you had a merry Christmas and are having a happy New Year.

1. Some recent data on the respective ages of Australian women who have given birth:

[The] experience of [an Australian woman] having her first baby after the age of 35 is increasingly common, new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare figures show, with the number of first-time mothers aged 35+ rising from 10.3 per cent in 2000 to 13.7 per cent in 2009 (the most recent year of data).

The report, Australia's mothers and babies 2009, released today, shows the average age of women who gave birth reaching 30 years, up from 29 in 2000.

"The proportion of mothers aged 35 and over also continues to rise -- up from 17.1 per cent in 2000 to 22.8 per cent in 2009," AIHW national perinatal epidemiology and statistics unit spokeswoman Elizabeth Sullivan said. "And mothers aged 40 and over made up 4 per cent of women giving birth in 2009 compared with 2.6 per cent in 2000."
["Happy to labour later in life, first-time mums push the age barrier", by Stephen Lunn, dated December 21, 2011, downloaded from The Australian's website:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/happy-to-labour-later-in-life-first-time-mums-push-the-age-barrier/story-e6frg8y6-1226227102521]

Labels: demography, families

2. "A woman has died from a failed legal abortion in Australia"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40166

http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com/2011/12/another-woman-dies-after-melbourne.html

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/12/22/abortion-hurts-women-not-to-mention-babies

Labels: abortion

3. "[Australian p]sychologists urge support of gay marriage as beneficial to mental health"

"Psychologists urge support of gay marriage as beneficial to mental health", by Milanda Rout, dated December 23, 2011, downloaded from The Australian's website:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/psychologists-urge-support-of-gay-marriage-as-beneficial-to-mental-health/story-e6frg8y6-1226228887945

Labels: A.P.S., G.L.B.T., marriage, mental health

4. "Navy rumour"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/more-work-not-higher-fares-will-solve-problem-20111229-1pe6y.html?skin=text-only

(That letter, of December 30, 2011, was a rejoinder to a letter published here under the heading "Under the carpet"; date: December 29, 2011.)

Labels: A.D.F., G.L.B.T.

5. Prof. Freddoso's (incomplete) translation of St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica:

http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm

(That came to my attention via one of the Christmas presents which I received, namely the book Just the Arguments; this is its website.)

Labels: philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas, theology

6. Fr. Gleize on the teachings of Vatican II

http://www.dici.org/en/documents/debate-about-vatican-ii-fr-gleize-responds-to-msgr-ocariz/

(If I recall correctly, that came to my attention via a recent issue of the e-mail newsletter of the S.S.P.X.'s U.S. District.)

Labels: Vatican II

7. Together At One Altar—"a resource for school aged children in years F-12 in Australia to develop their formation in the Eucharist and assist their full, active and conscious participation in the Eucharist":

http://www.togetheratonealtar.catholic.edu.au/index.cfm

(That came to my attention via this post at Terra's blog.)

Labels: liturgy, theology, Together At One Altar

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Hyginus, Pope, Martyr, A.D. 2012