Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 266

Blessed Duns Scotus, faithful disciple of Saint Francis

Today is the feast day of Blessed Duns Scotus; from CatholicCulture.org:

Newly beatified in 1993 by John Paul II, the Franciscans and other particular calendars may celebrate the optional memorial of Blessed John Duns Scotus, a Scottish Franciscan priest and theologian who died in 1308. He was the founder of the Scotistic School in Theology, and until the time of the French Revolution his thought dominated the Roman Catholic faculties of theology in nearly all the major universities of Europe. He is chiefly known for his theology on the Absolute Kingship of Jesus Christ, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his philosophic refutation of evolution. He is also known as the "Doctor of Mary Immaculate" because of his defense of the Immaculate Conception.

Ignatius Press recently released the film, Blessed Duns Scotus: Defender of the Immaculate Conception, which won major awards for Best Movie and Best Actor at the 2011 International Catholic Film Festival. I've not yet seen it, but hope to soon. Watch the trailer here. And for a short, introductory biography, see Pope Benedict XVI's July 7, 2010, general audience:

Because of the fame of his holiness, his cult soon became widespread in the Franciscan Order and Venerable Pope John Paul II, wishing to confirm it, solemnly beatified him on 20 March 1993, describing him as the "minstrel of the Incarnate Word and defender of Mary's Immaculate Conception" (Solemn Vespers, St Peter's Basilica; L'Osservatore Romano [ore] English edition, n.3, 24 March 1993, p. 1). These words sum up the important contribution that Duns Scotus made to the history of theology.

First of all he meditated on the Mystery of the Incarnation and, unlike many Christian thinkers of the time, held that the Son of God would have been made man even if humanity had not sinned. He says in his "Reportatio Parisiensis":  "To think that God would have given up such a task had Adam not sinned would be quite unreasonable! I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of Christ's predestination and that if no one had fallen, neither the angel nor man in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way" (in III Sent., d. 7, 4). This perhaps somewhat surprising thought crystallized because, in the opinion of Duns Scotus the Incarnation of the Son of God, planned from all eternity by God the Father at the level of love is the fulfilment of creation and enables every creature, in Christ and through Christ, to be filled with grace and to praise and glorify God in eternity. Although Duns Scotus was aware that in fact, because of original sin, Christ redeemed us with his Passion, Death and Resurrection, he reaffirmed that the Incarnation is the greatest and most beautiful work of the entire history of salvation, that it is not conditioned by any contingent fact but is God's original idea of ultimately uniting with himself the whole of creation, in the Person and Flesh of the Son.

As a faithful disciple of St Francis, Duns Scotus liked to contemplate and preach the Mystery of the saving Passion of Christ, as the expression of the loving will, of the immense love of God who reaches out with the greatest generosity, irradiating his goodness and love (cf. Tractatus de primo principio, c. 4). Moreover this love was not only revealed on Calvary but also in the Most Blessed Eucharist, for which Duns Scotus had a very deep devotion and which he saw as the Sacrament of the Real Presence of Jesus and as the Sacrament of unity and communion that induces us to love each other and to love God, as the Supreme Good we have in common (cf. Reportatio Parisiensis, in IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, n. 3). As I wrote in my Letter for the International Congress in Cologne marking the seventh centenary of the death of Blessed Duns Scotus, citing the thought of our author: "just as this love, this charity, was at the origin of all things, so too our eternal happiness will be in love and charity alone: 'willing, or the loving will, is simply eternal life, blessed and perfect'" (AAS 101 [2009], 5).

Read the entire audience on the Vatican site.

Peter Kreeft recounts his journey from Calvinism to Catholicism...

... in his essay, "Hauled Aboard the Ark", on the Coming Home Network site:

I was born into a loving, believing community, a Protestant "mother church" (the Reformed Church) which, though it had not for me the fullness of the faith, had strong and genuine piety. I believed, mainly because of the good example of my parents and my church. The faith of my parents, Sunday School teachers, ministers, and relatives made a real difference to their lives, a difference big enough to compensate for many shortcomings. "Love covers a multitude of sins."

I was taught what C. S. Lewis calls "mere Christianity," essentially the Bible. But no one reads the Bible as an extraterrestrial or an angel; our church community provides the colored glasses through which we read, and the framework, or horizon, or limits within which we understand. My "glasses" were of Dutch Reformed Calvinist construction, and my limiting framework stopped very far short of anything "Catholic!" The Catholic Church was regarded with utmost suspicion. In the world of the forties and fifties in which I grew up, that suspicion may have been equally reciprocated by most Catholics. Each group believed that most of the other groups were probably on the road to hell. Christian ecumenism and understanding has made astonishing strides since then.

Dutch Calvinists, like most conservative Protestants, sincerely believed that Catholic-ism was not only heresy but idolatry; that Catholics worshipped the Church, the Pope, Mary, saints, images, and who knows what else; that the Church had added some inane "traditions of men" to the Word of God, traditions and doctrines that obviously contradicted it (how could they not see this? I wondered); and, most important of all, that Catholics believed "another gospel;" another religion, that they didn't even know how to get to Heaven: they tried to pile up brownie points with God with their good works, trying to work their way in instead of trusting in Jesus as their Savior. They never read the Bible, obviously.

I was never taught to hate Catholics, but to pity them and to fear their errors. I learned a serious concern for truth that to this day I find sadly missing in many Catholic circles. The typical Calvinist anti-Catholic attitude I knew was not so much prejudice, judgment with no concern for evidence, but judgment based on apparent and false evidence: sincere mistakes rather than dishonest rationalizations.

Though I thought it pagan rather than Christian, the richness and mystery of Catholicism fascinated me—the dimensions which avant-garde liturgists have been dismantling since the Silly Sixties. (When God saw that the Church in America lacked persecutions, he sent them liturgists.)

Read the entire piece. And for much more Kreeft, who has some three dozen or so Ignatius Press titles to his credit (along with several other titles for other publishers), visit his Ignatius Insight Author page:

Joseph Pearce calls the movie, "Anonymous", an "act of defamation against the Bard himself"

From his essay, "Anything But Anonymous: Shakespeare the Catholic ", on the Crisis magazine site:

Almost five hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare remains one of the most important figures in human history. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Homer and Dante, he is part of the triumvirate of literary giants who straddle the centuries as permanent witnesses of the permanent things. It is, therefore, gratifying that modern scholarship is showing that this great genius was a believing Catholic in very anti-Catholic times. In this light, Anonymous, the latest Hollywood film purporting to depict Shakespeare and his times, is not only a travesty of history but an act of defamation against the Bard himself.

Anonymous is based upon the discredited "Oxfordian" hypothesis that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, wrote Shakespeare's plays.

Although the Oxfordians have erected fabulously imaginative theories to prove that Edward de Vere wrote the plays, it takes a great deal of naiveté and gullibility to take their claims seriously. Edward de Vere died in 1604, a year after the death of Queen Elizabeth, and about eight years before the last of Shakespeare's plays was written and performed. Needless to say, the Oxfordians have gone to great lengths, stretching the bounds of credulity to the very limit (and beyond), to explain why the plays were not performed until after their "Shakespeare's" death.

The claims of the Oxfordians might be bizarre but they are positively pedestrian compared to some of the wackier "Shakespeare" theorists. Other aristocratic candidates who are alleged by some to have been the real Shakespeare include King James I, and the earls of Derby, Rutland, Essex and Southampton. Others have claimed that Mr Shakespeare was really Mrs Shakespeare, in the sense that the plays were really written by Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, using her husband's name as a nom de plume.

It would, perhaps, be a little unfair to suggest that the relatively sober claims of the Oxfordians are as ridiculous as the wackier theories. Ultimately, however, the Oxfordian case can be disproved through the application of solid historical evidence, combined with common sense. Take, for example, the central premise of the Oxfordian case that the plays must have been written by an aristocrat or, at least, by one with a university education, on the assumption that Shakespeare, as a commoner without a university education, must have been illiterate, or, at any rate, incapable of writing literature of such sublime quality.

Read the entire piece. Joseph, for those who don't know, is the author of three books on Shakespeare—The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome (Ignatius Press, 2008), Through Shakespeare's Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays (Ignatius Press, 2010), and Shakespeare On Love (Ignatius Press; to be published in 2012).

Related on Insight Scoop and Ignatius Insight:

• Fr. Joseph Fessio and Joseph Pearce discuss, "Who really was William Shakespeare?" (Oct. 28, 2011)
• A "Bard's-eye" View | The Preface and Prologue to Through Shakespeare's Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays | Joseph Pearce
• Finding Shakespeare and Reclaiming the Classics | Joseph Pearce
• Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up? | The opening chapter of The Quest for Shakespeare
• Fr. Joseph Fessio and Joseph Pearce Talk About Shakespeare | A video interview (Sept. 8, 2008)
• The Quest for Shakespeare website (includes a PDF version of this excerpt from The Quest for Shakespeare)

Abp. Timothy Dolan lays down the law on "same-sex marriages"

From the Archbishop of New York's decree about marriage and the recently enacted law in New York State "that recognizes same-sex unions as marriages":

Recognizing my responsibility as Diocesan Bishop to guide the Faithful by clearly teaching the truths of the Faith with charity and without compromise, I hereby decree the following diocesan policy regarding same-sex civil marriages. This policy is to be followed by all persons whose activities are subject to my moral authority as Archbishop of New York. It is intended to provide instruction for the activities of these persons and for the use of the property and facilities of the Church and Catholic-affiliated entities within the canonical boundaries of this Archdiocese.

Accordingly, it is the policy of the Archdiocese of New York that:

(1) No member of the clergy (priest or deacon) incardinated in the Archdiocese of New York, or any person while acting as an employee of the Church, may participate in the civil solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage, which includes but is not limited to providing services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, good or privileges for such events. Ecclesiastical solemnization or celebration of same-sex marriages is expressly forbidden by Canon law.

(2) No Catholic facility or property, including but not limited to parishes, missions, chapels, meeting halls, Catholic educational, health, or charitable institutions or benevolent orders, or any place dedicated, consecrated, or used for Catholic worship may be used for the solemnization or consecration of same-sex marriages.

Read the entire decree.

Preaching by Charity: Msgr. Leo Maasburg on the life of Mother Teresa

Preaching by Charity: Msgr. Leo Maasburg on the life of Mother Teresa | Michael J. Miller | Catholic World Report

Msgr. Leo Maasburg is national director of the Pontifical Missionary Work in Austria. For several years after his ordination in 1982 he accompanied Mother Teresa of Calcutta on many journeys to destinations ranging from Moscow to New York. He was interviewed in German for Catholic World Report in late August. The English edition of his book Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Personal Portrait, was released by Ignatius Press in September. 

Who introduced you to Mother Teresa of Calcutta? How did you become a collaborator in the apostolate of her Missionaries of Charity? 

Msgr. Maasburg: A Slovak bishop who had been friends with Mother Teresa since the World Eucharistic Congress in Bombay (now Mumbai) introduced me to the Blessed. During one of my first visits, Mother Teresa wanted to know whether I owned an automobile and, since I did have one, she immediately assigned me my first "job." After she had become better acquainted with me in this way—and I with her sisters—she asked me (at that time still a newly ordained priest) to conduct a week of spiritual exercises for her sisters. Astonished and terrified, I asked what I should talk about. The answer came promptly: "About Jesus, of course—what else?" 

What did you learn about missionary work by visiting Mother Teresa's communities in India? 

Msgr. Maasburg: During the years when I was privileged to accompany Blessed Teresa on many journeys, I was studying missiology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. It was very interesting to study theory in Rome, the center of the Church, and to experience the practice more or less at the same time in a wide variety of mission territories. I think that despite all the differences between the theoretical and the practical approach, the goal was the same: to teach and to show Jesus, who is love, to believe in him and to live out that love. 

What completely captivates me, now as then, is the close connection between the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and his presence in his "distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor," as Mother Teresa used to say. Blessed Teresa clearly showed her sisters and us helpers that the most fully developed and most profound way to preach the Gospel is to love the poorest. Regardless of religion, skin color, or ideology, love is the only preaching that is understood worldwide by all people of good will. 

Tell us something about your travels with Mother Teresa to the New World. 

Read the entire interview on www.CatholicWorldReport.com...

"It's a valuable, timely book that should be in the hands of every young woman you know."

Brandon Vogt reviews Teresa Tomeo's new book, Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ, Not Conformed to the Culture, on the Thin Veil blog:

One of the chapters includes what Tomeo calls a "spiritual detox", a practical game-plan for spiritual healing. There she provides many practices that any woman can do to not only banish a distorted view of feminism but to replace it with one filled with dignity. Her core message here is that a woman's value is not tied to her physical appearance nor to what she does, but to the simple fact that God wants her in this world, that she is a "Daughter of the King."

Extreme Makeover wraps up with a handful of testimonials from women whose lives were similarly changed through discovering their dignity in Christ. It's fascinating to see how each woman was healed by recovering their own dignity.

Author Meg Meeker claims that "Extreme Makeover will be one of the most significant books for women in the 21st century. It pulls back the curtain on why every woman feels confused and hurt."

I completely agree with that and think Extreme Makeover  can be a key for many women to unlock the prison of false womanhood--a true guide to feminine freedom. It's a valuable, timely book that should be in the hands of every young woman you know.

Read the entire review. Learn more about Extreme Makeover on the book's site and by reading this excerpt:

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Western civilization ends, not with a bang...

... but with a whinny:

The latest incarnation of Hasbro's My Little Pony empire has generated buzz among an unexpected fan base: grown men.

So what if the target demographic for the television show and toys featuring brightly colored, sparkly equines is 6- to 12-year-old girls?

The nationwide contingent of men who call themselves "bronies" say they're man enough to admit they love "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic," The Hub television network's newest generation of the children's brand first popularized in the 1980s.

"Just because it's a kids' cartoon show doesn't mean it's not entertaining," says Jacob Schultz, a 20-year-old self-professed brony from Eagle Creek. "Ignoring the fact that they're colorful ponies, they have a good story and characterization behind them."

Schultz is part of a Portland-based group of bronies that recently began meeting to share their passion. The group's latest endeavor, July's "Northwest Bronyfest," attracted 80 My Little Pony enthusiasts -- mostly men, plus a handful of women -- for a two-day celebration of bronyism.

The Romans were conquered, or at least finished off, by barbarians on horses. Will we succumb to the "My Little Pony empire"? Whoa... (ht: Iowa Hawk).

Hey, Mr. Bill D. Strawman, how about some facts and use of the frontal lobe?

Common sense says, "Don't bother arguing with someone named 'Ron Mexico'" (see Proverbs 26:4 for general guidelines), but I'm inclined to think that, sadly, his brand of south-of-the-truth, insulting nonsense is more than commonplace:

Catholics claim opposition to all birth control.  You didn't need to follow the latest dust up between between President Obama and Catholicism, Inc. to know that much.  But every last Catholic, it seems, has grossly misinterpreted the particulars of that particular divine mandate. 

The most god-awful form of contraception, which gets condom usage confused with taking communion, is voluntary, intentional abstinence.  At least condoms fail once in a while.   

Do Catholics claim opposition to all birth control, if by "birth control" is meant controlling the number and occasion of conceptions and births? Not according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Mr. Mexico has likely never touched, let alone opened, read, or considered:

A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality ...

Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. (pars. 2368, 2370)

The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception). (par. 2399)

Read the entire section from the CCC. Perhaps Mr. Mexico is unaware that contraceptions are not the only means of regulating procreation. However, judging from the argument he makes next, he's not concerned to much with facts or fairness:

So these folks, these pro-life traditionalists, would have us believe the cells constituting a fertilized egg have crossed the magical Rubicon into complete human being.  But an unfertilized egg is nothing? ...

I almost understand the argument that those few fertilized cells should be considered a full-fledged person because of their potential to become an actual person.  But by that reasoning, every egg has every bit as much God-given potential. ...

God did His job.  He set the table for life.  The Lord left it in your hands, creating a person even before you elected to flush it out.  With a middle school understanding how basic biology functions, it is a conscious decision for a Christian female to decide that egg, her son or daughter, will never see a rainbow.  

Using simple pro-life logic, the funeral that is menstruation is simply an indication she did not choose life, but opted for a pre-term abortion.

Once again, Mr. Mexico tries mightly to force Catholics be defend a position they don't hold and is contrary to science and logic. Catholics believe that human life begins at conception, that is, in scientific terms, "with the union of an oocyte and a sperm during fertilization" (The Developing Human Being, by Keith Moore, and T.V.N. Persaud; 7th edition, 2003). That belief is upheld and presented in numerous textbooks and books about embryology. There's also the fact that a woman has, on average, about 400,000 potential eggs, of which some 480 or so "will actually ever be released during her reproductive years". Needless to say, even Catholic families don't have 480 children, even if some which they could!

But this is rather beside the point since the Church's teachings about regulating births has to do with openness to life, which of course involves conjugal relations between husband and wife, and the rejection of contraceptives, which violates and hinders the marriage act. Saying that a woman who allows any of her eggs to go unfertized is somehow implicated in an abortion is idiotic and demonstates a failure to grasp elementary school biology and plain common sense. But, then, this is how it works so often with the Mr. Mexicos of the world: despising Catholicism, they assume it to be completely wrong and backwards, and so feel free to use any and all facile nonsense to attack it. It is about destruction, not truth. Unfortunately, in a world given to a hatred of moral truth and a love for facile nonsense, this inchoate barbarism often finds receptive minds. "The simple acquire folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge" (Prov. 14:18).

Related Ignatius Insight Articles and Book Excerpts:

• • The Truth About Conscience | John F. Kippley
• The Case Against Abortion | An Interview with Dr. Francis Beckwith
• Abortion and Ideology | Raymond Dennehy
• Contraception and Homosexuality: The Sterile Link of Separation | Dr. Raymond Dennehy
• Human Sexuality and the Catholic Church | Donald P. Asci | Introduction to The Conjugal Act as a Personal Act
• Who Is Married? | Edward Peters
• Marriage and the Family in Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae | Reverend Michael Hull, S.T.D.
• Male and Female He Created Them | Cardinal Estevez

Facebook pages for "10 Univeral Principles" and "The Father's Tale"...

... are up and running and filling with information about these two new books from Ignatius Press, as well information about public appearances by Fr. Spitzer and Michael O'Brien:

•  Facebook page for Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues, by Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, S.J.
 
• Facebook page for The Father's Tale: A Novel, by Michael O'Brien

Video trailer for Michael O'Brien's new novel, "The Father's Tale"

The novel is available in hardcover and as an electronic book download.