Traditional Latin Mass in Maryland

Carl Olson posted a portion of this to the Ignatius Insight Scoop blog. It is a very fine tribute by Dr. Kengor, and I pray that many have a chance to read it . The employment of the Socratic method in a "great books environment" suggests that Thomas Aquinas College is something very special. Speaking of which, I remember one particular anecdote that Dillon shared with me, which illustrates the sorry state of American higher education--and the uniqueness of Dillon and his college. Dillon had been at a recent meeting of university presidents. A matter of morality came up. One of the presidents, naturally assuming they were all secular relativists--excellent odds--casually chimed in: "There are no absolutes." It was sophistry as old as Pilate, "What is truth?" and, more ancient still, as naked as the Garden of Eden, "Ye Shall Be as Gods." The first of sins that precipitated the fall: pride. Dillon's students and faculty dispatch these ...

Carl Olson pens a factual analysis of the upcoming movie, " Angels & Demons ," the follow-up (actually the prequel) to the book-made-movie by Dan Brown, " The Da Vinci Code ." In short, it is anti-Catholic; William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has pointed that out already . Olson, however, reveals the errors aplenty. Will it change any minds about seeing this movie? I don't know. As the saying goes, " De gustibus non est disputandum ."

Carl Olson has posted two stories on the Insight Blog that are fascinating. The f irst is entitled, "Douglas Kmiec comes out against Proposition 8 ...". The second is entitled, "Kathleen Sebelius = "Pro-Choice Pro-Lifer "? Both posts are interesting reads.

Carl Olson has more to say on the state of catechesis within the Church . He quotes Mark Brumley, Phil Lawler and Pope John Paul II to hammer the message home. I guess this kind of analysis is going to go on for quite some time. Wow...

Carl Olson links to a story in the July 13th edition of Our Sunday Visitor on the Ignatius Insight Scoop blog on procedures carried out on patients in Catholic Hospitals in Texas . The OSV story is by Ann Carey who has done an incredibly detailed investigation.

Carl Olson posts a link to a fascinating article on "The Renewal of Vatican II: Distractions and Distortions" by Douglas Bushman . It is a long article, but well worth reading carefully. Here is a short snip from the opening paragraphs: Seemingly widely diverse, these examples have something in common; they are visible and institutional changes. Observable changes such as these naturally draw our attention; they are the first things we notice. The Council, however, did not see changes as ends in themselves, but as means to something higher. The challenge is to look beyond them, or through them, to discover that more profound reality. Such a "looking beyond" is natural for Catholic faith, which perceives the Son of God in Jesus of Nazareth, and the bestowal of grace in the visible signs we call sacraments. What is that more profound reality? It is holiness, as unchanging in its nature as doctrine, the essence of the sacraments, and the hierarchical constitution ...

This article on Ignatius Insight and titled, " Ratzinger's Faith and Reason >> In Appreciation of Tracey Rowland's 'Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI' " is a book review by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. Father Schall chooses these two paragraphs to begin his review: "Benedict believes that the Mass is a Holy Sacrifice, offered ritually as worship, not a fellowship meal, that those who attend do so for the purpose of Divine Worship, that music which is based on most contemporary popular musical forms is completely unworthy, and that everything that is related to the Mass and other liturgies of the Church should be marked by beauty. Beauty is not an optional extra or something contrary to a preferential option for the poor. It is not a scandal to clothe sacred words in silken garments. Catholics are not tone deaf philistines who will be intellectually challenged by the use of a liturgical language or put off by ch...

There is a fascinating article posted on Ignatius Insight concerning the historical transformation of studies on "the Inquisition " to what is now called the "Golden Age" of historically accurate "Inquisition studies." This is a must read of tenacity and scholarship.

Carl Olson has a fascinating interview on Ignatius Insight with Joseph Pearce, the author of " The Quest for Shakespeare . " The interview then continues on to discuss the new Ignatius Critical Editions (ICEs) which will be published as new editions of classics devoid of modernist "PC" additions and/or "critical commentary" so prevalent today in book sets. Here is a snippet of the interview: Ignatius Insight: There has been a tremendous amount of debate in recent years about Shakespeare's identity and the nature of his religious beliefs. Can you provide a basic overview to those debates? Pearce: I give an overview of the various aspects of this debate in the opening chapter of my book. I show that the claims of those who say that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays are fundamentally flawed and are rooted in an ignorance of the real William Shakespeare. I then show that the claims of those who believe that Shakespeare was a Protestant or t...

Carl Olson posted a story on the Ignatius Insight Blog about a story that appeared in Catholic World Report by Professor Germain Grisez. CRS has responded and their response is posted today .

Carl Olson in Insight Scoop is reporting that Archbishop Raymond Burke has declared the excommunications of would-be priestesses Rose Hudson and Elsie McGrath, and also of pretend-bishop Patricia Fresen. This decree...declares as follows : 1) that McGrath, Hudson and Fresen have incurred the censure of excommunication latae sententiae for the crime of schism (cann. 1331, 1364 s. 1); 2) that upon McGrath, Hudson and Fresen is imposed the ferendae sententiae censure of interdict for the crime of pertinacious rejection of a truth of the faith after admonition by the Ordinary (can. 1371, para. 1); and, 3) that upon Fresen is imposed the ferendae sententiae censure of excommunication for the crime of simulation of the sacrament of Holy Orders (can. 1379). Read the entire story here .

I confess ... I am a huge fan of the "Apostle of Common Sense," Gilbert K. Chesterton . So, when I saw this wonderful article on Ignatius Insight by Carl Olson, I couldn't pass it by . I hope you will not pass it by either. After all, as Olson notes: This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy , widely regarded as one of the most important and unique works of Christian apologetics written in modern times . I would gladly second that. By the way, if you want to "sample Chesterton" before delving in, there is no better way than Gilbert Magazine . The publisher is Dale Ahlquist . Yes, that's right. He's the fine chap who explains Gilbert to us weekly on EWTN at 9:00 EST. That show is another delight!

The Ignatius Insight Scoop blog has a marvelous article by Carl Olson on the decision by Bishop Edward K. Braxton of Belleville, Illinois to block the appearance of a Bible scholar, Professor Luke Timothy Johnson of Emory University at a Catholic Newman Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. There is no way I can do this justice--even in summary--so I urge you to check out this article by Olson. Olson really "nails it . "

Ignatius Insight Scoop has a post by Carl Olson that summarizes a fascinating and yet sobering article by Jeff Ziegler on religious vocations in the United States . The post is a summary of an article from Catholic World Report which is very in-depth. In culling through the article, one paragraph jumps out and it was mentioned by several commentators on the Insight Scoop blog: Echoing the comments of other bishops and vocation directors, Paterson's Bishop Serratelli tells CWR , "God has been good to us. In the last three years, we have earnestly begged him for an increase of vocations. We instituted a pastoral initiative in all the parishes on all vocations, with a special emphasis on priesthood and the consecrated life… We have encouraged prayer by everyone, especially prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Where Jesus is loved and adored in the Eucharist, vocations follow ." That sort of makes sense, doesn't it? If we all kneel before Jesus in the Holy Eucharist a...

Father James V. Schall, S.J. posts an incredible essay on Ignatius Insight dated February 18th. Here is just a snippet: [...] For a long time, even into early modernity, it was considered that "human nature" would itself be the criterion for establishing the "limits" of science. It was understood that what man is from nature cannot and ought not to be experimented with or radically altered. If from Hume on there is a doubt about whether a nature, human or otherwise, exists or can be known, such a limit disappears. Nothing now prevented the elimination of a given human nature as a norm of human worth. Once man himself became an object of his own scientific studies, however, the very structure of man was called into question. Science becomes not so much a study of what is as of what "ought to be"—as if what man actually was had no prior meaning. We only want to know "What we can do." Man himself becomes an object of "scientific" im...

Stephen N. Filippo has a marvelous essay on Pelagianism on Ignatius Insight . This article originally appeared in a slightly different form in the November 1997 issue of Catholic Dossier. Here are just a few paragraphs to give you a peek: Although Pelagianism promoted moral fervor, there was an inherent danger in it: self-reliance, not God-reliance, based upon an inadequate understanding of human nature. Pelagianism stressed complete human autonomy and freedom of the will before God. Pelagius posited three elements to any moral action: 1. that we must be able to do it, 2. that we must be willing to do it, and 3. that the action must be carried out. Or the three elements can be described as possibility, will, and action. Possibility is a natural gift from God alone, but the other two, since they arise from man's choice, are from man. For instance, God has freely given us the gifts of speech, sight, hearing, etc., and the power to speak, see hear, etc., yet whether or not thes...

Due to travel during Christmastide, this is the final post for this week. I can think of no better meditation than that on the Incarnation written by Frank Sheed . It is linked here from the Ignatius Insight blog. I wish all a Happy and Most Holy Christmas! The human race then had broken its right relation of friendship with God: men had lost the way because they had lost the life (without which the way cannot be followed) and the truth without which the way cannot even be known. To such a world Christ, who had come to make all things new, said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." In those three words–way, truth, life–Christ related Himself quite precisely to what man had lost: as precisely as a key fits a lock. In the precision of that threefold relation, we are apt to overlook the strangest word in the phrase–the word "am." Men needed truth and life: what they might have expected was one who w...

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. posts a beautiful meditation on Ignatius Insight : In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost , we find the following stanza: "At Christmas I no more desire a rose / Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth; / But like of each thing that in season grows" (I, 105). Today, of course, we can order roses for Christmas from the local florist. He will get them from a hot-house or flown in from some distant spot where they are in bloom. And if we run ski slopes during May, we can manufacture our snow when late spring storms fail to fall on slopes in Colorado or the Alps. Yet, Shakespeare is right; we know things better if we wait till their time. My own childhood memories of the days leading up to Christmas were ones of waiting and expectancy. These are both great categories of finite being. Without the waiting, the reality of Christmas is not nearly so wondrous. Some things we cannot have unless we wait for them to be what they are. I so...