Friday, August 8, 2014

If you are not going to live in the Apostolic Palace, could I?

"If you could say one thing to Pope Francis in person, what would it be?
"If you are not going to live in the Apostolic Palace, could I?"

Thursday, August 7, 2014

sensus Ecclesiae: "feeling and thinking and willing in and with the Church"

"a Christian without the Church is incomprehensible. This is why the great Paul VI said that it is an absurd dichotomy to love Christ without the Church; to listen to Christ but not to the Church; to remain with Christ on the margins of the Church."

And what the Church requires of us are 1) humility, 3) service, and 2) fidelity, obedience to the Lord and fidelty "to his teaching, to his law":  "fidelity to the Church, fidelity to her teaching, fidelity to the Creed, fidelity to her doctrine, and safeguarding this doctrine".


     Pope Francis, "Morning meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae," Thursday, 30 January 2014, with reference, I'm guessing, to Evangelii nuntiandi 16 (8 December 1975):

16. There is thus a profound link between Christ, the Church and evangelization. During the period of the Church that we are living in, it is she who has the task of evangelizing. This mandate is not accomplished without her, and still less against her. 
     It is certainly fitting to recall this fact at a moment like the present one when it happens that not without sorrow we can hear people - whom we wish to believe are well-intentioned but who are certainly misguided in their attitude - continually claiming to love Christ but without the Church, to listen to Christ but not the Church, to belong to Christ but outside the Church. The absurdity of this dichotomy is clearly evident in this phrase of the Gospel: 'Anyone who rejects you rejects me.' And how can one wish to love Christ without loving the Church, if the finest witness to Christ is that of St. Paul: 'Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her'?
Latin, from AAS 68 (1976):  15-16 (9-26).  The latter (which is most emphatically not a simple scan of the original (e.g. "semetipsum pro ea ? 45", at the bottom, below, comes out as "semtipsum pro ea f45")) I have checked against the official version of AAS 68 (1976) in print.  Because the English is unduly expansive, as I indicate in bold red:
16. Arctissima igitur necessitudo intercedit inter Christum, Ecclesiam, evangelizationem. Per hoc «Ecclesiae tempus», ipsa munus creditum habet evangelizandi. Quod munus fas non est exsequi sine ipsa vel, multo minus, contra ipsam. 
     Expedit hoc breviter commonere, quod non sine dolore nostris audiri temporibus homines evenit  etsi bona fide ductos, ut Nobis opinari placet, a recta via tamen certe deflectentes  qui saepe affirment se amare velle Christum, non autem Ecclesiam. Quam absurda sit huiusmodi divisio, manifesto patet ex hac Evangelii sententia: Qui vos spernit, me spernit. Qua autem ratione quis dicat se Christum amare velle, quin amet Ecclesiam, quandoquidem testimonium unum omnium excellentissimum de Christo perhibitum, illud S. Pauli est: Christus dilexit Ecclesiam et tradidit semetipsum pro ea?
I.e. "to wish to love [or be in love with (se amare)] Christ, but not the Church" (period).
     Interesting.  The Italian ("amare il Cristo, ma non la Chiesa, ascoltare il Cristo, ma non la Chiesa, appartenere al Cristo, ma al di fuori della Chiesa") is, too.  And so is the French ("aimer le Christ mais sans l’Eglise, écouter le Christ mais non l’Eglise, être au Christ mais en dehors de l’Eglise"), the German ("Christus zu lieben, aber ohne die Kirche; auf Christus zu hören, aber nicht auf die Kirche; mit Christus zu sein, aber außerhalb der Kirche"), the Portuguese ("amar a Cristo mas sem a Igreja, ouvir a Cristo mas não à Igreja, ser de Cristo mas fora da Igreja"), and the Spanish ("amar a Cristo pero sin la Iglesia, escuchar a Cristo pero no a la Iglesia, estar en Cristo pero al margen de la Iglesia"), not to mention the Croatian ("ljubiti Krista ali bez Crkve, slušati Krista ali ne i Crkvu, pripadati Kristu ali izvan Crkve").  Only the Hungarian appears to me (though I don't read it) to follow the Latin.
     So was this delivered in Italian, and then cut down for promulgation in AAS 68 (1976)?  Clearly, Pope Francis is quoting a vernacular tradition.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Ecclesia semper reformanda

"In contrast to a widespread opinion among systematic theologians, the formula ecclesia semper reformanda is not attested in Protestant theology of the sixteenth century. It is most likely that the idea that the Reformation should not remain simply a one-time event, but that it is an ongoing duty of the church, goes back to those Dutch pastors who should be placed in the context of the prehistory of Pietism."

     Oxford encyclopedia of the Reformation (1996), s.v. "Reform," by Konrad Repgen, as trans. Robert E. Shillenn (vol. 3, p. 395), underscoring mine.
     For much more, go here.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

"watch the noyous night, and wait for ioyous day."

When gentle Vna saw the second fall
   Of her deare knight, who wearie of long fight,
   And faint through losse of bloud, mou'd not at all,
   But lay as in a dreame of deepe delight,
   Besmeard with pretious Balme, whose vertuous might
   Did heale his wounds, and scorching heat alay,
   Againe she stricken was with sore affright,
   And for his safetie gan deuoutly pray;
And watch the noyous night, and wait for ioyous day.

     Edmund Spenser, The faerie queene I.xi.50.

Anaphora

So downe he fell, and forth his life did breath,
   That vanisht into smoke and cloudes swift;
   So downe he fell, that th'earth him vnderneath
   Did grone, as feeble so great load to lift;
   So downe he fell, as an huge rockie clift,
   Whose false foundation waues haue washt away,
   With dreadfull poyse is from the mayneland rift,
   And rolling downe, great Neptune doth dismay;
So downe he fell, and like an heaped mountaine lay.

     Edmund Spenser, The faerie queene I.xi.54, of the dragon slain by the Redcrosse Knight Georgos (I.10.66), St. George of England.