"The body of the episcopate can never perish or err, but each bishop can fall into error and even separate from his brothers through schism or heresy." Image: Bishops at Vatican II, Wiki Commons As we already noted, the author J.M.A. Vacant was the initial director of the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique and was a seminary professor. …
"Is a solemn definition by a Pope or a Council necessary to make a doctrine heretical?" Image: The Immaculate Conception, Wiki Commons As we already noted, the author J.M.A. Vacant was the initial director of the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique and was a seminary professor. This short work was awarded the prize for the theological competition in La …
"One triumphs completely over an enemy when one penetrates into his realm, even into his own house, and takes away his throne and his possessions." Image: Follower of Bosch, Christ in Limbo (Wiki Commons) Translator's Introduction The following text is an edited translation of the third chapter of Fr. Anselm Stolz’s work Theology of Mysticism. …
"What are the signs that identify a doctrine taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium?" This is the first half of Vacant's long Chapter IV, which considers again the different ways in which the Church's ordinary magisterium teaches us, and the obligations corresponding to these ways. As we already noted, the author J.M.A. Vacant …
"Would He drive away the Herodian princes as He had scattered the money-changers?" Image from Wiki Commons. Some line breaks added below, with some headings taken from the original Table of Contents. Fr Coleridge's book on St John the Baptist takes us up to the close of the saint's ministry, but not his life. Nonetheless, …
"Catholics and Protestants, as bodies, hold nothing in common in religion, however they may seem to do so." Image: Newman kneeling before Fr Dominic Barberi, who received him into the Church in Littlemore in 1845. From the parish of Littlemore. Editors' Notes What follows is an extract from the fifth of Newman’s series of discourses …
"When the Pope dies the Church is widowed." Image: Cardinal Journet, by Armand Niquille, Wiki Commons. Editors' Notes This part of our series on papal elections takes a diversion into an important question: What is the state of the Church during a papal interregnum? In the extract below, taken from his book The Church of …
Continue reading What is the Church like during a period of sede vacante? Journet & Cajetan tell us
"Nothing is easier than to use the word, and mean nothing by it." Image: Bust of Newman at Trinity College, Oxford where he was an undergraduate, and where one of our editors lived for a term. Wiki Commons, Public Domain Editors' Notes This is the third part of Discourse II (‘Theology a Branch of Knowledge’) of John …
Continue reading John Henry Newman, Anti-Modernist – Part III
"Faith is an intellectual act, its object truth, and its result knowledge." Image: Wiki Commons, Public Domain Editors' Notes This is the second part of Discourse II (‘Theology a Branch of Knowledge’) of John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University, in which he considers the arguments of those who would exclude the teaching of …
Continue reading John Henry Newman, Anti-Modernist – Part II
"It is very plain, that a Divine Being and a University so circumstanced cannot co-exist." Image: Wiki Commons, Public Domain Editors' Notes In Discourse II (‘Theology a Branch of Knowledge’) of his The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman considers the arguments of those who would exclude the teaching of theology from university – …