“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. “For not every sin, however grave it …
Category archives: Texts
An “Ottaviani Intervention” on Signs and Wonders
Given the fever-pitch excitement (or anxiety) in many quarters over Francis’s upcoming consecration of Russia, it seems a good time to republish this 1953 text from Msgr Alfredo Ottaviani. He was later made the prefect of the Holy Office, and was chief signatory of the Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae (“The Ottaviani …
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St Thomas Aquinas on the Five Qualities of Prayer
I would like to offer our readers this beautiful text on prayer taken from the Catechetical Instructions of St Thomas Aquinas. This is now available in Tradivox Vol. VI (UK readers click here). It is also available at the Internet Archive. Reminder: We earn with purchases through Amazon links. We hope that the text from St …
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St Thomas Aquinas, Universal Doctor – Sermon by Fr Edward Leen CSSP, 1923
We are launching our Week of St Thomas Aquinas today, in honour of his feast (7 March), with this sermon by Fr Edward Leen CSSP, reprinted with permission from the Bellarmine Forums. Image: St Thomas, by Crivelli. Wiki Commons. St Thomas, Universal Doctor Fr Edward Leen – preached November 1923 SAINT THOMAS was born in …
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Newman on “The Eternal See”
In this brief piece I would like to draw attention to the following exalted description of the privileges and prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff, by John Henry Cardinal Newman. In this short text, entitled Cathedra Sempiterna, he drew together passages from his Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education [later editions published as …
The Last Will and Spiritual Testament of Louis XVI, King of France
“I finish by declaring before God and ready to appear before Him, that I do not reproach myself for any of the crimes which are brought against me.” As many know, January 21st marks the anniversary of France’s regicide. King Louis XVI of France was condemned to death on January 20th 1793, and the next …
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The implicit and tacit expressions of the ordinary magisterium – Chapter IIIb of Fr J.M.A. Vacant’s nineteenth-century work on the magisterium
“The youth of the Church is eternal and her doctrine infallible – death and corruption shall never destroy the branches and tissues once formed.” What is a Father of the Church? What authority do Doctors and theologians have in the Church? And what of the role of the liturgy? This is the second half of …
How the ordinary magisterium expresses itself – Chapter IIIa of Fr J.M.A. Vacant’s nineteenth-century work on the magisterium
Chapter III of Vacant’s work is long, and so the WM Review is publishing it in two parts. This first part addresses the express teaching of the ordinary magisterium, and the second will consider its implicit and tacit teaching acts. This part also describes the ways in which the Church makes use of natural sciences …
The organs and instruments of the ordinary magisterium – Chapter II of Fr J.M.A. Vacant’s nineteenth-century work on the magisterium
The WM Review continues our translation and publication of this nineteenth work on the ordinary magisterium. 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 Controverese, judged by …
The Ordinary and Universal Magisterium of the Church – Chapter I of nineteenth-century work on the magisterium by J.M.A. Vacant
We are pleased to present another section from this study by J.M.A. Vacant, in which he addresses the concept and the authority of the ordinary and universal magisterium. We previously published Chapter VI of this work, on the Pope’s personal exercise of this magisterium. Fr Vacant was a professor of the Major Seminary of Nancy, …