"Ye play with your palms and crowns beneath the very altar." There are many moments of beauty and pathos in the Church's year. But, in my opinion, few are so equally filled with both bitterness and glory as the feast of the Holy Innocents. It is very noticeable that Christ's coming to the world is …
"What does it mean for the Church to be visible?" Editor’s comment: Whatever some may think about Archbishop Lefebvre, his thoughts, words, and deeds, it is clear that he was an enormously significant figure in the twentieth century response to Vatican II. Hence, while he is not an authority, what he thought about the Conciliar …
Thesis: The Church at least sometimes expects us to apprehend reality and make cognitive judgments without waiting for the intervention of an authority; canon law may include processes for authoritative judgments on such matters, but this does not always absolve a man from the duty of making a cognitive judgment - nor does it prohibit …
This essay consists of two parts: Part I - Review of Baronius Press's edition of the Roman Catechism Part II - The Roman Catechism itself Historical backgroundThe authority of the Roman CatechismClergy and theologians on the CatechismComparison with the modern catechismThe Roman Catechism and the crisis in the ChurchThe nature and structure of this Catechism. …
Introduction In the first three parts of this series, we have seen that: The Catholic Church is a perpetually visible society which must therefore consist of members whose identity is discernible by the senses;The sacrament of baptism is necessary and sufficient for constituting an individual as both a subject and a member of the Catholic …
Continue reading Membership of the Church: Part IV – Schism & Excommunication
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 Vacant's long Chapter III. The first half considered how the ordinary magisterium teaches directly and explicitly, and how it makes use of secular learning. …
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 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 …
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, …
The WM Review is pleased to present here a translated section from the French text of J.M.A. Vacant’s 1887 study The Ordinary Magisterium of the Church and its Organs. To our knowledge, this may be the first time that it has been published in English. Vacant was a professor at the major seminary of Nancy, …