"A little historical awareness, humility, respect and basic human kindness would go a long way." Image: David Gilbert Wright, 'Queuing for Holy Communion at the top of the mountain.' This article is an expanded excerpt from our essay What does Michael Lofton mean by “tradition”? In order to address this topic, we have to remember …
Continue reading On the immorality of labelling other Catholics as “radical traditionalists”
"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 – …
"We believe that the Church retains her hierarchy – because this is what we are required to believe." Image: Ghirlandaio, Wiki Commons, Public Domain Is the Catholic Church still apostolic? Many Catholics today hold that Francis and his recent predecessors have not been true successors of St Peter – or at least have only doubtfully …
Continue reading The Apostolicity of the Church – Who are the Successors of the Apostles?
“The atonement is the work of love." Image: Wiki Commons CC Christ’s passion is the great triumph of his incarnation. Dom Columba Marmion writes: “It is the hour wherein Jesus consummates the sacrifice that is to give infinite glory to His Father, to redeem humanity, and reopen to mankind the fountains of everlasting life.”[1] The …
Continue reading Sacrifice and triumph – How does Christ’s passion reconcile us to God?
"It is absurd, and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received from the fathers of old." The Decretals, cited by St Thomas AquinasSumma Theologica, Ia-IIae, Q. 97 A. 2Photo by Thays Orrico on Unsplash In this piece...– What is tradition?– Can abandoned or forbidden practices be …
Continue reading What does Michael Lofton mean by “tradition”?
"The true Church of God must be united, fastened and joined together in one same doctrine and belief" Over the last months, we have made the visible unity of the Church's faith a central theme of a number of essays. In short, the Church is essentially united in her external profession of faith. This is an essential aspect of the property of unity itself. As one of the four notes of the Church recited in the Creed, this unity of faith is a "negative" property in the sense that the true Church of Christ can never lack it. Any society claiming to be the Church of Christ shows itself to be a false claimant if it lacks this unity of faith.
"The Church is visible by reason of the visibility of her members and her organisation. But the edges are very blurred." Objection: Some Catholics profess heretical doctrines in good faith, and they are sometimes called "material heretics." Therefore, the description of the Church's "visible unity" is overly idealised, and arguments about heresy and membership based …
Continue reading Should mistaken Catholics be called “material heretics”?
"Such legalistic and positivist ideas are an implicit denial of the visible unity of the Church." Image: Excommunication of Robert the Pious, Wiki Commons CC In previous parts, building on my review of the Tradivox Catechism series, we saw the following points across three theses: The nature and centrality of the Church’s visible unity of …
Continue reading What is the difference between an excommunicate and an open heretic?