Up in smoke…

Christian Renaissance Movement

My final announcement about commercial enterprises I am involved with this year is about the tobacco company I am helping to launch in Malawi.

Malawi is consistently listed as one of the poorest countries in the world, and it has been described as “advanced Africa” – as opposed to “beginner Africa,” which would be a place like Ghana. (It is, however, remarkably peaceful, relative to other places nearby on the list – Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, etc.) The tobacco industry is enormous in the country, though it has taken a bit of a dive in recent years. This has caused many farmers to switch to growing a more lucrative crop – which is also smoked, but is green… so that they can feed their families. Malawi still remains for now among the top-10 exporters of tobacco in the world.

If you are interested in helping to build a Catholic tobacco brand, we are open to investors as low as $2,000 – which buys about five acres of rich land with product already growing on it.

I know it’s not everyone’s “thing.” But it is a good thing anyway. Hey… The last public building opened in the Papal States was Pius IX’s personal tobacco factory, in Trastevere… So, there.

St. Quodvultdeus on Holy Innocents

Christian Renaissance Movement

Today, the Office of Readings gave us a homily of St. Quodvultdeus – a rather obscure 5th century bishop of Carthage and friend of St. Augustine.

Here it is:

A tiny child is born, who is a great king. Wise men are led to him from afar. They come to adore one who lies in a manger and yet reigns in heaven and on earth. When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him, though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage, and to destroy one child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.

You are not restrained by the love of weeping mothers or fathers mourning the deaths of their sons, nor by the cries and sobs of the children. You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong your own life, though you are seeking to kill Life himself.

Yet your throne is threatened by the source of grace, so small, yet so great, who is lying in the manger. He is using you, all unaware of it, to work out his own purposes freeing souls from captivity to the devil. He has taken up the sons of the enemy into the ranks of God’s adopted children.

The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. See the kind of kingdom that is his, coming as he did in order to be this kind of king. See how the deliverer is already working deliverance, the saviour already working salvation.

But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

How great a gift of grace is here! To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

The Cave of Revelation

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On the little island of Patmos in Greece, where it is said that the apostle St. John lived out his last days (dying around the year 100), there is a revered cave where it is believed he lived and wrote the Book of Revelation (and presumably his 3 other letters as well – but perhaps not the Gospel bearing his name). The part that is fenced off is where John rested his head to sleep at night.

It is always helpful to remember the flesh and blood history of our Faith. Sites like this are so important to know about and to see – even if only on a screen.

Happy Feast of St. John!

A podcast…

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Merry Christmas, dear readers! I missed posting yesterday, but I’m sure it wasn’t a problem.

I am leaning towards starting a podcast. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years and years, and due to some personal goings-on I now have the opportunity to do this. I already have the name, the format, even a good draft of a logo. I am already identifying the assisting talent.

The truth is there is no independent English-language podcast with traction, visibility, and longevity centered in Rome about theology and current events. I want to create it.

I know that if I asked for feedback, it would all be positive. Instead of that, give me some ideas for things to do on the show. Guest interviews, news, cultural and historical analyses, theological deep-dives, okay, yes, great. What else? What would a good hook be for you personally? Let me know in the comments. And, if you want to help fund this, reach out through the Contact section. Thanks!

-Eamonn

Herod the Great – Even less great than you thought

Christian Renaissance Movement

Pharaoh is the archetypal bad guy. All the other bad guys in Scripture are to be measured against him. (Even poor King Solomon becomes like Pharaoh… A post for another time.)

Herod the Great is very much like Pharaoh… A great builder of monuments, a paranoid egomaniac desperate to cling to power, and a panick-stricken child-killer. He exceeds Pharaoh in that he doesn’t even have scruples about destroying his own bloodline, and deliberately so… Oddly, given his tribal background, in a twisted desire to prove just how much of a real Jew he is. It’s some kind of neurosis that is driving him…

It is important to be aware that the situation of things in ancient Israel was alive and real. The way we talk about current political, theological, and social controversies is not so different from the way people spoke in Jerusalem and its environs. Cartoonish ideas about a bunch of illiterate goat-herders with a few kings in castles need to be left behind… This was a complex world full of clever and tough people.

Here’s an excellent breakdown of what we know about the Herodian dynasty. It turns out we know quite a bit. Happy reading.

Wisdom from Lateran IV

Christian Renaissance Movement

I am doing an on-and-off study of the Ecumenical Councils. We ARE the Councils. We are MORE than the Councils, but they are somewhat of the backbone for our history as a Church.

I just thought I would share the following paragraphs, without commentary. Lateran IV is probably one of the most important Councils we have ever had. Notably, St. Dominic was there.

23. Churches are to be without a prelate for no more than 3 months

Lest a rapacious wolf attack the Lord’s flock for want of a shepherd, or lest a widowed church suffer grave injury to its good, we decree, desiring to counteract the danger to souls in this matter and to provide protection for the churches, that a cathedral church or a church of the regular clergy is not to remain without a prelate for more than three months. If the election has not been held within this time, provided there is no just impediment, then those who ought to have made the election are to lose the power to elect for that time and it is to devolve upon the person who is recognized as the immediate superior. The person upon whom the power has devolved, mindful of the Lord, shall not delay beyond three months in canonically providing the widowed church, with the advice of his chapter and of other prudent men, with a suitable person from the same church, or from another if a worthy candidate cannot be found in the former, if he wishes to avoid canonical penalty.

24. Democratic election of pastors

On account of the various forms of elections which some try to invent, there arise many difficulties and great dangers for the bereaved churches. We therefore decree that at the holding of an election, when all are present who ought to, want to and conveniently can take part, three trustworthy persons shall be chosen from the college who will diligently find out, in confidence and individually, the opinions of everybody. After they have committed the result to writing, they shall together quickly announce it. There shall be no further appeal, so that after a scrutiny that person shall be elected upon whom all or the greater or sounder part of the chapter agree. Or else the power of electing shall be committed to some suitable persons who, acting on behalf of everybody, shall provide the bereaved church with a pastor. Otherwise the election made shall not be valid, unless perchance it was made by all together as if by divine inspiration and without flaw. Those who attempt to make an election contrary to the aforesaid forms shall be deprived of the power of electing on that occasion. We absolutely forbid anyone to appoint a proxy in the matter of an election, unless he is absent from the place where he ought to receive the summons and is detained from coming by a lawful impediment. He shall take an oath about this, if necessary, and then he may commit his representation to one of the college, if he so wishes. We also condemn clandestine elections and order that as soon as an election has taken place it should be solemnly published.

25. Invalid elections

Whoever presumes to consent to his being elected through abuse of the secular power, against canonical freedom, both forfeits the benefit of being elected and becomes ineligible, and he cannot be elected to any dignity without a dispensation. Those who venture to take part in elections of this kind, which we declare to be invalid by the law itself, shall be suspended from their offices and benefices for three years and during that time shall be deprived of the power to elect.

26. Nominees for prelatures to be carefully screened

There is nothing more harmful to God’s church than for unworthy prelates to be entrusted with the government of souls. Wishing therefore to provide the necessary remedy for this disease, we decree by this irrevocable constitution that when anyone has been entrusted with the government of souls, then he who holds the right to confirm him should diligently examine both the process of the election and the character of the person elected, so that when everything is in order he may confirm him. For, if confirmation was granted in advance when everything was not in order, then not only would the person improperly promoted have to be rejected but also the author of the improper promotion would have to be punished. We decree that the latter shall be punished in the following way: if his negligence has been proved, especially if he has approved a man of insufficient learning or dishonest life or unlawful age, he shall not only lose the power of confirming the person’s first successor but shall also, lest by any chance he escapes punishment, be suspended from receiving the fruits of his own benefice until it is right for him to be granted a pardon. If he is convicted of having erred intentionally in the matter, then he is to be subject to graver punishment. Bishops too, if they wish to avoid canonical punishment, should take care to promote to holy orders and to ecclesiastical dignities men who will be able to discharge worthily the office entrusted to them. Those who are immediately subject to the Roman pontiff shall, to obtain confirmation of their office, present themselves personally to him, if this can conveniently be done, or send suitable persons through whom a careful inquiry can be made about the process of the election and the persons elected. In this way, on the strength of the pontiff’s informed judgment, they may finally enter into the fullness of their office, when there is no impediment in canon law. For a time, however, those who are in very distant parts, namely outside Italy, if they were elected peaceably, may by dispensation, on account of the needs and benefit of the churches, administer in things spiritual and temporal, but in such a way that they alienate nothing whatever of the church’s goods. They may receive the customary consecration or blessing.

27. Candidates for the priesthood to be carefully trained and scrutinized

To guide souls is a supreme art. We therefore strictly order bishops carefully to prepare those who are to be promoted to the priesthood and to instruct them, either by themselves or through other suitable persons, in the divine services and the sacraments of the church, so that they may be able to celebrate them correctly. But if they presume henceforth to ordain the ignorant and unformed, which can indeed easily be detected, we decree that both the ordainers and those ordained are to be subject to severe punishment. For it is preferable, especially in the ordination of priests, to have a few good ministers than many bad ones, for if a blind man leads another blind man, both will fall into the pit.

28. Who asks to resign must resign

Certain persons insistently ask for permission to resign and obtain it, but then do not resign. Since in such a request to resign they would seem to have in mind either the good of the churches over which they preside or their own well-being, neither of which do we wish to be impeded either by the arguments of any people seeking their own interests or even by a certain fickleness, we therefore decree that such persons are to be compelled to resign.

Fuel on Fernandez’s and Francis’s Fire

Christian Renaissance Movement

Everyone’s talking about the odd and seemingly extremely imprudent document released two days ago by the DDF. I’ll leave that to others for now. I will perhaps have some thoughts to share at a later time.

For now, let’s go back a second to the document recently released by the DDF on cremation. Remember that? It was a whole 11 days ago. It seems like forever.

We read in the text, “Our faith tells us that we will be raised with the same bodily identity, which is material (like every creature on earth), even though that matter will be transfigured, freed from the limitations of this world. The resurrection will be “in this flesh in which we now live” (Formula “Fides Damasi”); in this way, any harmful dualism between the material and immaterial is avoided. This transformation, however, does not imply the recuperation of the identical particles of matter that once formed the human being’s body. Therefore, the body of the resurrected person will not necessarily consist of the same elements that it had before it died. Since it is not a simple revivification of the corpse, the resurrection can occur even if the body has been totally destroyed or dispersed. This helps us understand why, in many cinerary urns, the ashes of the deceased are conserved together and are not stored separately.”

Read the bold sections again. Forgive me, but they do not seem consistent with each other.

Lateran IV teaches, “He will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, to render to every person according to his works, both to the reprobate and to the elect. All of them will rise with their own bodies, which they now wear, so as to receive according to their deserts, whether these be good or bad; for the latter perpetual punishment with the devil, for the former eternal glory with Christ.”

St. Thomas is clearly opposed to Cardinal Fernandez. He even thinks it more probable that each particular piece of each particular part of each individual will be restored to the exact same place in the body, though he leaves it as allowed for pieces to move within the same part (i.e. a particle of bone in the upper arm moving to a lower part within the arm).

My dubium for His Eminence is: whether we may believe in reincarnation, as opposed to the traditional doctrine on the resurrection of the body?

Because it very much seems like that is what he is proposing.

I think that is a more important thing than prudence, scandal, and sacramentals – even though that is really important.

We need to pray and fast for the Cardinal.