Bad news:
.- The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis will travel to Naples in June to discuss the impact of the apostolic constitution, Veritatis Gaudium, on theological studies.
In Naples, the pope will give a speech June 21 on “Theology after Veritatis Gaudium in the context of the Mediterranean,” before taking part in a private meeting on the same topic organized by the San Luigi Papal Theological Seminary of Southern Italy.
The apostolic constitution Veritatis Gaudium went into effect beginning with the 2018-2019 academic term for ecclesiastical universities and faculties. The 87-page document, published in January 2018, stipulated new norms of governance and education for all institutions that issue ecclesiastical degrees.
“The theologian who is satisfied with his complete and conclusive thought is mediocre. The good theologian and philosopher has an open, that is, an incomplete, thought, always open to the maius [greaterness] of God and of the truth, always in development,” Francis wrote in Veritatis Gaudium.
The constitution included an option for distance learning, and called for institutions to develop procedures for the education of refugees and migrants.
Pope Francis stated in its introduction, “One of the main contributions of the Second Vatican Council was precisely seeking a way to overcome this divorce between theology and pastoral care, between faith and life. I dare say that the Council has revolutionized to some extent the status of theology – the believer’s way of doing and thinking.”
Go here to read the rest. Go here to read Veratis Gaudium.
The flavor of the document is well demonstrated in this passage:
The primary need today is for the whole People of God to be ready to embark upon a new stage of “Spirit-filled” evangelization.[19] This calls for “a resolute process of discernment, purification and reform”.[20] In this process, a fitting renewal of the system of ecclesiastical studies plays a strategic role. These studies, in fact, are called to offer opportunities and processes for the suitable formation of priests, consecrated men and women, and committed lay people. At the same time, they are called to be a sort of providential cultural laboratory in which the Church carries out the performative interpretation of the reality brought about by the Christ event and nourished by the gifts of wisdom and knowledge by which the Holy Spirit enriches the People of God in manifold ways – from the sensus fidei fidelium to the magisterium of the bishops, and from the charism of the prophets to that of the doctors and theologians.
This is essential for a Church that “goes forth”! All the more so because today we are not only living in a time of changes but are experiencing a true epochal shift[21], marked by a wide-ranging “anthropological”[22] and “environmental crisis”.[23] Indeed, we daily see “signs that things are now reaching a breaking point, due to the rapid pace of change and degradation; these are evident in large-scale natural disasters as well as social and even financial crises”.[24] In a word, this calls for “changing the models of global development” and “redefining our notion of progress”.[25] Yet “the problem is that we still lack the culture necessary to confront this crisis. We lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths”.[26]
This vast and pressing task requires, on the cultural level of academic training and scientific study, a broad and generous effort at a radical paradigm shift, or rather – dare I say – at “a bold cultural revolution”.
PopeWatch sometimes thinks that the Pope is a Peronist, but occasionally PopeWatch is amazed at how much like a Maoist circa 1966 the Pope sounds like.
Let Pope Francis bring back the traditional Catholics and religious whom he has dismissed before entering into any dialog.
“The theologian who is satisfied with his complete and conclusive thought is mediocre. The good theologian and philosopher has an open, that is, an incomplete, thought, always open to the maius [greaterness] of God and of the truth, always in development.” PF
Yes..open to the greatness of God but never open to the trickery of the devil.
Never assisting the demonic to sway attention away from salvation regardless of the cultural storms that blow into our era. To defend the Faith and lead souls to eternal salvation…always open to that greatness which is God himself. To remember that the greatest environmental crisis is the one within each mans heart. All else is secondary to that. Our climate change crisis is a hardening of the heart and it’s need for conversion.
“…Our climate change crisis is a hardening of the heart and it’s need for conversion.” Well said Philip N.
Ever notice that environmentalist always believe they have the solution? That they are the solution? If the climate is truly in a crisis then the only solution is the same solution which will heal the homosexual crisis within our Church: Pray and ask God for forgiveness and mercy
“… Our climate change crisis is a hardening of the heart and it’s need for conversion.” Well said Philip. Ever notice that environmentalist always consider themselves as the only ones that have the solutions and that they are the solution to climate change? If there is truly a crisis in the climate then the only solution is the same solution of battling the crisis in our Church: Pray for forgiveness and God’s mercy.
sorry for the double barrel approach. something went wrong 🙂
He’s simply drunk with power and cravenly uses religion towards that end. I fear for his soul. God will not be mocked.
Seems to me St. Peter Damian had some timeless thoughts on those topics still applicable today; ressourcement in action as it were.
“The theologian who is satisfied with his complete and conclusive thought is mediocre. The good theologian and philosopher has an open, that is, an incomplete, thought, always open to the maius [greaterness] of God and of the truth, always in development,”
One recalls the great Johannes Tauler OP, known as the “Doctor Illuminatus et sublimis,” who, driven beyond all the ordinary resources of image, spoke of “the Abyss which is unknown and has no name . . . more beloved than all that we can know.”
The English mediaeval classic, “The Cloud of Unknowing” is full of the same apophatic approach, as are the two great Carmelitesof the Reform, St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross
Wittgenstein in the Tractaus says that the whole meaning of the logic of language “could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Traditionally, Christianity has seen the faithful as a priestly people, with a vocation in the world as the “ordinary” priests of the Triune God.
This current papacy re-imagines the laity as varieties of social worker for a departmental director–in this case, the current pontiff.
Materialism triumphant.
Before Francis, all was incorrect. Now we see that this jesuit views himself as the righter of all wrongs. If we would only listen!
Long Live Chairman Jorge. Long Live the glorious revolution. Death to the capitalist imperialist Traditionalists.
To misquote the Bard; “Something is rotten in Rome.”
The divorce between Faith and daily life exists because daily life is the struggle in a fallen and sinful world while the Faith exists as that towards which we are required to strive and move our lives towards. The movement from the less real and disordered world to the real and ordered eschaton. The goal of the Faith is to gain the supernatural life of the soul by overcoming the world through Christ. That is absolutely not what Pope Francis et. al. mean when they talk about the divide between doxology and praxis. They don’t see the need (nor possibility) for the Way of the Pilgrim or Pilgrim’s Progress (to borrow from works of Orthodoxy and Protestantism) but only that of accompaniment. Praxis is to be reduced to a static acknowledgment and encounter with the other in their present condition without the need (nor possibility) to reject sin and progress along the spiritual path. Doxology is thus to be conformed to this new praxis and codified.
It cannot be stressed how much a danger the codifying of this false praxis in documents such as Veritatis Gaudium is. All those years ago when I was doing my theological undergrad at a Jesuit University, even then Magisterial documents and writings of then Pope John Paul II were being undercut in class by the writing of South American Jesuit theologians (amongst others). How much worse now that the same professors can just turn to these new codified works? Try quoting the Catechism now against the documents of this Magisterium and see what type of grade you get.
Speaking of the joy in truth, Bishop Foy pretends he wasn’t part of the riot his third party investigation just cleared the Covington boys of having started.
Anybody who watched the various videos could see the boys were innocent…except for the bishops. Bishop Foy apologized again…sort of…and again stated he couldn’t withstand the outside pressure. Weak.