When theology becomes ideology

… [T]he reading of history that you have taken on from Joseph Farrell, that I think constitutes an ideology, in fact resembles, theoretically and rhetorically, the ideology of those who gave fuel to the Bosnian war. It presents a discourse wherein the West is conceived to have fallen from divine grace, and the chief villain [...]

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Filioquextravaganza

(Apologies for the cheesy title.)
Recently on some of my favorite blogs, there have been some excellent rebuttals to Orthodox contentions about the Filioque clause and the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
First, Sacramentum Vitae’s Dr Michael Liccione (a veteran of irenic, scholarly, substantive online Catholic-Orthodox debate) has added a new installment to an ever-growing series of posts [...]

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“The Fathers Gave Rome the Primacy”

A. St. Leger Westall, “The Fathers Gave Rome the Primacy”, The Dublin Review, CXXXII (January-April 1903), pp. 101-114.
The famous xxviii. Canon of Chalcedon has been for many centuries a favourite authority among all those who, whether in the East or in England, are anxious to find support in primitive times for their rejection of the Petrine [...]

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Canon 28 redux

I have just begun listening to Bishop Hilarion’s talk at the recent SVS conference. He makes reference to the (in)famous Canon 28 of Chalcedon, and gives the standard Orthodox (and generally non-/anti-Roman) interpretation of it: that it ascribes the origin of Old Rome’s primacy not to the will of Christ or succession from the Apostle [...]

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“A Latin’s Lamentation over Gennadios Scholarios”

The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies

“Overcoming the Schism,” Chicago, May 8-10, 1998

THE SCHISM: GROUNDS FOR DIVISION, GROUNDS FOR UNITY
“A LATIN’S LAMENTATION OVER GENNADIOS SCHOLARIOS”
Fr. Hugh Barbour, O. Praem.
In August of 1994, I was happy to be one of the many Latin clerics who over the years, in divisa or in borghese, have [...]

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More on Church Unity and Legitimate Variance

From Wei-Hsein Wan of Torn Notebook, chock full of brilliant quotes from great lights of the Church, both Eastern and Western, ancient and contemporary:
Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices
For as, in the case of one and the same quantity of water, there is separated from it, not only the residue which is [...]

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Saint Basil on Unity and Legitimate Variance

Our friend Wei-Hsein Wan of Torn Notebook (formerly Bumi Dipijak) has posted a quote from Saint Basil the Great, with commentary, illustrating a certain broadness of mind about doctrinal matters, a legitimate variance and pluralism in theological expression, within a common dogmatic framework (the Nicene Creed, sans Filioque, quoted as such in Dominus Iesus 1):
At [...]

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Bishop Hilarion’s clarification

In response to the earlier post “Bishop Hilarion: God’s Mercy is immeasurable”, His Grace, Hilarion (Alfeyev), Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna, posted the following clarification in the combox:
Friends, I came across your blog by accident. Thank you for your interest in what I said in Rome. However, I must state that what some of you [...]

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The Words that Benedict XVI Adds Spontaneously, When He Preaches to the Faithful

Textual analyses of five of his most recent Wednesday catechesis, on Saint Augustine. The words that the pope added spontaneously, beyond the written text, are underlined. They’re on the themes closest to his heart 

by Sandro Magister 
 
ROMA, March 11, 2008 – Last Wednesday, Benedict XVI dedicated his weekly audience with the faithful and the pilgrims to [...]

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Fr Lev Gillet on East and West

The whole teaching of the Latin Fathers may be found in the East, just as the whole teaching of the Greek Fathers may be found in the West. Rome has given St. Jerome to Palestine. The East has given Cassian to the West and holds in special veneration that Roman of the Romans, Pope Gregory [...]

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