Disintegration and reconciliation

The very problem of Christian reconciliation is not that of a correlation of parallel traditions, but precisely that of the reintegration of a distorted tradition.  The two traditions may seem quite irreconcilable, when they are compared and confronted, as they are at the present.  Yet their differences themselves are, to a great extent, simply the results of disintegration: they [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

Fr Paul on the “Timisoara Incident”

Fr Paul, the English Catholic priest who has left many thoughtful comments both at Cathedra Unitatis and here at Eirenikon, has written a remarkable post over at De unione ecclesiarum on the ecclesiological, ecumenical and sacramental implications of the “Timisoara Incident”.
It is not my place to say whether it was in the event helpful to the [...]

Read Full Post »

“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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

“Choose ye this day…”

This is a bit off-topic for this blog, but I found this report very interesting: Anglicans must choose between Protestantism and tradition, says Vatican. According to Cardinal Walter Kasper (sometimes accused of being a crypto-Protestant himself), the Anglican Communion must “clarify its identity”:
Ultimately, it is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where [...]

Read Full Post »

“The Norman Yoke”

I recently discovered the excellent BBC4 radio programme, “In Our Time” with Melvin Bragg. The April 10th episode, “The Norman Yoke”, was particularly interesting to me, since I’ve always been a bit skeptical of some Orthodox accounts of the religious significance of the “Norman Invasion” of 1066: that this event marks some sort of transition [...]

Read Full Post »

Mirabile dictu!

The entire text of After Nine Hundred Years: The Background Of The Schism Between The Eastern And Western Churches by Yves Congar, OP (1959), is available online in several different formats. As some may recall, I posted excerpts from the second chapter of this work over at Cathedra Unitatis (part 1, part 2, and part 3).

Read Full Post »