Haydock Commentary Bible

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Deus Caritas Est

+Benedict XVI oversaw the reclamation and rehabilitation of "Liberation" from the intellectual ghetto of "Liberation Theology."

Time for the same with "Love" - a word which needs to be rescued and rehabilitated from the cultural ghetto it has been consigned to since the 60s.

insight on love, sacrifice, and murder

This was in today's reading:

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Divine Intimacy
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD
65. LIVING CHRIST

When love for God is genuine and intense, it does not confine the soul within itself, but in one way or another it always leads it to embrace all those who belong to God because they are His creatues, His children, and the object of His love.


Men have not understood You; they have not returned Your love...they have crucified You. Yet You still love them because Your love is not for Your own personal satisfaction, but only for the glory of the Blessed Trininy. O Jesus, out of love for Your Father You have loved us to the point of sacrificing Yourself entirely for us; grant that, out of love for You and for Your glory, I man know haw to love my bretheren and to give myself to them most generously. (St. Teresa of Jesus)
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Love, which is seeking the good of the other, reaches it's pinacle in sacrifice ("no greater love that that a man lay down his life for his friends"). Self-love on the other hands, since it has the self for the object of love, tends to the opposite direction, even to the point of murder.

Lost, or Reason unaided as a guide...

SAPIENTIAE CHRISTIANAE
ON CHRISTIANS AS CITIZENS

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII JANUARY 10, 1890

20. In the case of those who profess to take reason as their sole guide, there would hardly be found, if, indeed, there ever could be found, unity of doctrine. Indeed, the art of knowing things as they really are is exceedingly difficult; moreover, the mind of man is by nature feeble and drawn this way and that by a variety of opinions, and not seldom led astray by impressions coming from without; and, furthermore, the influence of the passions oftentimes takes away, or certainly at least diminishes, the capacity for grasping the truth. On this account, in controlling State affairs means are often used to keep those together by force who cannot agree in their way of thinking.

Leo XIII: ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY (abortion)

Read the following:
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ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
IN PLURIMIS

Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on May 5, 1888.

5. The system flourished even among the most civilized peoples, among the Greeks and among the Romans, with whom the few imposed their will upon the many; and this power was exercised so unjustly and with such haughtiness that a crowd of slaves was regarded merely as so many chattels -- not as persons, but as things. They were held to be outside the sphere of law, and without even the claim to retain and enjoy life. "Slaves are in the power of their masters, and this power is derived from the law of nations; for we find that among all nations masters have the power of life and death over their slaves, and whatever a slave earns belongs to his master."[6] Owing to this state of moral confusion it became lawful for men to sell their slaves, to give them in exchange, to dispose of them by will, to beat them, to kill them, to abuse them by forcing them to serve for the gratification of evil passions and cruel superstitions; these things could be done, legally, with impunity, and in the light of heaven. Even those who were wisest in the pagan world, illustrious philosophers and learned jurisconsults, outraging the common feeling of mankind, succeeded in persuading themselves and others that slavery was simply a necessary condition of nature. Nor did they hesitate to assert that the slave class was very inferior to the freemen both in intelligence and perfection of bodily development, and therefore that slaves, as things wanting in reason and sense, ought in all things to be the instruments of the will, however rash and unworthy, of their masters. Such inhuman and wicked doctrines are to be specially detested; for, when once they are accepted, there is no form of oppression so wicked but that it will defend itself beneath some color of legality and justice.

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13abl.htm
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Now read it again, substituting "unborn" for "slave" ...

Will the real Vatican II please stand up?

As we enter a new year, we remember that is has been 40 years since the council. On Dec 22, Benedict XVI pointed out that there are two conflicting views of what that council was and what it did. The pope points out that there are two conflicting views of the council. That which he calls the "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture" "between the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church" is set in opposition to what he calls "the hermeneutics of reform."

It is my observation that the underlying error that motivates the "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture" is materialism, a loss of effective belief in the supernatural; perhaps what John Paul II meant by "a loss of the sense of the sacred." The quote from Newman in the previous post I think expresses it well. The mission of the Church is the salvation of souls. A materialist view cannot agree with what Newman has written, and so will write it off, placing work for material ends above our supernatural end.

The materialist today likes to pretend that they have a corner on compassion, and that the pre-conciliar church was somehow less compassionate. I find this to be contradictory to the historical reality. The Church has brought us hospitals, schools, universities; it is the religious materialists who have abandoned those institutions of humble service to the material needs of others, and then they calumniate others for lack of compassion?


The full text from the pope is here:
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=44072&eng=y

An Observation from Newman

The Church aims, not at making a show, but at doing a work. She regards this world, and all that is in it, as a mere shadow, as dust and ashes, compared with the value of one single soul. She holds that, unless she can, in her own way, do good to souls, it is no use her doing anything; she holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse. She considers the action of this world and the action of the soul simply incommensurate, viewed in their respective spheres; she would rather save the soul of one single wild bandit of Calabria, or whining beggar of Palermo, than draw a hundred lines of railroad through the length and breadth of Italy, or carry out a sanitary reform, in its fullest details, in every city of Sicily, except so far as these great national works tended to some spiritual good beyond them. (Lectures on Anglican Difficulties, #8)

sola scriptura = human reason alone

This remarkable set of paragraphs point out something interesting. Although it speaks to the so-called "rationalist" and compares this to the faith of the Church, I think it also reveals something else, perhaps beyond what was intended, but true none the less.


Leo XIII
SAPIENTIAE CHRISTIANAE
ON CHRISTIANS AS CITIZENS
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13sapie.htm

20. In the case of those who profess to take reason as their sole guide, there would hardly be found, if, indeed, there ever could be found, unity of doctrine. Indeed, the art of knowing things as they really are is exceedingly difficult; moreover, the mind of man is by nature feeble and drawn this way and that by a variety of opinions, and not seldom led astray by impressions coming from without; and, furthermore, the influence of the passions oftentimes takes away, or certainly at least diminishes, the capacity for grasping the truth. On this account, in controlling State affairs means are often used to keep those together by force who cannot agree in their way of thinking.

21. It happens far otherwise with Christians; they receive their rule of faith from the Church, by whose authority and under whose guidance they are conscious that they have beyond question attained to truth. Consequently, as the Church is one, because Jesus Christ is one, so throughout the whole Christian world there is, and ought to be, but one doctrine: "One Lord, one faith;"[22] "but having the same spirit of faith,"[23] they possess the saving principle whence proceed spontaneously one and the same will in all, and one and the same tenor of action.

22. Now, as the Apostle Paul urges, this unanimity ought to be perfect. Christian faith reposes not on human but on divine authority, for what God has revealed "we believe not on account of the intrinsic evidence of the truth perceived by the natural light of our reason, but on account of the authority of God revealing, who cannot be deceived nor Himself deceive."[24] It follows as a consequence that whatever things are manifestly revealed by God we must receive with a similar and equal assent. To refuse to believe any one of them is equivalent to rejecting them all, for those at once destroy the very groundwork of faith who deny that God has spoken to men, or who bring into doubt His infinite truth and wisdom. To determine, however, which are the doctrines divinely revealed belongs to the teaching Church, to whom God has entrusted the safekeeping and interpretation of His utterances. But the supreme teacher in the Church is the Roman Pontiff. Union of minds, therefore, requires, together with a perfect accord in the one faith, complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself. This obedience should, however, be perfect, because it is enjoined by faith itself, and has this in common with faith, that it cannot be given in shreds; nay, were it not absolute and perfect in every particular, it might wear the name of obedience, but its essence would disappear. Christian usage attaches such value to this perfection of obedience that it has been, and will ever be, accounted the distinguishing mark by which we are able to recognize Catholics. Admirably does the following passage from St. Thomas Aquinas set before us the right view: "The formal object of faith is primary truth, as it is shown forth in the holy Scriptures, and in the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the fountainhead of truth. It follows, therefore, that he who does not adhere, as to an infallible divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the primary truth manifested in the holy Scriptures, possesses not the habit of faith; but matters of faith he holds otherwise than true faith. Now, it is evident that he who clings to the doctrines of the Church as to an infallible rule yields his assent to everything the Church teaches; but otherwise, if with reference to what the Church teaches he holds what he likes but does not hold what he does not like, he adheres not to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will."[25]

23. "The faith of the whole Church should be one, according to the precept (1 Cor. 1:10): "Let all speak the same thing, and let there be no schisms among you"; and this cannot be observed save on condition that questions which arise touching faith should be determined by him who presides over the whole Church, whose sentence must consequently be accepted without wavering. And hence to the sole authority of the supreme Pontiff does it pertain to publish a new revision of the symbol, as also to decree all other matters that concern the universal Church."[26]

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Now that you've read it, go back and read the first bolded sentence, and replace "reason" with "the bible" . . .

At least the rationalist is honest in claiming human reason alone. The sola-scripturist is using the same tool, but not admitting it. The proof is the resulting dis-unity of doctrine.