Jesus The Logician

Dallas Willard, from Christian Scholars Review, 1999, VOL. XXVIII, #4, 605-614

"ABSTRACT: In understanding how discipleship to Jesus Christ works, a major issue is how he automatically presents himself to our minds. It is characteristic of most 20th century Christians that he does not automatically come to mind as one of great intellectual power: as Lord of universities and research institutes, of the creative disciplines and scholarship. The Gospel accounts of how he actually worked, however, challenge this intellectually marginal image of him and help us to see him at home in the best of academic and scholarly settings of today, where many of us are called to be his apprentices."

(via Curtis Hancock)

"Because beset by weakness..."

Are you weak enough to be a priest? asked Michael J. Buckley, S.J., in this 1970s essay. posted at Archdiocese of Atlanta Office of Diaconate Formation.

Mr. Smith stays in Albany

An Open Letter to the Honorable Alfred E. Smith, by Charles C. Marshall, The Atlantic (April 1927), and the reply, Catholic and Patriot, by Alfred E. Smith, The Atlantic (May 1927).

Is Pope Francis a Heretic?

Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., at First Things.

"Nineteen theologians and academics recently released a letter to all Catholic bishops throughout the world, accusing Pope Francis of being a heretic and urging the bishops to take action, even canonical, in order to rectify this dire state of affairs.
...
"Actually, the open letter makes it more difficult for others to appropriately critique the ongoing doctrinal and moral chaos within the Church, a disorder that will continue to intensify as this pontificate progresses. ..."

Tales out of school

Just stumbled across this on 'Remembering Fr. Bill Doran, SJ (1923 - 2011)': "This Jesuit tribute contains excerpts from an article written by Fr. George Sullivan, SJ, that was published in the Spring 2011 issue of the Wisconsin Province Newsletter." I excerpt the following.

"When Bill came in as principal of Marquette High in 1968, he followed a year of real thugs in the previous senior class. There were constant fire alarms and bomb threats and the student body president had to be hustled out after school. And this was with George Haas and Joe Labaj in charge. Finally, George had a meeting with the parents of 12 suspects in the auditorium and, while he talked to them, he had scholastic Mike Fargione set off fireworks in the gallery. Thank God no parent had a heart condition. George said, 'This is what we put up with every day.'

Boy, that takes me back. Or it would if this description matched what I or any of my classmates remembered from that year.

"When Bill came in as principal, the new junior and senior classes wanted to get the school back to normal. In the first week Bill got up on stage in the auditorium and addressed the students for about 20 minutes. George Sullivan cannot remember the exact words but they were so moving that he had the entire student body behind him and ready to move forward. At the last assembly of the year, Fr. Maurice Mohr got up and thanked the students for such a good year and Bill for leading the school out of the wilderness. Those who knew Bill as the mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet may not know that, at one moment, he was Superman. (Bill became president of MUHS three months later when George Haas went on to Argentina.)

If anyone from our class has a papal audience, I suppose we'll hear of the tales about us that were told to Fr. Bergoglio back home.

The Church and the scandal of sexual abuse

Essay by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI at Catholic News Agency. "Translated by Anian Christoph Wimmer. Quotes from Scripture use Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)."

Thomas Merton's last talk

Presented December 10, 1968 at a monastic conference at the Red Cross retreat at Sawang Kaniwat in Samut Prakan, Thailand.

Turning Catholics Into A Stiff-Kneed People

A View from Way Down in the Pew column by J. A. Gray, Deputy Editor, at the New Oxford Review, July 1999.

Why Augustinian Apologetics and Logical Dialectic Are Not Enough to Defend the Reasonableness of the Christian Faith in an Increasingly-Fragmented World

At the International Étienne Gilson Society, the latest issue of Studia Gilsoniana includes this article by Peter A. Redpath.

SUMMARY "From close to its inception, St. Augustine’s misunderstanding of the nature of ancient Greek philosophy, 'Christian philosophy,' and the way the human soul essentially relates to human body caused formal Christian education to be (a) born in a somewhat unhealthy condition, (b) founded upon a devastating mistake of organizational selfmisunderstanding, which essentially prevented it from comprehending how human reason could function both abstractly as a contemplative (or speculative) scientific intellect and concretely as a command and control prudential reason. This flaw in Augustinian psychology of the human person and Augustine’s misunderstanding of the nature of ancient Greek philosophy continued to influence Christian education from the start of the Christian West until the Christian and secular universities of today. For contemporary Christian education to preserve its identity in an increasingly fragmented world, a psychology of the human person adequate to explain the essential connection between the human soul and body and the nature of philosophy must replace this flawed Augustinian psychology that continues to plague the contemporary world."

Christmas Trees

Alice Spawls at the London Review of Books

Catholic Identity and Academic Freedom

Fr. Joseph G. Mueller, S.J., associate professor of theology, Marquette University, at the Milwaukee Catholic Herald, looking back fifty years to the Land O' Lakes Statement on the Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University.

Beloved 1988 Cadillac won by recent neighbor of retired Greendale priest at St. Alophonsus

Jane Ford-Stewart for Now News Group at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

(See my earlier post.)

Pristine 1988 Cadillac to help raise money for St. Alphonsus Parish, Greendale

Jane Ford-Stewart for Now News Group at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A small point, Father Wally came to our parish when old enough to be retired, had he so chosen, and served as an associate pastor, not pastor.

Are European Churches Museums or Ruins?

Chase Padusniak reflects on a visit to Cologne cathedral, at Intercollegiate Review.

Wendell "Sonny" Lawson negotiating with God

Burt Reynolds in The End (1978), clip at YouTube

Care for our common home

Encyclical letter Laudato Si’ from Pope Francis, posted at the Vatican.

What's on Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki's reading list?

See the first of five questions to him in this interview by the Milwaukee Catholic Herald staff. (via Badger Catholic)

The kindness of strangers in the Church as field hospital

From a review by Blake Bailey of Tennessee Williams by John Lahr in The New York Times.

"... eight months before his death in 1983, Williams received an honorary degree from Harvard. Spotting Mother Teresa at a reception beforehand, he shambled over to where she sat on a couch saying her rosary, knelt down and put his head in her lap. Clearly the good woman had no idea who this paunchy, disheveled person was, but she knew a soul in pain when she saw it, and patted his head as she gave him her blessing."

Youth Ministry Catechesis at ten hours a year

The annual last minute call for catechists was in the bulletin at our parish (St. Alphonsus, Greendale) back on August 31, 2014 (no longer online).

"These classes meet on Sunday evenings one a month, 6:30-8:30 p.m., in the Parish Ministry Center and the Outreach Building. There are only five teaching classes."

Add to one evening session a couple two hour sessions Sunday morning and a couple more in the afternoon, and the whole year of Christian Formation classroom instruction could be done in a day.

To me, that seems like maybe 5-10% of what's needed. On the bright side, there have been past years with as little as six hours.

P.S. The Parish Ministry Center is the former Convent and the Outreach Building the former Rectory.

What Would Jeremiah Do?

Samuel Goldman at The American Conservative on how Jewish history gives today's Christians an alternative to cultural secession. (via University Bookman)