The Catholic Problem with "Magic" - An Essay by John Lamont

The Catholic Problem with "Magic" 

(A response to Morello)

by John Lamont

Saul and the Witch of Endor
(Victoria and Albert Museum)

A Reply to John Lamont: In Defense of Christian Neoplatonism

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Dionysius the Areopagite with Thomas Aquinas, Madonna and the Child, 1486.

The following article by Dr. Sebastian Morello replies to Dr. John Lamont's critique of his work.

I was initially pleased to see that recently Rorate Caeli had published a critical essay by John Lamont on my writings. Given that Lamont has often shown himself to be a thoughtful writer, I was flattered that he deemed my work worthy of his critical engagement. Indeed, one of his essays is among the works cited in Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries (see p. 105), the very work that has caused controversy among niche platforms of the internet. One can imagine my disappointment, then, when I read Lamont’s paper and found that, whilst it contained some interesting history of classical philosophy and its relationship with Christian intellectual culture, insofar as it claimed to respond to my writings, it comprised a sequence of attacks on straw men.

Are Canonizations Infallible? — An important new book from Arouca Press

I am pleased to announce the publication of a new book: Are Canonizations Infallible? Revisiting a Disputed Question, from Arouca Press. 

It is a 276-page collection of fifteen essays written by twelve authors: Phillip Campbell, Fr Thomas Crean, Roberto de Mattei, William Matthew Diem, Christopher Ferrara, Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, Fr John Hunwicke, Peter Kwasniewski, John Lamont, Joseph Shaw, Fr. Jean-François Thomas, and José Antonio Ureta. I served as the volume’s editor. The book includes not only sources in English but also translations from French, Italian, and Portuguese. Several of the chapters are published in it for the first time.

All the arguments you’ve ever seen in favor of the infallibility of canonizations or against it—and some you probably haven’t seen—are found in the pages of this book. Authors line up behind both sides. It is a fair and full presentation, which does not shy away from toppling “certainties” that are sometimes mindlessly repeated. The book also serves as an introduction to the history of canonization (including changes made to the process over time) and to the nature and objects of papal infallibility, with Msgr. Gherardini’s mini-treatise especially impressive in that regard. The authors go into what the papal act of canonization means or entails, the conditions it may have for moral certainty on the part of the faithful, and what it concretely demands of members of the Church.

Announcing the Publication of Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies

Paperback on the left, hardcover with dustjacket on the right

Arouca Press, rapidly establishing itself as the most interesting and valuable Catholic publisher in Canada, is much to be commended for its latest release, a 450-page volume entitled Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies: Letters and Statements Addressed to Pope Francis, the Cardinals, and the Bishops, with a Collection of Related Articles and Interviews.

Guest Article: "Francis and the Joint Declaration on Human Fraternity: A Public Repudiation of the Catholic Faith"

Dr. John Lamont

On February 4th 2019, Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, signed a 'Document on Human Fraternity'. The document and its signing were public acts. It contains the following passage:

'Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives.'

Taken in its normal meaning, the statement that the pluralism and diversity of religions is willed by God in his wisdom is directly contrary to the Catholic faith. The pluralism and diversity of religions is an evil, and as such cannot be willed by God. These religions contradict each other on doctrinal and moral issues. It must therefore be the case that at least some of these religions are in error where they disagree; and it is a grave evil to hold false dogmatic and moral beliefs. Moreover, the Christian teaching is that there is only one true religion, the religion that worships the Most Holy Trinity. Religions that do not worship the Holy Trinity are false religions, that in themselves cause harm to their worshipers. As such, they are evils.

"The authority of canonisations": Do all canonisations need to be accepted as infallible? -- a special guest article

The authority of canonisations

by Dr. John R. T. Lamont

The canonisations of John XXIII and John Paul II, and the announcement of the pending canonisation of Paul VI, have raised some controversy among traditionalists. On the one hand, objections have been raised to the conduct of the process of these canonisations and to the claim that these pontiffs exhibited heroic virtue. On the other hand, there has been a tendency to hold that traditionalists should accept that all canonisations are infallible, because this is thought to be the traditional theological view. This latter tendency seems to have got the upper hand, with the result that Catholics have largely come to the conclusion that once someone is canonised, it is the duty of Catholics to accept their sanctity and to cease questioning their canonisation. This essay is intended to reject this conclusion, and to present an alternative view on the subject of the duty of Catholics with regard to canonisations.

Article: "Considerations on the dubia of the four cardinals"

by John R. T. Lamont, DPhil

Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra and Meisner have performed a signal service to the Church by sending five dubia on the apostolic exortation Amoris laetitia to the Holy See, requesting an authoritative clarification of the meaning of that document, and then making public the text of the dubia when no response to them was given. Cardinal Burke has performed a further service to the Church by explaining this initiative in an interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register on Nov. 15^th 2016, and stating that if no response was given to the dubia the cardinals would have to make a formal act of correction of a serious error.

As is proper, the dubia were formulated in a manner appropriate to an official request of this kind, and the formal act of correction to which Cardinal Burke refers is an act with a legal character. Catholics may find it helpful to be given a presentation of the canonical, historical and theological background to the dubia and the suggested act of correction, and to the situation that has led to the action of the Cardinals. This background is no doubt well known to the four Cardinals, but it is less accessible to those who lack their specialised knowledge. This article is intended to help with the comprehension and appreciation of their initiative.

The dubia

Lamont on Catholicism, Islam and the Neomodernist betrayal of Christians suffering at the hands of the Mohammedans.

Catholics and Islam

John R. T. Lamont

A special essay for Rorate Caeli

The recent terrorist attacks by ISIS have increased the urgency of understanding the ideology that drives the attackers. Catholics naturally look to the leadership of the Church for guidance on the nature of Islam, its relation to the ideology of ISIS, and the approach that Catholics should take to the threat of ISIS terrorism and to Islam itself.  Unfortunately, the episcopal leadership of the Church has not provided such guidance. If anything it has done the opposite, in Europe and North America at least; it has misled the faithful on the nature of Islam and the relationship between terrorist extremism and the main tenets of the Muslim religion. A good example of this deception can be found in a pamphlet recently issued by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled 'Catholics and Muslims in Canada: Believers and Citizens in Society'. It is worth examining this pamphlet in some detail, to better understand both the character of this deception and the real content and implications of Muslim belief.  

Catholic Teaching on Marriage and Divorce - the Bible, Our Lord, and the Constant Teaching, simple and to the point

Catholic teaching on marriage – theological background

a guest-post by John Lamont

The subject of Catholic marriage is now being hotly debated at the current session of the Synod on the Family. It is thus helpful to have available an account of the essentials of Scriptural teaching on this subject, which this article will attempt to provide.

The starting point for this account is the text of Deuteronomy 24;1-4:

Registration Open for Religious Liberty Conference in Norcia

Registration is now open for the Colloquium on Dignitatis Humanæ to be held in Norcia, October 30th—November 1st. As  we reported in March, Cardinal Burke will be in attendance. The Colloquium is being organized by the newly formed Dialogos Institute, for the study of the patristic heritage in the spirit of Latin and Byzantine Thomism. The Institute describes the purpose of the Colloquium as follows:

A Christmastide Gift for our Readers: - Attacks on Thomism: a special historical and theological essay

Attacks on Thomism

a special essay for Rorate Caeli by John Lamont

Thomism and neomodernism 

I: Progressives, 'manualism', and Thomism

Anyone who has any familiarity with the clerical and intellectual scene in the Catholic Church will have encountered the received 'progressive' wisdom concerning Thomism and its role in the Church before the Second Vatican Council, and concerning the preconciliar state of theology in general. Its claims and slogans are continually reiterated in theological and clerical circles, with little change since the era – the first half of the twentieth century – in which they were first elaborated. Unlike 'progressive' positions on moral questions, this received wisdom has virtually attained the status of a pseudo-orthodoxy within the Church, with some of its components being central to 'conservative' Catholicism. Its acceptance by neoconservatives is indicated by a favourable presentation of it by Fr. Brian van Hove in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review,¹ a journal that is one of the oldest pillars of conservative Catholicism. Fr. Van Hove's exposition of this received wisdom takes the form of an attack on Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis, an embarrassing document for neoconservative Catholics. His exposition is a naïve one, lacking the nuances that would be introduced by a clever apologist for his outlook, but it is valuable for that very reason. It is the naïve version of an idea, the simplified and readily accessible one, that gets widely adopted and that determines events; this fact is known by the clever apologists, who are aware that the nuances they introduce to disarm criticism and conceal their intentions will fall by the wayside once their position has triumphed. Together, these points make up the ideology that justified the destruction of preconciliar Catholic theology, and that is an essential underpinning of the progressive hegemony that now controls the Church. Seeing through this ideology is crucial to overcoming this hegemony; this article and its two sequels are devoted to the task of exposing it.

'Manualism'.

An important component of this ideology is an attack on 'manualism'. This attack claims that preconciliar Catholic theology largely consisted in 'manualist theology'. Allegedly, this theology was conveyed in theological manuals, and suffered from legalism, dogmatism, anti-modernism (presumed to be a fault), abstraction, and ahistoricism.

The very idea of 'manualist theology' is however a fiction. Theological manuals were indeed in wide use before the Second Vatican Council, for the purposes that manuals exist for; the education of theological students.² The best of them were excellently designed for that purpose, as any educator who looks at them can see. But there was no such thing as a school of theology based on these manuals, let alone a dominant school. Theology before the council was carried on by the same means as other scholarly enterprises; monographs, learned journals, extensive treatises. These works, not the theological manuals, were the venues for preconciliar theology. If we were to identify a characteristic product of theology in the period that preceded the council, it would not be the manuals, but the great works of reference such as the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique or the Dictionnaire de spiritualité. The articles in these works often amounted to book-length treatments in excess of 100,000 words. They include outstanding monuments of scholarship that could never be replaced today; the depth of theological learning that went into their composition no longer exists – so much for the weakness of preconciliar theology. The idea of 'manualist theology' was a fiction aimed at priests whose theological formation did not go much farther than the manuals they had studied in seminary. Such priests were in the majority, especially in the English-speaking world where academic theology was weak. Convince them that what they had learned in the seminary was flawed and obsolete 'manualist theology', and the road to leading them away from the Catholic doctrine they had been taught was open.

Thomism.

Another article of the postconciliar creed has to do with the character of the Thomism that was promoted by popes from Leo XIII to Pius XII. The substantive accusations made against this Thomism are that it unjustifiably limited theology to a particular philosophical system, that theology was forced to conform to it, and that it was not the true thought of St. Thomas. These claims play a subordinate role in the criticism of preconciliar Thomism, whose main thrust lies in accusations that Thomism was 'abstract', 'rationalist', 'ahistorical', 'arid', 'frozen', 'immobile', 'obsessed', 'encouraging pure secularity', 'sclerotically hardened and furred theologically, spiritually and ecclesially', 'causing a rupture between theology and life', a 'wax mask', a 'straightjacket' that 'reduced theological speculation to sterility'. The essence of this villainous form of Thomism is supposed to be given by the 24 Thomistic theses developed by leading scholars and endorsed by the Sacred Congregation of Studies in 1914, as containing the principles and main pronouncements of St. Thomas's philosophy.³