Launching "Theological Classics": Newman on the Virgin Mary, St Vincent on Novelty and Heresy, Guardini on Sacred Signs

At a time of turmoil, nothing could be better or more important than rooting ourselves deeply in the Catholic tradition. One of my favorite quotations is by St. Prosper of Aquitaine (390-455), writing in his own age of chaos: “Even if the wounds of this shattered world enmesh you, and the sea in turmoil bears you along in but one surviving ship, it would still befit you to maintain your enthusiasm for studies unimpaired. Why should lasting values tremble if transient things fall?”

"In black and white": Archbishop Aguer on tradition versus relativism

"In black and white": Archbishop Aguer on tradition versus relativism

Published at InfoCatólica on March 30, 2022. Translated for Rorate.

The title that heads this note does not refer to the cinema before the invention of technicolor, but to the astonishing criticism of current ecclesiastical officialdom that is directed against the members of the Church who love the great Catholic Tradition, and who recognize that homogeneity is what should characterize the development of ecclesial realities: dogma, liturgy, law, institutions. I have often quoted St. Vincent of Lerins and the formulas he coined in his Commonitory. Those realities can be expressed nove (in a new way), according to the cultural contexts of certain times and places; but in the deposit to be transmitted one cannot include nova, new things, novelties, which imply a heterogeneity with respect to the origins.

 

“Hyperpapalism and Liturgical Mutation: The Case Against the Novus Ordo” — Full Text of Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lepanto Lecture

Rorate is pleased to present the full text of the lecture given by Dr. Kwasniewski at the Lepanto Conference held in New York City on February 16, 2019. A video of this lecture may be found at this link. The text has been edited for publication.

Hyperpapalism and Liturgical Mutation: The Case Against the Novus Ordo

Recent Profane Novelties: A Dialogue on the Death Penalty

The papal apologists who have been so vocal in recent weeks about "how dare you criticize the pope and accuse him of heresy" have fallen eerily silent in the face of his explanation of "development of doctrine" when speaking last Friday, May 10, to the International Union of Superiors General of Women Religious:

The Church is not only Denzinger, that is, the collection of dogmatic passages, of historical things. This is true, but the Church develops on her journey in fidelity to Revelation. We cannot change Revelation. It’s true the Revelation develops. The word is “development” — it develops with time. And we with time understand the faith better and better. The way to understand the faith today, after Vatican II, is different than the way of understanding the faith before Vatican II. Why? Because there is a development of knowledge. You are right. And this isn’t something new, because the very nature — the very nature — of Revelation is in continual movement to clarify itself.

Also the very nature of the moral conscience. For example, today I said clearly that the death penalty is not acceptable — it’s immoral. But, fifty years ago, no. Did the Church change? No. Moral conscience has developed. A development. And the Fathers [of the Church] understood this. In the 800s [actually 400s] there was a French Father, Vincent of Lerins, who coined a nice expression. He says that the knowledge of faith — I’ll say it in Latin, and then I’ll translate it — ut annis consolidetur, dilaetur tempore, sublimeture aetate. That is, it grows with the years. It is continually growing. It doesn’t change, it grows. It expands with time. It is better understood. And with the years it is sublimated. 

Synod, Week 2, Day 2: The Catholic Faith - and the Diabolical Communion

The Catholic Faith:

In the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.

Saint Vincent of Lérins

Commonitorium

 A.D. 434

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The Diabolical Communion: