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Post by hibernicus on Nov 27, 2012 13:08:26 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 9, 2013 22:43:01 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 24, 2013 21:49:13 GMT
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luke
New Member
Posts: 19
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Post by luke on Jul 25, 2013 10:10:58 GMT
I've been reading up on that Priory and have been impressed with the Father Prior's letters and recorded homelies, particularly to their oblates.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 8, 2013 21:36:28 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 24, 2013 22:21:03 GMT
The current IRISH CATHOLIC has a very nice piece on the Olivetan Benedictine monastery in Rostrevor and its mission of promoting inter-church dialogue, incorporating an interview with Dom Mark-Ephraem Nolan.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Nov 5, 2013 13:31:45 GMT
There are a few things going on at the moment. The Bishop of Meath invited the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal into Drogheda. I gather that the older sisters in mufti are very shocked by younger women going around in habits and veils.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 29, 2013 20:25:09 GMT
A sad little historical milestone, though probably inevitable given the decline of Catholic observance in Italy. The last Dominicans are leaving the famous Convent of San Marco in Florence, where Fra Angelico painted, Savonarola was superior, and St Philip Neri was educated: wdtprs.com/blog/2013/11/florence-dominicans-to-leave-san-marco-signs-of-the-times/These comments on the post are of interest: EXTRACTS Supertradmum says: 29 November 2013 at 10:30 am Dear Fr. Z., if American Dominicans are going to consider this, it must happen soon. Recent rules coming down from the EU are beginning to block the movements of orders and religious people in Europe. I talked to two African Carmelites this summer in Dublin who told me they use to be able to come to their own order in Ireland for two years, and now they can only come for two months. Also, the dioceses in Great Britain are no longer allowed to take seminarians from Africa (Nigeria has 700 last I heard), or Viet Name, or any other non-EU country, unless a boy already has an immediate family member resident in GB. Of course, there are very, very few men in seminaries in the EU. It is obvious to me that the movement of the international, one, holy, apostolice, Catholic Church, an institution which transcends boundaries, will be more and more forced not to allow the movement of Her members. We might be seeing the end of missionary movement in many countries. This could happen here as well. Italy may be an easier country to deal with in such matters. Let us pray that this country remains an open door for the movement of orders. We cannot take anything for granted in these times of growing anti-Catholicism and anti-religion. [EVEN ALLOWING FOR SUPERTRADMUM'S TENDENCY TO SCAREMONGERING THIS SOUNDS HORRIBLY PLAUSIBLE, BOTH BECAUSE OF GROWING RESTRICTIONS ON IMMIGRATION GENERALLY, AND BECAUSE EUROPEAN STATES HAVE BEEN MOVING TO LIMIT THE "RELIGIOUS MINISTER EXCEPTION" FOR IMMIGRATION AS THEY WISH TO RESTRICT THE ENTRY OF RADICAL ISLAMIC PREACHERS, AND OF COURSE IT WOULD "NOT BE FAIR" TO APPLY IT ONLY TO MUSLIMS - GIVEN THE TENDENCY TO RELY ON THIRD WORLD CLERGY TO MAKE UP FOR DECLINING VOCATIONS HERE, THIS COULD HAVE SERIOUS PASTORAL CONSEQUENCES - HIB] ................... Faith says: 29 November 2013 at 10:51 am The Dominicans were evicted decades ago from the rooms that had Fra Angelico’s murals. The Italian Government took them over and they are a museum. The friars were restricted to a small priory, which sadly they currently had to leave. I SUSPECT THIS HAPPENED AT THE RISORGIMENTO WHEN A LOT OF CHURCH PROPERTY WAS SECULARISED - THIS IS WHY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE ORATORIANS ONLY HAVE A SMALL PROPORTION OF THE CHIESA NUOVA COMPLEX IN ROME AND THE REST IS GOVERNMENT OFFICES - HIB ..... Elizabeth D says: 29 November 2013 at 11:41 am Wow. Go for it, Eastern Province Dominicans! That is a highly appropriate suggestion. There should be Dominicans to make known to those who visit the works of Fra Angelico, that there is still such a thing as a Dominican friar, and what is the Christian meaning of the beautiful art. [THIS REMINDS ME SADLY OF A VISIT I ONCE PAID TO THE RUINS OF A MEDIAEVAL MONASTERY IN ENGLAND - IN THE HERITAGE CENTRE THEY SOLD TEDDY BEARS DRESSED IN MONKS' HABITS, AND THE GENERAL IMPRESSION GIVEN WAS THAT MONKS WERE A SORT OF HISTORICAL CURIOSITY AND THERE WAS NO SENSE THAT THEY ACTUALLY STILL EXISTED - HIB] END OF EXTRACTS
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 2, 2014 21:55:06 GMT
An article from CRISIS magazine argues that the view that the married and religious vocations are of equal value undermines the religious state, because it makes the sacrifices inherent in priestly and religious life pointless, and that vocations directors ought to return to the older method of asserting the superiority of the vowed life and urging candidates to pursue it as a better means of sanctification. Again, I would have a bit more sympathy for this writer if he would acknowledge that the old approach often took the form of a hard-sell verging on emotional blackmail or familial compulsion, and this was one reason why there was a reaction against it. Any thoughts on this piece? www.crisismagazine.com/2013/sacrificing-religious-life-on-the-altar-of-egalitarianism
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 23, 2014 11:29:07 GMT
This piece is worth reading, though it troubles me that the author takes the charlatan Malachi Martin seriously as a commentator: www.lmschairman.org/2014/12/more-on-those-nuns-how-female-religious.htmlEXTRACT Ann Carey Sisters in Crisis is about religious sisters (active, not contemplative, and mostly 'sisters', not, technically, nuns). Like Malachi Martin she talks in some detail about the things happening even before the Council which began to undermine the sisters, and were crucial to the rapid spread of liberal innovations during and after it. If you are a bit dubious about this kind of book, read Carey before the others. (Or listen to a talk she gave about the first edition: here.) She is far from being a traditionalist extremist. She is essentially positive about how the reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council were supposed to go, and she has much to say about the problems with religious life before the Council. Some of her judgements on the latter, in my view, seemed too harsh; others need to be taken on board in any attempted restoration. An important factor she discusses which is easy to miss, if you are most interested in the impact of ideology, is the baby boom. The post-war baby boom put huge strain on the Catholic school system in the USA, and by extension on the sisters who staffed it. They found themselves, often heroically, working in near-impossible conditions, with vast classes and very limited experience and qualifications. The moment of crisis precipitated by the reform found many orders of religious sisters in a genuinely intolerable state of affairs, and their bishops abjectly dependent upon them and accordingly unwilling to rein them in. Such contingent human factors are important. [ANOTHER AND RELATED FACTOR WOULD BE THE EXPANSION OF SECONDARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION AFTER 1945, INVOLVING THE ADMISSION OF A MUCH GREATER COHORT OF WORKING-CLASS CATHOLICS, AND THE PRESSURE TO EXPAND CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AND IMPROVE THE QUALIFICATIONS OF THEIR RELIGIOUS STAFF - HIB] Carey explains how the reform was botched. Sensible-sounding but often terribly vague proposals ('simplify the habit'; 'get appropriate training for your work'; 'revise your constitutions') were sent down the chain of command and normal expectations and procedures lifted. A period of 'experimentation' was permitted. The 1917 Code of Canon Law had obviously been left behind in many important respects; a new one was in preparation and not promulgated until 1982; the Church's law effectively disappeared in the meantime. Any departure from traditions could be presented as a 'response to the Council's call for reform'; any resistance to such departures could be presented as 'resistance to the Council'. The ordinary sisters were kept in complete ignorance of the Counciliar and post-Conciliar documents: as Carey reminds us, you couldn't just look them up on the internet back in 1967. The English translations were slow to arrive, and were sometimes tendentious; most influential, on occasion, were early drafts of documents which lacked the balance and precision of the final, official, versions. Sisters were at the mercy of their leadership and canonical advisers. The crucial factor was that, by the time the Council started, the intellectual leadership of the American religious sisters was already in the hands of a small liberal cabal. They had gained control of the courses young sisters from many orders attended to prepare them for their work, and of the official umbrella body (what is now the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, LCWR). With these two instruments they spread their ideas to every order in the land. A massive re-education programme was rolled out, with self-styled experts visiting communities to undermine their stability of life. Female religious life in America did not die a natural death: it was assassinated, with a care and thoroughness, and the use of abundant resources, which Stalin would have admired. Carey notes the appalling cruelty of the liberal leadership towards those who didn't get with the programme. They were, in a number of complex technical ways, ruthlessly disenfranchised from elections and silenced in official discussions. They were driven out of their orders, or confined together and isolated. As they aged their opportunity even to pray before the Blessed Sacrament was undermined, by the trashing of their chapels. This persecution, of course, is still going on. Clearly, the confused and confusing juggernaut we refer to when we talk about 'the post-Conciliar reform of religious life' was a catastrophe. Religious life has, at its heart, community, continuity, and prayer. You can't have the religious life without a sense of continuity [I.E A SENSE OF COMMON IDENTITY WITH THE GENERATIONS WHO WENT BEFORE AND THOSE WHO WILL COME AFTERWARDS -HIB], any more than you can have a family or a nation. You can't have a community without a common life, lived together. You can't have a Christian life of any kind without prayer. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that many orders of religious sisters systematically destroyed each of these three things. The proponents of the reform at the Council itself cannot escape the blame entirely, of only for their appalling naivety. Never before has the Church proposed to a religious community that they pick through their traditions and junk all those which didn't seem to fit with the fads of the moment: No! The Church calls us to hold fast to what we have been given; change may be necessary, but we don't go looking for it. And yet that is the message which can all too easily be read in the official documents. The liberal experiment is now reaching its final stage. Communities made up of sisters in lay clothes living in separate flats doing secular work, or just having a quiet time 'discerning what the Spirit is saying to me', will not exist in twenty years because their members will all have died of old age. The communities which will still exist, the ones attracting vocations, are those which are recognisable as religious communities, living a recognisable community life. This is no thanks to the bishops and officials in Rome; in some cases they tried, and failed, to ameliorate the disaster taking place, in most cases they did nothing; the more conservative orders, breakaway groups, and new communities, have often been scandalously treated. The worm in the decaying orders will, nevertheless, have finished the apple, and will die. Its death takes with it a huge part of the Church: communities, schools, parish activities, buildings, evangelical possibilities. The Church is maimed by the substantial loss of female religious. END Any thoughts?
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Dec 30, 2014 12:00:19 GMT
I read Hon Dr Shaw's article carefully. I'm very surprised he takes Malachi Martin seriously; however, I find the comments about the Carey book (I have read both this and Rose's Good Bye, Good Men; and I've read Vatican and Windswept House by Martin, but not The Jesuits) a bit over-defensive of the trad position. He seems to assume that the problems were more to do with the immediate post-war period but that this was down to management of personnel and resources rather than any intrinsic problem. A lot of the analysis after is stuff I couldn't dispute. Commentary box is interesting. I see the US pixie Long Skirts throws in her two cents in verse. I'm not picking on her, but at times I get tired of the pixie narrative about "one bishop" ie Archbishop LeFebvre. It makes for a great story, but I don't believe that historical analysis would bear it out (though I would accept things might not have advanced so far without him - he was more visible than Bishop de Castro Mayer and more strident than Cardinal Siri). The commentator who says he was a tragic figure is nearer the truth. All this underscores and reinforces Hibernicus' argument for a proper narrative. This is true of Catholic traditionalism, of the pro-life position and many other things on which we find ourselves on the opposite side of the fence to consensus opinion.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 30, 2014 19:11:10 GMT
Agreed that the problem is not just the post-war period; I would suggest there was a degree of twentieth-century ossification after the great expansion, and part of this was down to distortions of the ideals of obedience and austerity. Another problem which I think would have affected the apostolic orders in any case is the increasing need for extended and advanced technical training (particularly in healthcare) in ways which created tension withe the demands of religious formation. (One example where the post war strain, and a legalistic mindset leading to neglect of proper formation, would be a large teaching order which, I am reliably told, in the postwar era dispensed all their novices from their year of spiritual formation, whether they wanted to be dispensed or not, and put them straight into the classroom. That assumption that spirituality is a superfluous add-on, and obedience can substitute for formation, was a recipe for disaster, and I don't think it was just incidental.)
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 2, 2015 8:41:37 GMT
I said: Hibernicus asked: Indeed - I have seen some of Fr. Daly's writings on Fr. George Tyrrell the Modernist and he declares pretty explicitly that in his opinion the Modernists were right and Pius X wrong. The Church needs this sort of stuff like the TITANIC needed the iceberg. Your view, then, is that the Augustinians have fallen short of their charism specifically through failing in loyalty to the Holy See? I never answered his question. But the answer is yes, at least the Irish Augustinian Province have. The English and Australian provinces are little better. The Nigerian Augustinians I've seen are a bit better. There are a number of other orders in the Augustinian family, based on the friars (canons regular are a separate entity); the Order of Augustinian Recollects, who are very much concentrated in Spain and Latin America; the Augustinian Assumptionists in France; and the tiny Order of Discalced Augustinians in southern Italy. Strange to say, this last group which is pretty conservative has seen growth in the post conciliar period while the other three have somewhat better.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 2, 2015 8:49:59 GMT
Agreed that the problem is not just the post-war period; I would suggest there was a degree of twentieth-century ossification after the great expansion, and part of this was down to distortions of the ideals of obedience and austerity. Another problem which I think would have affected the apostolic orders in any case is the increasing need for extended and advanced technical training (particularly in healthcare) in ways which created tension withe the demands of religious formation. (One example where the post war strain, and a legalistic mindset leading to neglect of proper formation, would be a large teaching order which, I am reliably told, in the postwar era dispensed all their novices from their year of spiritual formation, whether they wanted to be dispensed or not, and put them straight into the classroom. That assumption that spirituality is a superfluous add-on, and obedience can substitute for formation, was a recipe for disaster, and I don't think it was just incidental.) One can probably see that this ossification was a problem, but can also see where it came from. And I think there was a tendency to cut corners in formation too. I think through all the religious orders, there has been a huge element of rabbits caught in the headlight. This allowed a veritable take over of the Redemptorists by a liberal gang, but in most other orders they have been the more vocal. When it comes to diocesan theologians, Enda McDonough is the name most cited (though his colleague in Maynooth's Moral Theology department, Father Patrick Hannon went a lot further, to the extent of giving evidence in favour of switching off the life support machine in the Ward of Court case in the early 1990s). But when it comes to the orders, think of the Marist Seán Fagan or the Augustinian Gabriel Daly or a host of others, largely associated with the Milltown and Kimmage Missionary Institutes (the latter covering missionaries). Like a house of cards....
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 4, 2015 13:02:40 GMT
One point that sometimes occurs to me is that those who opposed/restricted the development of certain apostolic/missionary orders, from the C18 down to the mid-C20, on the grounds that they would lead to the loss of the common/contemplative aspect of religious life and eventually to the evaporation of religious life per se, may not have been entirely wrong. I am NOT saying they were entirely right, given that apostolic/missionary orders had to carry out tasks which could not have been carried out effectively - if at all - by contemplatives (and let's not forget the priest and the levite in the parable of the good Samaritan) but their fear that spiritual formation might come to be seen as an optional extra or an impediment seems to have had a bit more substance than is acknowledged nowadays.
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