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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Sept 20, 2012 11:24:41 GMT
This isn't surprising. Do you think there is a general tendency, though, to see Italianate = Roman?
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 21, 2012 11:03:49 GMT
I don't really know Italy well enough to judge how much a Northerner like John would have in common with a Neapolitan in terms of devotional culture, or whether there are differences between Rome and other parts of the peninsula in that respect - and though I have read a Faber biography I am insufficiently familiar with his writings to know their sources. Certainly Newman used to complain regularly that Faber engaged in wholesale importation of Italian styles of devotional language (hyperbole etc) without realising that they came across as excessive in a different culture. (Faber was quite willing to defend this emotionalism BTW as an antidote to rigorism and over-intellectualism.)
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 8, 2012 21:10:05 GMT
Cardinal Heenan's A CROWN OF THORNS has several comments on John as conservative (including his strong emphasis on canon law, the fact that his speech at the close of the first session implies that the purpose of the council is to make it easier for the world to be reconciled with the church rather than vice versa). Heenan also suggests that John's intervention to break the deadlock over the rejected schema may not have been a decisive intervention of support for the liberals as often suggested, but simply an attempt to hurry things up and get on with the Council, which John expected would be much shorter than it actually was (the unforeseen circumstances were that all 3000 bishops wanted to speak, and that since air travel enabled the bishops to return home between sessions they were not under the same pressure to get back to neglected dioceses as at previous councils). He also mentions John's fondness for Fr Faber (ALL FOR JESUS as bedtime reading.) Here's a nice quote that might repay discussion on p.389 (remember Heenan is very concerned when he writes that things are out of control, and that may slant his views to some extent): "Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and John would have wept over Rome if he had foreseen some of the things that would be done in the name of his Council".
BTW Heenan has a couple of other points relating to the course the Council took- (a) the UK bishops' continental contacts and visits were mainly with France and Italy, so they didn't pick up on the developments taking place in Germany and the Low Countries. So the Irish bishops were not unique, though the British bishops apparently were much more active in the Council as it developed than the Irish (b) hostility to the Curia was not purely theological; many bishops felt that the Italian bishops in the Curia during the fascist era had picked up some of the bombastic arrogance of Italy generally in that period, and Italians were unpopular both with the French (because of Mussolini's stab-in-the-back declaration of war when France was already beaten in 1940) and the Germans (because the Italians had switched sides during the war).
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irma
New Member
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Post by irma on Oct 9, 2012 20:56:43 GMT
@ hibernicus
I'm very appreciative of all the information you've posted on Blessed John XXIII and so many other subjects. I don't post here because honestly I'm no match intellectually to you or the other members of this forum. I lurk for the sole reason to learn.
As you are most likely aware, a debate rages among the radtrads that Cardinal Rampolla was a freemason and that's the real reason Emperor Franz Joseph vetoed his election to the papacy. A charge for which there is no evidence for but none the less they do not feel the necessity to back up their claims with cold hard irrefutable proof. Unfortunately these people are so caught up in conspiracies and consumed with hatred for what they disdainfully refer to as New Church, they seem to have lost all reason. You simply cannot carry on a discussion with them. They're right and you can't convince them otherwise. Even if you could provide all the proof in the world to them, it wouldn't make any difference. Anyway I notice that you mentioned that the reason Franz Joseph prevented Card. Rampolla's election was because he resented the way in which he conducted to funeral of his son Rudolf. Could you please provide me with a source from which you got this information. I'm carrying on a conversation with the only person interested in the truth about the matter over on that cesspool of a supposed Catholic forum aka Cathinfo. I didn't want to expose your forum to ridicule and vitriol if I posted a link.
I noticed a while back that you admitted that you don't know how use the quote feature seen on many other forums and this one in particular doesn't have it. What you can do is this: . I think you'll find it works.
Knock Knock. Whose there? Boo, there's a Jew standing behind you, that's who. LOL
I'm tempted to post this but I'm afraid it wouldn't go over very well.
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irma
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Post by irma on Oct 9, 2012 20:58:26 GMT
Sorry the quote didn't work. Here's how .
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 10, 2012 20:17:21 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 13, 2012 21:34:04 GMT
Here's an interesting thought, BTW - if Rampolla had become Pope it is unlikely that Angelo Roncalli would ever have been elected to the Papacy. This is why: Mgr Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi, a leading organiser of the Italian Catholic Action movement (a minor noble from Piacenza), was a Rampolla protege, and would probably have been appointed to a major Italian see if Rampolla had become Pope in 1903. Instead, he was sent to the relatively small diocese of Bergamo in northern Italy. (This BTW is how any bureaucracy operates; through patron-client networks. The Vatican may be the Seat of Peter but it is not exempt from the normal features of bureaucracies any more than the Pope is exempt from human frailties.) Because he was coming to Bergamo as an outsider, Radini-Tedeschi decided to recruit as his secretary some promising young priest from the diocese who would help him to adjust to it. His choice fell on Angelo Roncalli, who was just completing postgraduate studies in the Pontifical Academy. Roncalli developed strong personal reverence for Radini-Tedeschi and took him as his role-model. In 1916 (Radini-Tedeschi died in his late 50s in 1914) Roncalli published a short and reverential life of Radini-Tedeschi, which I have just been reading and may comment on some time. Radini-Tedeschi was a friend of Rampolla's leading protege, Archbishop Giacomo della Chiesa of Bologna (later Pope Benedict XV) and of Monsignor Achille Ratti (later Pope Pius XI). Because they were familiar with Radini-Tedeschi, they also became familiar with his promising young secretary, and a few years after the bishop's death first brought Roncalli from Bergamo to do administrative work in Rome, then made him a bishop and assigned him to the Papal diplomatic service. If Rampolla had become Pope, Radini-Tedeschi would presumably have received a more important diocese (probably an archbishopric). He would not have required a Bergamesque secretary; hence Roncalli would not have been brought into contact with Radini-Tedeschi's influential friends, and might well have spent the rest of his life as a history professor in the diocesan seminary at Bergamo.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 13, 2012 22:10:22 GMT
Pope Benedict emphasises John XXIII's statement at the opening of Vatican II that the deposit of faith remains unchanged and the question is how to present it more effectively: wdtprs.com/blog/2012/10/pope-to-tablet/
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Post by hibernicus on May 1, 2013 7:11:09 GMT
An English Catholic blogger recalls a piece by Cardinal Heenan on the first anniversary of John's death, disputing the claim that John had a major plan to shake up the Church. A couple of interesting details (I never knew the phrase "Blessed be His Most Precious Blood" in the Divine Praises was added by John). areluctantsinner.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/as-year-of-faith-opens-we-need-to-join.htmlEXTRACTS Heenan began his reflection by stating that although John had been "dead only a year ... those of us who thought we knew him well are hard put to recognise his gentle, lovable personality behind a cloud of mythology." The Cardinal wished to free the late Pope from false notions about him, adding that it is always " etter [to] tell the truth than create legends." The eighth Archbishop of Westminster then went on to state quite clearly the differences between the mythological (liberal / progressive) John and the real one: The chief difference between Pope John that man and Pope John the myth is that the real John was no genius. The mythical John is being built up into a man with phenomenal perception. He is featured as a resourceful ruthless visionary conscious of his destiny to become the Liberator of the Church held in bondage for centuries by his small-minded predecessors. He was determined to make the Church free for scholars of every degree of immaturity. No longer would restrictions of any kind be put on freedom of thought. Away with censorship! Down with the Roman Curia! Set free the People of God! The Pope I knew was not in the least like this mythical John. My Pope John was more like a benevolent parish priest. I doubt if he had read many of the books of contemporary theologians. He made scholars smile when he told them the name of his favourite bedside book – Father Faber’s All for Jesus. The Cardinal then went on to write, specifically referring to Vatican II: But the widest divergence between the two Johns is in relation to the Vatican Council. For the mythical John the Council was a brilliantly thought-out campaign to open all windows in the Church for the emergence of an entirely new Catholic life. Tiresome domestic disputes among Catholic theologians would be for ever silenced. The Church must clearly be seen as essentially the same as all other Christian denominations. Theological differences were unimportant and modern theologians could hide them in the impenetrable Mystery of the Church. Under the influence of the mythical John a Protestant observer remarked: ‘By the time the Romans have the English liturgy and a married clergy and the Church of England has gone back to Latin, it will be hard to tell the difference’. Heenan claimed that, contrary to the mythological Pope, the real John XXIII was unsure of what "he wanted for the Church", adding that the Pontiff had been "rather bewildered by the Council." It seems that Cardinal Heenan, who personally knew the Pope, and who was thanked by John's private secretary for writing his July '64 reflection on him, was convinced that 'good Pope John' was more than happy with the pre-Conciliar Church -- he did not want to make any radical changes to it, but merely wished to build upon what had already been achieved since Vatican I. The Second Vatican Council was convened to reaffirm the Faith, not dismantle it!.....
Cardinal Heenan wrote: It would be tragic if the myth were to kill the man. He was so lovable, so unpretentious, so simple. He wanted to make everybody happy and the radiation of his goodness achieved that very end. It was impossible not to be happy in his company. He was dismayed when he found that the Council once started could not be soon finished. He knew that the prolonged absence of bishops from their flocks was not good. No family thrives if the father is constantly away from home. Pope John wanted the Church to settle down as soon as possible. According to Cardinal Heenan, Pope John was not the revolutionary that many devotees of what would later be called 'the spirit of Vatican II' wished him to be. He was not "a great thinker or planner", and even during the months leading up to the Second Vatican Council, Pope John was as concerned about the fact that "so little was done in the Catholic Church to honour the Precious Blood" as he was about Vatican II. Heenan added this anecdote to prove his point: ‘Isn’t it strange,’ he once said to me, ‘that we hear so little about the Precious Blood? Protestants have prayers and hymns but we seem to take the Precious Blood for granted.’ So I was not surprised when the Pope introduced into the Divine Praises the invocation: ‘Blessed be His Most Precious Blood’. After recalling once more that "Pope John was the old-fashioned ‘garden of the soul’ type Catholic" who "read his Faber and no doubt regularly recited the litany of the Sacred Heart", Heenan reminded his readers that John had not been "an original thinker", adding: It was Pope Pius XII, not Pope John, who allowed married pastors to become priests, revised the rules for the Eucharistic fast and introduced evening Mass. Pope John was no innovator. He was responsible for no great reforms. Cardinal Heenan ended his July '64 message by noting Pope John's "great achievement" in life, which was "to teach the world of the twentieth century how small is hatred and how great is love." This kind of achievement is what led to the good Pope's beatification -- he was not raised to the altars as a reward for Vatican II. END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 5, 2013 22:26:44 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 7, 2013 20:30:02 GMT
An interesting piece by George Weigel discussing how Bl. John XXIII's desire for a modus vivendi with the communist bloc, and his encyclical PACEM IN TERRIS, were influenced by the world's near brush with destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis (which took place just as Vatican II was opening): www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/06/pacem-in-terris-at-50
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 22, 2013 17:48:51 GMT
Earlier this week we had the feast of St Gregory Barbarigo in the EF calendar. Like most people who will read this, I asked myself "St Gregory who?" and went off to look him up on Wikipedia. It turns out that St Gregory was one of the last saints added to the Calendar before the changes - in fact he was the first saint canonised by Bl. John XXIII. Gregory spent his early career as a diplomat (he attended the Congress of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, before becoming a priest). He was eventually made the first Bishop of Bergamo and attracted a reputation as a saintly reforming bishop who modelled himself on St Charles Borromeo, the great implementer of the Tridentine reforms in the Archdiocese of Milan (of which Bergamo was part before it became an independent see). The parallels with Pope John are very obvious; he had been a diplomat, he came from Bergamo, he saw St Charles Borromeo as a role-model (for much of his career his principal leisure activity was preparing an edition of one of St Charles's diocesan visitations). This is how private devotions operate - when you discern affinities between your own life and experiences and those of the selected saint. Although the old canonisation system was supposed to be very slow-moving and cumbersome, I suspect that St Gregory's being the first saint canonised by Pope John indicates that it was still possible for it to be speeded up when a Pope takes a particular interest in a cause (St Gregory had been beatified in 1761.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Barbarigo
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 5, 2013 21:01:03 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 20, 2013 19:25:45 GMT
Have just started reading the life of John XXIII by the "progressive" ex-Jesuit Peter Hebblethwaite. This will certainly have its own axes to grind, but as it is the standard/most detailed life in English it is necessary to come to terms with it. I think I am now old and wary enough to exercise due discernment. In a brief introduction, addressed to John XXIII himself, Hebblethwaite remarks in passing that John's secretary and literary executor Mgr Loris Capovilla told him that John never made the remark often attributed to him about "wanting to throw open the windows of the Vatican". According to Mgr Loris, John would never have said such a thing as he happened to be extremely sensitive to draughts. Nevertheless, Hebblethwaite continues, the remark is true "in a spiritual sense" so he will cite it anyway! There's the "spirit of Vatican II" for you.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 20, 2013 19:39:57 GMT
Fr Zuhlsdorf reproduces John XXIII's opening speech to Vatican II, and suggests it is a mixture of inspiring faith and excessive optimism. An interesting discussion in the combox (though of course there are also the usual sprinkling of Grunerites and cranks) including a suggestion that the translation provided is an approximation and the actual Latin is less euphoric. This comment is interesting as noting that the optimism of Vatican II should be seen as the product of the late 50s (the sense that the defeat of Nazism, the revelation of Stalin's true nature, and the apparent postwar upsurge in political and cultural Catholicism pointed the way to a bright new era): EXTRACT Athelstan says: 20 July 2013 at 11:14 am Hello Anita, The optimism about human nature seems pretty incredible in a world that had just emerged from not one, but two global, fratricidal slaughters, and was still in large part enslaved under Communism. It does seem incredible, doesn’t it? And yet that optimism was plainly there, and not just in the Church. The two decades after the Second World War constituted a kind of artificial lull in the West, one that gave many in the Church an undue optimism about what was possible for orthodox Christianity in a secularizing West, either in ecumenical efforts, or to the unchurched. I always harken back to comments made – of all people – by Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck, who was an observer at the Council. Lindbeck was struck at the time by the air of optimism, and how sanguine documents like Gaudium et Spes seemed: “At the time, I tended to agree with Edmund Schlink that the document’s reading of the world was too optimistic. He was a German theologian who had lived through the Hitler period and been deeply involved in the Confessing Church struggle against the pro-Nazi “German Christians,” and he was not at all sure that the rest of the West was immune from crises as severe as Germany had gone through. Moreover, and here we are on a different, although related, track, he formally rejected the legitimacy of what he regarded as Teilhard de Chardin’s “Christianizing” of evolution, both in itself and in its implications of an open-ended human progress. “If I remember my discussions with Schlink correctly, I defended Gaudium et Spes on the grounds that it was a necessary corrective in the Catholic context, and that looking at it from a Reformation perspective was unfair because the whole nature-grace schema in Catholic theology lent itself to these kinds of formulations much better than did Reformation evaluations. “So while Schlink had theological reservations, I had reservations about the document’s opportuneness. I was already pessimistic about the state of the world. The sixties were already upon us; you could see 1968 coming in 1965. “…The resurgence of historic faith that came in response to Nazism looked as if it were definitive. But now it seems as if this was a relatively temporary interval that was made possible precisely by the fact that it was the orthodox, so to speak, who had stood up against the Nazis. In sum, the de-Christianization of Western culture, the kind of de-Christianization that was also undermining the faith of the Church in its tradition, was not really interrupted.” Read the whole interview here: www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/re-viewing-vatican-iian-interview-with-george-a-lindbeck-2END wdtprs.com/blog/2013/07/podcazt-136-john-xxiii-opens-vatican-ii-gaudet-mater-ecclesia-optimism-and-naivete-error-and-continuity/#comments
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