bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Pastoral Training in the Time of Fishacre
Authors: Boyle Leonard 
Published: July 2007

The original mission of the Dominican Order was preaching the word. It was a direct result of the constitution Inter Cetera of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 under Pope Innocent III, according to which bishops who were over-worked or who were not up to the demands of preaching should establish groups of preachers in their dioceses as their helpers and coworkers in the pastoral care.Dominic Guzman, who was at the Council with his diocesan bishop, Fulk of Toulouse, was convinced that in the band of preachers he had set up in Toulouse, he had a means of making sure that this constitution would not remain a dead letter. A little more than a year later, in January 1217, he obtained from the new pope, Honorius III, a mandate that gave general approval to the work of preaching already begun at Toulouse.This papal confirmation of Dominic’s Toulouse preachers, as preachers in general, was followed over the next three years, 1218 to 1220, by many ‘Letters to Prelates’ urging them to make use of the preachers and to encourage them in the office of preaching to which they have been deputed. Now in these letters of recommendation and in the mandate Gratiarum Omnium (the real foundation charter of the Dominican Order), there is no mention whatsoever of the sacrament of penance, the counselling of souls or the hearing of confessions. This is somewhat strange given that the Constitution Inter Cetera of the Lateran Council had explicitly joined the function of hearing confessions to that of preaching.
The Integrative Theology of Richard Fishacre OP
Authors: Long R. James 
Published: July 2007

This year marks the 750th anniversary of the death of the first two Dominican masters at the University of Oxford, Robert Bacon OP and his student and successor Richard Fishacre OP. From the former there survives only a Psalms commentary and a sermon. From the latter, however, we have a number of works, including the earliest Sentences Commentary composed in England. Peter Lombard’s four books of Sentences offered to their readers, which eventually included all candidates for the degree of master of theology at the leading medieval universities, a systematic exposition of texts from the Fathers, principally St. Augustine. It was therefore seen as the locus of speculative or “dogmatic’ theology as opposed to “moral” theology, the locus of which was the Scriptures.This role for Lombard’s work, moreover, was reaffirmed in a so— called epistola secreta, a sealed letter, issued by Pope Innocent IV and addressed to Robert Grosseteste, who was at the time bishop of Lincoln but who still kept a close watch on developments at the studium where he had spent so much time and invested so much energy.
The Immortal Spirit of Creation: Kazantzakis and the Bhagavad Gita
Authors: Owens Lewis 
Published: July 2007

The religious thought of Nikos Kazantzakis, particularly as contained within ‘The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises’, is still demanding attention. Although there have been recent welcoming attempts to elucidate his religious position in relation to Christian thought and process theism, these attempts still remain largely theoretically speculative. What the present paper hopes to contribute is a combination of both speculation and fact. Through an examination of Kazantzakis’ personal library housed in the Historical Museum of Iraklion, Crete, one can become affiliated with the literature that was occupying Kazantzakis immediately prior to and during the composition of the ‘Spiritual Exercises’. The speculative part naturally comes when one tries to ascertain the influence of such literature upon his subsequent thought.It is clear that during the years 1922-23, when he was based in Vienna and Berlin, Kazantzakis was engaged with works of Freud, Rank, Spengler, Luxemborg as well as certain commentaries on Buddhist thought. These sources are generally recognised as shaping Kazantzakis’ thought during this time. However, one source that has not received any attention is the Bhagavad Gita, literally ‘The Song of God’. Kazantzakis had his own German translation of this Sanskrit poetic work and inside this copy may be found a ticket advertising an evening of readings dated ‘Berlin, Mittwoch 2 Oktober, 1922”. It thus appears fair to assume that this was a work that Kazantzakis was engaged with to a degree during his sojourn in Berlin.During this time, Kazantzakis witnessed the crumbling German economic system, had first hand experience of profound poverty and became associated with an active group of communists.
McCabe on Aquinas on The Trinity
Authors: Charlton William 
Published: July 2007

Much gratitude is due to Fr Herbert McCabe for his paper ‘Aquinas on the Trinity’ (New Blackfriars June 1999 pp. 268-83). Aquinas’ teaching on this central mystery in Summa Contra Gentiles 4 (CG 4) and Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars (ST 1) combines philosophical ingenuity with fidelity to the words of Scripture in a way that is perennially inspiring. But theologians can continue drawing upon it only insofar as it does not depend on philosophical doctrines unacceptable to modem philosophers. To judge if there is such dependence we need to have it expounded in the language of modern philosophy. This task McCabe accomplishes admirably.I think McCabe has stated the crucial part of Aquinas’ argument correctly, but to preclude misunderstanding I shall start by restating it briefly in my own words. I hope he would agree that there is no substantial difference between my exposition and his. I shall then look at some of the philosophical presuppositions of the argument which might seem suspect today, and suggest that the most worrying lie not, as might at first be thought, in the philosophy of language or ontology, but in the philosophy of mind.God, as a non-material, intellectual substance, has knowledge of himself; he knows that he exists and understands his own nature and his activities. This understanding of himself is a kind of action. It is not, like pushing, pulling or heating, a mode of causal action on something else. It ‘remains’, so to speak, ‘within him’. But it involves one thing’s arising out of or proceeding from another, what Aquinas calls a processio. There arises in God a concept of what he knows.
Justice, Peace and Dominicans 1216–1999: X ‐ Looking backwards, forwards and around
Authors: Mills John Orme 
Published: July 2007

Over the past two years eight people—all of them in one way or another concerned with social justice or peace issues—have written in New Blackfriars about how one very old and in many ways unique Catholic religious order has responded to justice and peace issues in the course of 784 years: the 784 years from its foundation to the end of the Second Millennium. The authors have not set out to write a comprehensive history, but to focus in each article on one individual or group of individuals, placing them in the context of the world they belonged to. Let us start this epilogue by asking ourselves whether we can see in the achievements of these Dominicans any kind of consistent pattern, any recognisable stance—in other words, a distinctively “Dominican” way of reacting to what is going on in society.This, though, is a question much easier to ask than to answer. Some of you think our choice of subjects has been too esoteric to make an assessment of this kind possible. Of the personalities we have written about, neither Eckhart, Antoninus, Vitoria, Las Casas, nor even McNabb could be called “typical” 14th, 15th, 16th or 20th century Dominicans by any stretch of the imagination. Eckhart’s contemporary, William Humbert, the Inquisitor who in 1310 sent the Beguine mystic Marguerite Porete to the stake, was much more a “typical” 14th-century Dominican than Eckhart, who shared some of his most original thoughts with a throng of Beguine women. One or two of you have also criticised us for not devoting an article to St Thomas Aquinas, surely the Dominican who most profoundly shaped the Dominican way of seeing the world.
The Responsibilities of Theology to Business (or the Responsibilities of the Butcher, the Baker, and the Imagemaker)
Authors: Alford Helen 
Published: July 2007

IntroductionThe title of this talk presupposes some important definitions. The conference title, “The Responsibilities of Theology”, struck me firstly as rather odd, but also as strikingly familiar. Many is the time I have seen the heading “The Responsibilities of Business”. In this light, such terminology implies that there is some kind of corporate (in its original sense) identity under the heading “theology” or “business”, to which some kind of responsibility can be ascribed. Lots of ink has been spilt over whether one can say in any meaningful way that the business corporation “acts” and can therefore “have responsibilities”, and this title seems to invite the same kind of approach to the “enterprise of theology”.I’ve taken a particular line on these questions, which is apparent in the thesis below. To take a particular line in order to get somewhere is the kind of thing that a business person would do. Results are important to businesspeople—an important point for theology to take on board—but the drawback in this is that to focus on results also tends to narrow down the discussion. In order to “get somewhere” I am going to do the same thing, which will inevitably leave some avenues of possible discussion left untouched.
Theology and the Culture of the Sciences
Authors: Deane‐Drummond Celia 
Published: July 2007

The idea that theology might have something to say to science, especially if we see this as one of its responsibilities, might seem to us to be an odd question to ask. Ever since C.P. Snow proposed the idea of the ‘two cultures’, the impression of many, apart from those with a keen interest in interactions between science and religion, is that sciences are best left to their own devices. It seems obvious, at first sight, that it is primarily in the realms of history, language, literature, art and music that theology can find welcome dialogue partners. In popular culture, too, there is a residual memory that over-zealous religious fanatics in some way constricted science. The stories of conflict between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce, Galileo and the Holy See, have become inflated into mythologies of distrust and suspicion. The fact that the real historical accounts show many more nuances than this is important to establish, but is not really the point I am making here. Rather, I am suggesting that we have become so used to seeing the two areas of theology and science as separate, that we fail to notice in what ways the culture we five in is also one shaped by science, and that science itself is a profoundly cultural activity.The temptation for those engaged in the dialogue between science and religion is simply to examine the particular discoveries in science and then discuss their implications for theology. While this can take us some way in the process of mutual understanding, what tends to happen is that science becomes the active partner, while theology is merely the passive recipient of what science is discovering.
A Man of the Book
Authors: Murray Paul 
Published: July 2007

A Homily Preached in Memory of Fr Leonard Boyle OP On the Feast of St Thomas Aquinas At Blackfriars, OxfordWhen news of Fr Leonard’s death reached Canada, Michael Attridge, a young doctorate student at the Pontifical Medieval Institute where Leonard had taught for many years, immediately sent a letter of condolence to the convent of the Master at Santa Sabina. In his letter, Michael spoke of his first and only visit to the Vatican Library where he found himself overwhelmed by Leonard’s kindness: “Fr Leonard offered to give me a tour of the library ... Our tour culminated with a visit to the beautifully frescoed Salone Sistino. Fr Boyle took me around to each of the paintings of the various ecumenical councils of the Church. At the end he asked me a question that I’ll never forget—he asked me what was the common feature in each of the paintings. As I struggled, by reviewing all the paintings, to give an intelligent answer to his question, he simply and quietly said with a smile—‘It’s the Book, Michael’. I looked up at the walls and there in the centre of each of the paintings surrounded by the council fathers, was the Bible. He continued: ‘The Book is always at the very heart of the Church’s activity and life—never forget that’.”I have always instinctively thought of Leonard as a man of the Book, and not only because of his enormous talent as a paleographer. Most of the times, in fact, when I heard him speaking in Rome, in public, he was preaching the Gospel.
‘One can only understand what one identifies with’: the Redeemer and the Holocaust in Iris Murdoch's
Authors: Hardy Robert 
Published: July 2007

Various narratives are incorporated into the The Message to the Planet which, on the face of it, should help the reader to understand the novel’s enigmatic and central ‘redemptive’ figure, Marcus Vallar. These include Freud’s ‘Life of Leonardo’ (there are close textual echoes of Freud’s essay in Murdoch’s novel); this is closely linked to the narrative in which Alfred Ludens, Marcus’s ‘disciple’, wants Marcus to live and through which he wants to understand him—that of the archetypal quest for knowledge. An inescapable narrative background is that of the life of Christ: one Murdoch critic suggests thatThe numerous Christ-references take in his Jewishness, his ‘resurrection’ of Pat, his regarding Ludens as John the Baptist... Other characters frequently compare him with Christ in a mocking tone.There are also accounts of Marcus given by other characters, including highly perceptive ones by Dr Marzillian, the psychiatrist, and Daniel Most, the Rabbi. There is Marcus’s account of his own life, in which his attempt to understand the Holocaust figures largely. But there is also a narrative buried for most of the novel which fully surfaces only at the end. This, a story from the Holocaust, impacts on our understanding of Marcus more than any other in the novel and challenges the very words ‘understand’ and ‘redeemer’. In this article I will consider some of these narratives and the impact on the novel of the Holocaust story.Freud’s ‘Life of Leonardo’ is a classic of psychoanalytic biography; but there is much, Freud argues at the end of the essay, that psychoanalysis cannot explain.
Hume's “Is‐Ought” Problem: a solution
Authors: Fitzpatrick Joseph 
Published: July 2007

David Hume first raised the “is-ought” problem in this famous passage from A Treatise of Human Nature:I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs, when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation ‘tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d, and at the same time that a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention wou’d subvert all the vulgar system of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.Behind Hume’s quietly persuasive comments lie at least two questionable assumptions. The first is that the way language is ordinarily used is wrong; rather than take note, in an empirical fashion, of how moral discourse is normally conducted, Hume chooses to be negatively prescriptive in respect of “all the vulgar system of morality”.
Renewing the Moral Life: Some Recent Work in Virtue Theory
Authors: Paterson Craig 
Published: July 2007

In responding to the Second Vatican Council’s call for a renewal in moral theological reflection, Servais Pinckaers, Benedict Ashley, and Romanus Cessario, all Dominicans, are engaged in the earnest labour of authentically interpreting that call to renewal via a systematic examination of the sources of ethics contained in Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and natural reason.The years since the Second Vatican Council have seen many divergent trends in moral method, not least the adoption of a widespread adherence to the methodology of proportionalism, particularly in the United States. The above mentioned Dominicans reject such a method as being incompatible with those crucial sources of our faith. In contrast to the popularity of proportionalism, they are engaged in a quiet, patient, and determined project, centred on virtue theory, that is gradually bearing fruit.In Sources of Christian Ethics, Pinckaers tackles the distorted picture of an ethic based solely on the demands of obligation. The search for the minimal content of obligation in Christian ethics has been corruptive of a fully integrated approach to ethical understanding, and its latent effects are manifested in the minimalism of proportionalism that reduces the moral life to a form of quasitechnical calculus based on the will of the acting subject. Quite simply, proportionalism as a method seems incapable of adequately accounting for our profound sense of personal integrity, and with it, the control we exercise over the constitution of our character expressed in virtuous and unvirtuous conduct.Understanding of our acts operates on two layers. The first layer is the externally observable act. The second layer, lying near the centre of our being, goes much deeper.
The Cross of Christ, Sacrifice and Sacred Violence
Authors: Phillips Peter 
Published: July 2007

A witness to the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus on a hill outside Jerusalem in the early first century would not have been able to identify any aspect of what was going on as sacrifice. Here was merely a judicial murder performed with some cynicism by the Roman administration of a difficult province. For the Temple administration Jesus’s death was understood as a matter of an expediency pointedly ironised by the author of John’s Gospel: ‘You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed’ (John 11.50). There seems little doubt, on the other hand, that the gospels, as well as Paul, place the death of Jesus firmly within a hermeneutical framework provided by the sacrifice of Passover; this, in turn, leads to the early claim that Christ’s death is to be understood in relation to the forgiveness of sins. This theme is already present in the primitive credal statement preserved in I Cor. 15.3, which Paul seems to have inherited from Palestinian Christians and most probably from the Jerusalem church itself.Such a reading of the New Testament material has been challenged by René Girard in a body of work which represents one of the most profound of recent attempts to explore the meaning of sacrifice in the roots of human society. At the danger of oversimplifying the complexity of Girard’s argument, he suggests, in a series of powerful studies, that human society is born in violence.
In Defence of the Humanities
Authors: Meynell Hugo 
Published: July 2007

While I was preparing this article, I read some remarks on the same subject by a U.S. politician with whom I found myself in substantial agreement. I then discovered, to my consternation, that the politician’s opinions had been compared with those of Adolf Hitler. So the reader must be warned that she can expect something pretty shocking in what follows.We desperately need a philosophy of the humanities, both in the popular and in the narrower professional sense of the term ‘philosophy’. That is to say, we need to be able to spell out clearly and distinctly what the place of the humanities is in the good life, why they are important, and why (to put the matter in the most basic terms) they are worth paying for. I read that in parts of the U.S. the obvious obscurity and apparent triviality of the work of many representatives of the humanities has led to a cutting of funds and a precipitous fall in the number of students. I also note with some regret that, for the construction of a philosophy of the humanities in the sense that I have just given, recent trends in philosophy have been of very little help. In general I find a gaping hole in most prevailing modes of contemporary philosophy where the means for defending civilization— sustained reflection on the true and the good, and the best means of achieving them—should be.
Unreasonable Faith
Authors: Hemming Laurence Paul 
Published: July 2007

I have only one point to make about the recent Papal Encyclical Fides et Ratio in this paper, albeit a complex one. I want to draw attention to the fact that the apparently simple and self-evident term ‘reason’ in English is deceptively so, so that when we hear the term ‘reason’ in the title “Faith and Reason” we hear named a marker for something with a long and difficult history. I do not intend to resolve that history in this paper— which would be much too ambitious a task, but rather to relate its complexity to some of the Encyclical’s underlying themes.I want to begin by commenting on the sheer awfulness of the English translation of Fides et Ratio. The English translation is often frankly and mischievously inaccurate. Let me give you just one example (of very many). At §49 the English tells us “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others”. The Latin text has “Suam ipsius philosophiam non exhibet Ecclesia, neque quamlibet praelegit peculiarem philosophiam aliarum damno.” Those two last words “aliarum damno” emphatically do not mean “in preference to others” but rather “to the condemnation of the others”. The sense here is quite different: the English implies that one philosophy could be chosen by the Church from a range of systems: rather like preferring white wine to red for a meal. The implication of the Latin is much sharper: to choose one philosophy would be to pronounce a kind of judgement on the others. A quite different inference.