bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Forty Ecumenical Years
Authors: St John Henry 
Published: July 2007

It is not quite forty years since I produced my first published writing concerned with Christian unity; it was a review article on the Report of the Malines Conversations, which the then editor of Blackfriars asked me to undertake, soon after I finished my studies for the priesthood. But my thought and ideas about ecumenism – the clumsy word had not then been invented – have deep roots in my Anglican background. I have always been profoundly grateful for the religion I was grounded in by the Church of England; and that I was able to take it with me into the Catholic Church whole and entire. With a minimum of detailed adjustment – but a complete re-orientation of mind – I was received, without conditional baptism, in 1917.What I took with me was a religion essentially biblical and liturgical. From earliest childhood – in our daily family service at home, and in similar daily services at school and at Cambridge, I learned to recite the psalter and listen to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Built into this biblical background was the training, more by atmosphere and surroundings than by explicit teaching, of a happy home life, in a large family, with parents at the heart of whose religious practice was the deep personal love of Christ characteristic of the sober Tractarianism of Keble and Newman.
Why the Classics?
Authors: O'Brien Denis 
Published: July 2007

The argument that the study of Latin and Greek is justified because it disciplines or trains the mind is a weak one. Taken to its extreme it involves the fallacy that training for an activity is separable from that activity itself; that you can train a mind to discover the truth, without the person whose mind it is having to decide whether any part of his experience is in fact true or false. You cannot do this. If you are to learn the truth, or some part of the truth, then you must learn the truth. There is no preliminary activity you can engage in which makes you able to know, without actually knowing anything. The only way to train the mind is to use the mind: and to use the mind you must direct it to something outside the mind : something that is worth while in itself.How worthwhile then in themselves are Greek and Latin? Simply as languages they have no special magic. If you want to learn a language more firmly inflected than English, you might quite happily learn German. If you want to enter a new world of language, then learn Russian. This does not mean that we should decry the purely linguistic study of Latin and Greek – writing proses, and verse too, if you want. But it should be seen for what it is: a technique, a mental craft.
The Politics of Hope
Authors: Egan E. M. 
Published: July 2007

Looking over the list of speakers scheduled for the International Convocation on Pacem in Terris, a Catholic economist remarked, Im afraid it is going to be an international name-dropping jamboree.’ Another reaction was that the gathering would represent no more than the attempt of a feuding family to ‘bury the hatchet’ long enough to pay respects to a deceased and much loved grandfather. As I looked over the massive gatherings at the United Nations and in the grand ballroom of the New York Hilton, I experienced something much more hopeful. For the four days of February 17-20,1965, less than two years after Pope John XXIII addressed his letter to all humanity, 2,300 persons from 20 countries concentrated on that letter. The over-riding impact of the International Convocation was the intensity with which humanity was combing Pacem in Terris for guidance, and yes, for hope.Paul G. Hoffman, Director of the United Nations Special Fund, in introducing Vice-President Hubert Humphrey at the opening ceremony, stated: ‘When Pope John renewed our awareness that war and peace are not only political matters but moral matters, when he reminded us that a cynical divorcement of the moral from the political has historically been the prelude to disaster, he gave us a message that we need and must not fail to heed.’ This was indeed the theme of the Convocation. ‘Peace is a process, not a miracle', said Vice-President Humphrey, and added that the encyclical offered a basis for a ‘politics of hope'. ‘In the encyclical, John XXIII presented to the world a public philosophy for a nuclear era', Humphrey pointed out in his prepared text.
Monastic Renewal
Authors: Weakland Rembert G. 
Published: July 2007

No religious Order can stand aloof from the aggiornamento that is affecting the entire Church nor declare itself immune from the impact of Vatican Council II. Even those institutions that are the oldest in the Church, such as monasticism, must reappraise themselves in the light of contemporary trends. Such a re-examination becomes even more urgent in view of the attitude of many that the monastic Orders are to be the preservers of the old or traditional ways while the rest of the Church is updated. Do monastic Orders, in this view, become preservers of a really ancient tradition that is still vital for them, or rather the preservers of a nineteenth and twentieth century interpretation that no longer answers the needs of themselves nor of the Church ? Do they not have a duty to define themselves and their role in the Church, as well as give some consideration to the vitality of the image of monasticism that they have inherited from the great monastic revivers of the last century, before consigning themselves to the preconceived role of museum keepers in the Church ?Within monastic communities today there is a healthy re-examination of fundamentals. Although not all the answers are present to the questions being asked, it is a sign of growth that such questions are being posed. One of the clearest signs of renewal is a re-awakening of interest in the eremitical life. In the early centuries in the East, the eremitic and cenobitic ways of monasticism existed side by side, and many instances are recorded of monks passing temporarily from one to the other.
Contraception and Natural Law
Authors: Anscombe G. E. M. 
Published: July 2007

Father Herbert McCabe's article, ‘Contraceptives and Natural Law', published in the November 1964 issue of New Blackfriars, was based on a paper which he had previously read at a philosophical conference held at Spode House. He was willing to adhere to traditional teaching and was concerned only to criticize a certain argument in its defence.I here publish the reply whichI made to his paper at that time.I have the following credentials which are nowadays thought relevant:I am a married lay-woman with children and a professional career.I was not always prosperous or in possession of good prospects for the future, and am familiar with the fear of having more children, which makes contraception a temptation.Apart from the conclusion that he draws, the fault that I find with Fr Herbert McCabe's paper is this: he connects the concept of natural law much too closely with the fact ‘that we are not isolated individuals, we are parts, fragments... of a larger community, the human race.’ It is true that some parts of the natural law are based on that fact – e.g. the prohibition on theft.But the notion ‘against the natural law’ is simply equivalent in extension to the notion ‘what is wrong'. Belief in the natural law is the belief that the discoveries of reason about ethics are the promulgation of laws to the rational creature by the Creator. The content of the natural law is thus simply the content of ethics, so far as this is independent of revelation.
William of Saint Thierry II: God in Man
Authors: Webb Geoffrey 
Published: July 2007

William's literary personality conveys the impression of a sensitive and rather depressive man, who was very much the perfectionist. He seems to have been tortured by the fact that it was not possible for him, as the abbot of a Benedictine monastery, to achieve precisely what he was looking for in the religious life. When he met Saint Bernard, however, and saw what the Cistercian reform was like, he felt he had found his place at last. Bernard tried to persuade him not to change. William was doing the Lord's work, after all, he wasn't getting any younger, and change was always a risky business. William listened for a time, but eventually he felt he had to make up his mind for himself. He has left an account of his worry in the eleventh of the Meditativae Orationes, and again in the ‘Nature and Dignity of Love', where he laments that the sons he loves are a perpetual source of anxiety. ‘There is still a long climb ahead of us before we reach the top of God's holy mountain . . . Surely an old man is entitled to a little consideration when he no longer has the strength to carry his burden ?'The theme of the Meditativae Orationes is a search for the face of God. William is looking for various things, but all together they amount to something like a convincing vision, a view as nearly possible perfect of the reality of God.
A Liturgical Reformer Sums Up
Authors: Reinhold H. A. 
Published: July 2007

It is quite evident that the ‘new’ Mass arouses so much comment and genuine interest that people approach many of us older ‘pioneers’ with a sincere expression of good will on their lips. Naturally they want to know how it feels to belong to the winning team ! But could it be that we find it disappointing to witness what is only a superficial outward change? That the outward changes should attract so much comment, favourable and unfavourable, is only natural: we cannot look inside people and can only judge what appears. Nevertheless we maintain that a truly internal reform will follow naturally if things are left to develop. After all, that has always been our whole thesis. Things were left to the ‘unliturgical’ forces for too long and never had a proper chance to follow a theology inspired by the Bible and the sacramental system. Quod erat demonstrandum finds its first chance only now. While the unexpected vote on all phases of the Constitution on the Liturgy was in itself almost miraculous, we cannot pin our hopes of a ‘follow-through’ on another miracle. What we now need is hard work and intelligence (and, above all, prayer).The slightest contact with the liturgical movements of forty years ago gave the impression that few ‘liturgists’ had any changes or reforms in mind which would give the people a more profound understanding of what they were supposed to do with their ‘whole hearts and minds'.
The Counsels of Erasmus
Authors: Gwatkin Jean Bowes 
Published: July 2007

In April of the year 1518 a young Augustinian friar was summoned by the order of Pope Leo X to attend the Chapter of his Province at Heidelberg. Four years previously. Martin Luther had reached his radical conclusions on justification and by 1517 they were beginning to cause a stir in the University of Wittenberg, where, in his capacity as professor in the faculty of theology, Luther had been lecturing on the Epistle to the Romans. In May 1517 he had become so confident as to write to the prior at Erfurt: The lectures on scholastic theology are deserted and no one can be sure of an audience who does not teach our theology'.Then, on the eve of All Saints that same year, Luther announced his 95 theses on indulgences – these, together with the earlier and more fundamental theses on faith and works, were the occasion of his summons to Heidelberg where Luther himself presided over the disputation and won the support of most of his brethren.These Germanic vibrations reached the Netherlands and in particular a man – perhaps the most learned in Europe – who stood at the pivot of affairs, supported by the Pope and sought after by kings and bishops – Erasmus of Rotterdam. In the summer of 1518 Erasmus wrote to the Rector at Erfurt where Luther had studied:‘Luther has said many things excellently well. I could wish, however, that he would be less rude in his manner. He would have stronger support behind him, and might do real good ... I can give no opinion about his positive doctrines ...’
William of Saint Thierry I: The Five Senses of Love
Authors: Webb Geoffrey 
Published: July 2007

'When Our Lord said “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom”. He was calling down upon it long life and blessing. The praises of this life were first sung by the apostles, who learned it either from our Lord or from the Holy Spirit, with whose grace they had recently been clothed from on high. They established a way of life such that the multitude were of one heart and one soul. They had all things in common and with one accord they would all meet in the temple. Since that time there have always been men to imitate the community of the apostles . . . ‘The quotation is from William of Saint Thierry, a Cistercian, writing not very long after the famous dictum of Etienne de Muret: ‘If you are asked which order you belong to, say you belong to the order of the gospel. I will not be monk, canon or hermit: the titles are too holy for me'. A period of evangelical revival was beginning, which would culminate a century later with the beginning of the friars under Innocent III. And so it is not really surprising to find a monastic author like William, in the twelfth century, identifying the scope of a life which we have tended to think of as enclosed, exclusive and specialized, with the most basic demands of the Christian life.Of course we have always known that the monastic life was essentially nothing more or less than a concentration on Christian ideals.
Christianity and Islam
Authors: Avery Peter 
Published: July 2007

Islam and Christianity; or should it be, Islam and Christendom? In the difference between the connotation of the words Christianity and Christendom lies the explanation of one of the most essential differences between the two faiths. For Islam is a way of life, and perhaps, in selecting ‘Christendom’ in preference to ‘Christianity’ in the context of comparing the two religions, the tendency is evinced to seek a term referring to Christianity as if it, too, were a way of life in the same, all-embracing way that Islam set out to be. But Christianity is a religion; in some respects an institution that happens in spite of terrestrial life, although a life which it does not inform is death. Christendom remains a territorial concept, so that, though it does in a sense express an antithesis which the existence of Islam called into being, it cannot be used to mean what Islam meant-to refer to the way men worshipped, wrote, thought, practised the law, washed themselves, devised systems of finance that would not break the law and so forth. Christendom was a place; Islam a complete and monolithic concept of human conduct.Christianity was never a way of life to the same degree because, for one thing, its founder, Jesus Christ, had not been at pains to legislate for this world, only to save it by symbolical and actual death to it. He had preached its unworthiness and left no doubt that what is God's is what counts, not what is Caesar's.
Liberal Studies in a Technological Time
Authors: Cooper Bruce 
Published: July 2007

The term ‘liberal studies’ arouses responses of approval, derision and perplexity. Those who approve of it do so in post-prandial statements, amidst the fug of cigar smoke-industrialists lamenting the narrow education of new entrants to industry. Those who deride it do so because they identify the term with a superior culture to which they are not admitted, something to do with making the right noises during the interval at Glyndebourne. The perplexed command most sympathy for their attitude. They are in genuine doubt what the term means.Most people can identify a liberal attitude and recognise a liberally educated man when they see one. It is difficult to find two people who agree what is the best education to produce this desirable end-product. And there the debate lies. There are many contestants in the field. Historically the strongest, though the one heard least, is the claim of Greats at Oxford. This degree produced the most complete man. But the voice is drowned in the general clamour of economists, sociologists and historians pressing their claims.A liberal education has always been the concern of teachers, but only recently has the term ‘liberal studies’ come into prominence. Much of its impetus stems from a Ministry of Education circular issued in the midfifties and directed at technical colleges. The 1956 White Paper on technical education heralded an enormous advance in full-time education for technologists. Before the war, they had won their technical laurels via the hard grind of evening classes.
Contraception and Holiness
Authors: McCabe Herbert 
Published: July 2007

This is a symposium in which Archbishop Roberts and ten American Catholics argue that the usual teaching in the Church about contraceptives is in need of revision. They seek to show that their use in some circumstances may be morally justified. A great many Catholics will, like the present reviewer, open it eagerly; the more critical may not find their enthusiasm invariably sustained. Contributions to any symposium vary in value and the first duty of any reviewer is to indicate which, in his opinion, are important and which may safely be left until we have a lot of time to spare.In this book there are three chapters which an educated Catholic in England must read if he is to inform his conscience properly in this matter: these are by Rosemary Ruether, Elizabeth A. Daugherty and Leslie Dewart. If these alone had been published, I believe the effect on English-speaking Catholicism would have been electrifying; as it is their voice may be muffled by the wool in which they are wrapped. Next I would place articles by Gregory Baum and (with serious reservations), Justus George Lawler, the contents of which are good but not unfamiliar. After this we descend rapidly through the ponderous and the incoherent to two almost compulsively skippable essays by professors respectively of dogmatic and moral theology.In his introduction. Archbishop Roberts says that the natural law arguments against contraception are inconclusive. He gives reasons for this which I do not find cogent. In the first place he holds that since precepts of the natural law do not depend for their validity upon revelation they must easily be known without revelation.
The Cistercian Memoria
Authors: Webb Geoffrey 
Published: July 2007

Saint Benedict’s Rule, which was the most basic piece of government in the lives of thousands of medieval Christians, visualises the good life as a return to paradise, a return made possible through the merits of the Redeemer, and essentially an imitation of His life. The lost image of God was found again when the novice heard the voice of his master, calling clearly for the first time: ‘If today you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts’. The Redeemer has put everything at the novice’s disposal in the church and, more specifically, in the monastery. The monastery is a quintessence of the church in its life of community, its consecration to the one thing necessary, and its gradual preparation for the fulness of the beatific vision.The ideal groundwork for Saint Benedict’s theology of conversion was already in existence, already a tradition, in Augustine’s teaching of a divine image deformed at the fall, and in constant process of reformation until the final union with God whose image the soul is. There is a catena from Saint Paul . . . ‘Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed, so that the image may be reformed by Him who formed it.’ ‘When the vision of God is perfect, the soul’s similitude to God will be perfect also. Now we see in a glass darkly... We are transformed from glory to glory in the same image. This is happening from day to day in those who strive after God.’
After the Council
Authors: St John Henry 
Published: July 2007

The fourth and finalSession of the Vatican Council hascometoanend. The mind of the Council, and therefore of the Church as a whole, is now expressed in the sixteen official documents personally promulgated by the Pope in its name, four in the third Session and the remainder in the fourth. Most of these documents include, in a greater or lesser degree, outstanding new or revived insights into the nature of the Church and its place in the world. Many of them reflect the differing outlooks, in their various phases, of the bishops of the world and of the People of God they represent. Yet, on the whole, we may be deeply grateful for what the Council has given to the Church and to Christianity, as we stand at the beginning of what must be the momentous post-conciliar era. For in a very real sense the documents are seminal, seed planted in the soil of the life of the People of God. A long period of careful cultivation, within the sensus fidelium, now awaits them, before the fruits they may produce can be fully estimated and judged.What will be the outcome? Will there be a real renewal, the emergence of a far more distinctive Christian character and attitude, manifesting more clearly the radical nature of the Church’s impact on contemporary life, in our own nation and in the world beyond it? Or will the work of the Council remain largely on paper, in its Decrees and Constitutions? That depends on the Holy Spirit, who will not fail, and on a resultant response to spiritual leadership among clergy and laity, which could. At present, at diocesan and parochial level, among priests and people, little of what the Council’s measures might involve is thought out, or the necessary steps to implement them realised.
Pius XII and the Jews–A Study of the Evidence
Authors: O'Carroll Michael 
Published: July 2007

In the month of April, 1957, I was in Israel and thanks to a letter of introduction from a Dublin Jewish friend, spent part of an evening with the Chief Rabbi, an old Dubliner, Dr Herzog. I told him that I would be passing through Rome the following week and hoped to have a brief audience with Pius XII. I explained that the purpose of this interview was to present to the Pope a book I had written on St Joseph ten years previously, but which was dedicated to His Holiness ‘to commemorate his charity to the stricken Jews of Europe’. Dr Herzog became quite enthusiastic about Pius XII. He was very proud to have been received in audience by him, rather exceptionally on a Sunday morning, and told me that the audience lasted a full half hour. ‘Take my blessing to him’ the old patriarchal Jew repeated and this I promised to do. When I did so a week later I recalled the fact that Jews the world over seemed very grateful to the Pope for the help he had given them. We were speaking in French and the Pope ended the brief interview with words I translate as I wish I could have done more’.I had been a member of a Dublin Christian-Jewish society at the time of the ‘Final Solution’ and had kept a fairly constant curiosity about the attitude of Jews to Pius XII since that time. With the exception of occasional remarks in the Israeli press and a rather silly comment in Gerald Reitlinger’s otherwise dignified and scholarly work, this attitude was more sympathetic than that of Jews to any previous Pope.