#Catholic church reforms

[thoughts-of-caly]

protestants the entire month of october:

[canisalbus]

as a 16th century clergyman what does machete think of the printing press

I think by the time he was born the printing press had been around for almost a century and a half, so I'd reckon the society as a whole was largely past it's initial novelty and controversy. Machete himself is bookish and nerdy, he's very invested in gathering knowledge about various topics and trying to piece together a good picture of how the world works. Getting access to reading material would be a lot harder if every book was still copied individually by hand. His standards are pretty high though, there's a lot of poorly translated, shoddily printed and flimsily bound books around and he's prone to scrunching his nose at them.

[secretariatess]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I think it's a dang shame that we'll put celebration of the day the church split over the day the church was formed.

It's not that I think what the Catholic Church was doing at the time that instigated the Reformation was good or in no need of correction, but rather that God's church was split and created factions upon factions where we now squabble with each other. We went from a united church to one with many denominations that fight with each other about which ones are the "true" ones, or which denominations are "wrong."

Don't get me wrong, I like being Nazarene. I like what the Nazarene church offers, and I agree with Nazarene theology. And it wouldn't be possible without the Reformation. I don't agree with Catholic theology. I think there are many things where they are off base. But there are still those in the Catholic church who are Christian, and I'm not going to write them off because of the Protestant/Catholic chasm.

The Reformation was necessary. I'm not sure it was necessary to celebrate. The Church split. It split. The Church, where Jesus said that the world would know us by the love we have for each other, split.

To put it another way: God's family split. How is that not heartbreaking? I am under no delusion that everyone was working in harmony previously, but still . . . .

When Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses up, his goal was not to split the church. It was to correct the church. But he had lobbed a hand grenade at a festering rot, gone too far deep to accept correction and instead desired to keep its corruption.

There's a lesson in the Reformation. There was good in the Reformation. I do believe God worked in the Reformation. But I feel like the lesson and warning of the Reformation is lost when we celebrate "no longer being Catholic!"

The Reformation should be sobering.

And if we are going to celebrate a formation of the church, why are we putting so much stock on the Reformation, and ignoring the Pentecost, where God came down again?

What is the purpose in celebrating the Reformation, and what is the excuse in forgetting Pentecost?

[rabbitprayer]

No desire to convert to catholicism but the desire to kind of pretend that no schisms ever happened.

[mirrorofliterature]

'you could just leave the jedi'

ah yes, because leaving all you've ever know with no external support network is so easy (heavy sarcasm on that one)

'the jedi weren't government agents, they were just peacekeepers uwu'

now (@padmestrilogy may want to help me out with this one) but the jedi is absolutely nothing like the UN (like. tf). carrying out the will of a government like being generals in that government's army? you're an agent of government.

anyway staunch pro jedi fans learn how to read stories within their broader societal context and between the lines and not take everything on screen or, god forbid, said by george lucas as absolute gospel, okay?

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Writers with a more historic Protestant perspective have generally translated the Greek word charis as "grace" and understood it to refer to the idea that there is a lack of human effort in salvation because God is the controlling factor. Proponents of the New Perspective argue that "favor" is a better translation, as the word refers normally to "doing a favor". In ancient societies there was the expectation that such favors be repaid, and this semi-formal system of favors acted like loans. Gift giving corresponded with the expectation of reciprocity. Therefore, it is argued that when Paul speaks of how God did us a "favor" by sending Jesus, he is saying that God took the initiative, but is not implying a lack of human effort in salvation, and is in fact implying that Christians have an obligation to repay the favor God has done for them. [...] "charis" as "favor" [does] not teach that Christians earn their way to heaven outside of the death of Christ. Forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ is still necessary to salvation. But, that forgiveness demands effort on the part of the individual (cf. Paul in Phil. 3:12–16).

[sistersorrow]

Something in 40k which I find interesting, very funny, and also both realistic but a really weird worlbuilding choice for a setting that is meant to be at least somewhat satirical is that the Imperial Cult of the Imperium of Man is in many ways more tolerant of heterodoxy than the real world Catholic Church

[anglocatholicboyo]

In Canada in 2015, 1 in 50 deaths were caused by assisted suicide. By 2020, that rate had doubled - *doubled*, to 1 in 25. If we accept that you can only 'know' about 150 people at once, then that would mean each person would know 6 people who died by assisted suicide.

Faced with these numbers, are we actually expected to believe that before Canada legalised assisted suicide, there were really that many people who were in such intolerable and untreatable pain that they were just itching to die early? I doubt it. I think it's more likely that where assisted suicide is legalised, attitudes towards suicide and the sanctity of life change for the worse.

This is why I object to the term 'assisted dying', which I regard as an insidious euphemism. This issue is not separable from the problem of suicide more broadly in society. The rates of suicide in the Netherlands have only increased since that country legalised assisted suicide, compare 8.3 suicides per 100,000 deaths in 2007 with 11.3 per 100,000 in 2017. The 'sanctity of life' argument is not just religionese, it's backed up by the facts.

Opponents of assisted suicide, like myself, talk about Canada and the Netherlands and Belgium so much that even I think we begin to sound like a broken record, but I think this is warranted. These countries are only the most extreme examples, but out of the 19 countries which have legalised assisted suicide, nearly all of them have expanded the eligibility criteria beyond the supposdely robust raft of safeguards originally promised.

Are we really so naïve as to think that it can't possibly happen here? This is a country which voted to leave the EU, after all. Given what's at stake, I don't for a moment trust us to get this right.

[empirearchives]

Political gains & contents of the Concordat of 1801

Agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII on 15 July 1801 in Paris.

Rome seems to have made immense sacrifices. The first advantage won by the First Consul was to seal, by the very act of signing an agreement, the recognition of the French Republic by the Holy See, and hence the rupture of the traditional alliance between Rome and the legitimate monarchies. It was a disastrous blow to French royalism in exile, for it freed the faithful in the interior from scruples about the regime of the Year VIII.

The second advantage was to confirm a church of salaried public servants, amenable to the State and having mainly sociological functions. Here we see a continuation of the Gallican tradition, but also of the thought of philosophes who had urged both the submission of the clergy to the State and its integration within it. The refusal to reestablish the religious orders meant also the rejection of any ecclesiastical life that might escape the authority of the bishops. Even the cathedral chapters were reduced to decorative functions.

Thirdly, no question was raised about the sale of the former Church properties, a matter of great importance for strengthening the prestige of Bonaparte in the eyes of the property-owning segments of French society.

Pius VII, for his part, failed to obtain the recognition of Catholicism as the state religion. He agreed to use his authority for what Consalvi called “the massacre of a whole episcopate,” by requiring the resignation of all French bishops, both constitutional and refractory, since Napoleon judged such a step to be indispensable for effacing all traces of the revolutionary schism. It is right to see in this operation an encouragement to ultramontanism, for it affirmed the powers of the Pope over the French Church. But it also encouraged a tendency in the French episcopate, that is, a whole ecclesiological movement for appeal to an ecumenical council in matters of discipline.

Among the numerous provisions of the Articles we may point out those that legalized all forms of worship in France, and those that strictly subordinated the lower clergy to the bishops (“prefects in violet robes”): only a fifth of the parish priests received the title of curé, and with it secure tenure; all others became simple desservants of succursales, that is assistant pastors.

This is what the Church got out of the deal:

What then did the Pope gain in this Concordat, “more likely to raise difficulties than to solve them” (Bernard Plongeron). Maintenance of the unity of the Roman Church, which a consolidation of the schism in France might have ruined forever; recognition of canonical investiture, which allowed the Pope to overcome the zelanti among the cardinals who opposed the Concordat but favored a reinforcement of spiritual authority; and resumption of regular pastoral life in France, where the new administrative and social status of the priest encouraged a growing number of ordinations, which reached several hundred by the end of the Empire.

Pius VII in any case remained attached to the results accomplished, a fact that deprived the small “shadow church” opposed to the Concordat of the possibility of resistance. His continuing attitude was shown later in his willingness to come to Paris for the Emperor’s coronation.

Source: Louis Bergeron, L'Episode napoléonien. Aspects, intérieurs: 1799-1815

English: France Under Napoleon, tr. R. R. Palmer

[ainsi-soit-il]

Thinking about doing a series of guessing game-style polls in October where I post a quote every day and people guess on whether the quote comes from a Catholic or a Protestant theologian.

[abrahamvanhelsings]

it's been a good few days since we made our (re)acquaintance with our good professor dr. van helsing, which means im going to do what i promised to do literal months ago and present my historical faceclaim: dutch reformed church minister (dominee) cornelis eliza van koetsveld (1807-1893):

one of the most well-known ministers of his era, he started out as a simple village preacher and ended up as court minister - he even baptised queen wilhelmina of the netherlands (1880-1962). he was also, like many dutch reformed ministers in the 19th century, a fairly popular author. it was relatively common for dutch ministers to write fictionalised accounts of their experiences, especially in the countryside, about the people and their habits, the day-to-day occurences, their own efforts to teach and guide their flock correctly and the difficulties they encountered. such accounts usually included some kind of social commentary (van koetsveld's later work was inspired by dickens) and moral lessons for the readers as well. van koetsveld's most popular book can be found here, though it is of course in dutch.

so why van koetsveld? going off his looks alone, when i saw his picture for the first time, i was struck by how in almost every single one of his portraits, he looks kind and caring and yet - there is something mischievous about him, like he's in on some joke or a little piece of knowledge that you, the onlooker, have not yet been made aware of. he looks like a knowledgeable elderly man who also knows how to have little fun - which, to me? is van helsing to a t. and it's not just in his face: his written work exudes the authoritativeness of the 19th century preacher but is full of witty comments and sharp wisecracks that still make me chuckle when i read them.

there is also something else that endears him to me, and that makes me think he's a good fit for van helsing: van koetsveld founded the first dutch school for special education of what we now know to be neurodivergent children, the 'hague idiot school' (1855-1920). the name of his institute doesn't translate particularly well to modern times, but it is important to view this in context: the children who attended this school were generally thought to be feeble-minded and therefore incapable of development, but van koetsveld disagreed with that sentiment. now i don't think van koetsveld would've believed vampires to be anything else but a baseless countryside myth, but his views on neurodivergent children show a certain open-mindedness, to think differently from other people, that is a core trait of van helsing too. (somewhat in that vein, for anyone interested, when the time comes, ill make a post on his conduct towards renfield)

tl;dr, when looking at his pictures i can easily imagine him doing any of the things we see van helsing do in the books: teasing seward, maintaining his gentle but firm bedside manner around his patients, getting up to the various nighttime shenanigans from the next few weeks, and van koetsveld's real-life temperament, as far as can be established, seems to collide quite well with the character of van helsing.

[that-catholic-shinobi]

Lovely article explaining what an Indulgence actually is. Believe it or not you cannot pay for the forgiveness of sins.

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Peter Damian  Doctor of the Church 1007-1072 Feast Day: February 21 (New), February 23 (Trad)

Saint Peter Damian was born into a noble but poor family, orphaned young and left in the hands of a brother who treated him as a slave. Peter’s other brother, a priest, provided Peter an extensive education in theology and canon law. Peter joined a strict order of Benedictines and lead an austere monastic life of prayer, writing treatises, hymns, and letters. He had a great devotion to the Virgin Mary. Eventually, he was made abbot of the order, then a Bishop, and lastly a papal legate.  He was a chief forerunner of the Hildebrandine reforms, a peacemaker and troubleshooter, condemning simony and rampant clerical sexual unchastity during the most scandal-plagued 11th-12th c. of the Western Church.  St. Peter died of a fever, surrounded by monks in prayer. {website}

[feastingonchrist]

Gosh i love learning about theology and Christian history/denominations sooo much! Redeemed Zoomer is not my favorite person to learn from...other than the very bare minimum about different denominations within Christianity, but his videos are fun to watch as a curious introduction into Christian churches, their theology and how they each do things differently. Whether some are in closer unity with one another Catholic, Orthodox, the mainline protestant churches or really not even at all, (other protestants), we are all united in Christ and believe the core doctrines of Christianity. I will also say that watching Zoomer's videos made me want to go back to church again!!! I joined my church on a curious whim just by stepping out in faith and it's so awesome to see how God has been working in that area of my life and faith journey! *btw this isn't a post about theology, i just wanted to say that cause i was watching/studying theology for most of the day. It has been fascinating me for the past year now. But this is a post on my experience at some Baptist churches vs my Methodist church.*

For the longest time, i didn't want to attend church because the only types of churches i had been to were Baptist (with a contemporary worship style) and i cannot connect to God during that worship style. I didn't even feel like i was apart of the congregation, either. The atmosphere felt very cold, though the people weren't rude. it's just not been a very inviting experience. It feels almost "corporate". I feel too distracted in that type of worship setting. The music is just too loud, the lights/projector screens are too bright/flashy, and i don't like contemporary worship music in church...something about it makes me want to claw my eyes out!!!!!!!! It's so whiny and goes on for way too long. I actually don't mind some contemporary songs if they have good lyrics and music. I just don't enjoy it for a Sunday morning church service, it's not bad for a casual Wednesday night or Sunday night service. It's too overstimulating on top of the loud instruments playing over the songs on the loud speakers. I do prefer a traditional worship service, but that is just me. It's much more grounded and God-centered. The congregation feels more united, too. I like how we say the Creed & Lord's Prayer together. Something about the worship style/environment is so simple, yet profound and pure (it's hard to put my thoughts and feelings into words here.) There's no distractions on stage or any loud instruments that are so unbearable to where i want to leave the sanctuary and never come back to the church because i am legitimately overstimulated and exhausted for the rest of the day...I feel refreshed spiritually, socially, and physically after church on Sundays. That is a HUGE BLESSING. I also like how my church isn't massive and everyone knows each other, it has a genuinely friendly and warm environment that i have never been apart of before. That's the church environment i prefer to be in and what i had been praying for for so long. Now that i am here, i long to attend church on Sundays and i didn't know how much i was lacking spiritually (me taking steps of faith and seeing God show up for me) and even socially (forming new relationships with other believers!) My church isn't even THAT traditional/liturgical, it's kinda in the middle, though it's lower church compared to other UMC/mainline protestant churches, yet still higher than non mainline prot churches. Especially since my UMC church split and joined the GMC and some theology nerds are mad about that and yeah i guess technically we aren't considered mainline anymore, but i don't really care. Maybe one day we can unite again... btw, our church checks still say united methodist on them LOL. I do, however, want to visit a truly high UMC service one day to see what that is like. I'm sure it's wonderful :)

Anyways, this is where i'm drawing the line on this conversation. I didn't write any of this to bash other forms of worship or to brag about mine. trust me, i have been apart of these types of conversations before, i see it all the time. Especially the Catholic/Orthodox vs protestant arguments. They make me sad and seeing that constantly is beyond frustrating! But i just wanted to write this based off of my own experiences in these two different types of church settings. Let me know your thoughts if you have gotten this far! I am not at all an expert on theology/church history. I know next to nothing about it cause i never knew there was this much richness and infighting within The Church or all this history in how the denominations formed and why, etc. It's so cool, though! A huge interest for me now, too. I decided not to do too much format editing cause i wasn't sure where to break anything up into paragraphs, nor did i want to make this post longer so i do apologize for that. I kinda didn't feel like it, either. Normally, i do though. So i'm soory fot those on mobile, lol!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I read your post on the philosophical defence of monarchy and I’m impressed with the way you mounted such a formidable argument in favour of it. The flaw in your argument is how old you portray the monarchy’s ancient origins to lend legitimacy to its rule. How can you say the rituals and traditions of the British monarchy are ancient if the coronation itself took place in an Anglican church after the Reformation? That makes it a modern invention not ancient. Your fancy intellectualizing is built on a house of cards.

Thank you for at least reading my post even if you haven’t quite understood what I did write. The flaw in your reasoning is to conflate the British monarchy with the the tumultuous changes of the Reformation in England alongside the establishment of the sovereign as the head of the Church of Engand.

The coronation of a new monarch in the Anglican church had not been going on since the Reformation but goes back even further before the Reformation. Your mistake is to wrongly date the Anglican church. People forget this but the Church of England was established by St Augustine of Canterbury in 597 CE.

Almost nothing is known of the early life of the man who brought Christianity to medieval England. Augustine was most likely living as a monk in Rome when in 595, Pope Gregory the Great chose him to lead a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons to the Christian faith. Christianity had been present in England during Roman times, but with the arrival of the Saxons, most of the country had once again reverted to paganism.

England in the 6th century was divided into many warring kingdoms. Of these, it was Kent that was chosen as the place to begin Augustine’s mission in England, most likely because of the powerful position of its ruler, King Æthelberht.

The story of St Augustine’s arrival in England has become the stuff of legend, and was first told by the 8th-century monk and historian Bede, writing 140 years after the events took place. Bede describes how when Augustine arrived in Kent, Æthelberht met the monk and his 40 companions outdoors, because the pagan king was scared of the new arrivals practising sorcery.

The monks are said to have held up a silver cross and a panel painted with the image of Christ. We are told that King Æthelberht, while wary of his visitors, did allow them to preach to the gathering.

King Æthelberht was most likely accompanied by his wife, Queen Bertha. Bertha was a Frankish princess who was already a Christian, despite her marriage to a pagan king. It is thought that the presence of Bertha may have been another reason for Augustine to begin his mission in Kent. She is known to have been in contact with the Pope around this time, and the fact that her husband allowed her to practise Christianity perhaps suggested that he might also be sympathetic to Augustine’s mission.

King Æthelberht did not immediately convert to Christianity, but he did treat Augustine and his companions with hospitality. They were given freedom to preach and invited to reside in Canterbury, the capital of Kent. Augustine and his companions held services in the ancient church of St Martin’s, which is believed to be the church that Queen Bertha herself worshipped in.

Eventually, King Æthelberht did convert, and the abbey of St Peter and Paul (later rededicated to St Augustine) was founded in Canterbury in about 598. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, a role that to this day is still the most senior cleric in the Church of England.

There were many advantages for Augustine in gaining royal support for his mission. King Æthelbert’s gifts enabled the creation of a school and a library at the abbey, which in turn established it as an important seat of learning. Pope Gregory even sent books from Rome to fill the abbey’s bookshelves.

Æthelberht also provided protection to the new Christian church. He made laws that protected church property and punished transgressions against the Church even more harshly than those against the Crown. These charters may have been drawn up under the guidance of Augustine himself. Augustine was clearly a shrewd man who knew that royal support was essential if his mission was to be successful.

It is known that Augustine died on 26 May, though scholars still argue over whether the year was 604 or perhaps 609. Christianity continued to spread throughout the other English kingdoms in the years that followed St Augustine’s first mission, but its progression was not smooth. Not all of the successors to the converted Anglo-Saxon kings were Christian, including some of those that followed Æthelberht in Kent. The Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was finally completed at the end of the 7th century, when the Isle of Wight’s last pagan king, Aruald, died in 686.

It was Edgar (known as King Edgar the Peaceful) who became the first king to be coronated under the sacred auspices of the Church of England. When he was coronated in 973, this was the first time a king was coronated as king of England.  When his uncle Aethelstan had united the various kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia, this was achieved over time, whereas Edgar came to power as King of a united England.

His coronation as King of England has become the model for coronations, and the oath he gave at his coronation in 973 is the oath still given by British monarchs upon their coronations. The oath required the king to carry out three duties: first, to protect the church and the peace of the land; second, to establish the rule of law and forbid criminally in all classes of subjects, even the nobles; and third, to use justice and mercy in all judgments, which is to say, to be impartial, fair, and not vindictive or cruel, nor to show favoritism or let friends off easily.

Edgar consolidated the unity of England established by his uncle (his father’s much-older half-brother) Aethelstan the Glorious (ruled 924-940) so that England never afterwards experienced a long-term division back into the minor kingdoms (of York, Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, etc.) 

Edgar, lest we forget, was a great-grandson of Alfred the Great. Edgar was the father of Edward the Martyr (ruled 975-978) and Aethelred The Badly-Counseled (“Aethelred the Unready”, who ruled 978-1016). He was thus the grandfather of Edmund Ironside (ruled 1016) and Edward the Confessor (ruled 1042-1066). And then we get to William the Conqueror and 1066 and all that...

So in effect all that happened at the Reformation under Henry VIII is that the Church of England declared its independence from the Pope; its internal administrative structure remained the same.

Freed from Papal control, the Anglican Church went on to diverge in doctrine as well over the following years, though not as much as most other Protestant churches.

The coronation ceremony for British monarchs based on the rites first used to crown King Edgar in the year 973 continued to be used after Henry VIII’s time. 

The modern ceremony is not identical, of course; for one thing, it’s in modern English not Anglo-Saxon or Latin. However, each new version of the ceremony to crown a new monarch was based on the previous ceremony, in a direct chain of evolution.

The liturgy described in the Liber Regalis, written in the 14th century and itself based on earlier precedent, is still regarded as definitive. The mediaeval manuscript is kept in Westminster Abbey, the Anglican cathedral where most new monarchs have been crowned ever since 1066.

Interestingly, James VI of Scotland had the Liber Regalis translated into English for his own coronation in England in 1603, and subsequent coronations have drawn from it as their basis: though with variations and changes to suit their particular requirements. In the 20th century there was a movement to bring back more elements of the more ‘authentic’ early ceremony.

A ceremony which was first performed 1045 years ago and still follows the same basic format today surely qualifies as ‘ancient’ by most standards and doesn’t need ‘fancy intellectualising’.

Thanks for your question.

[dimsilver]

oh the experience of explaining my Holy Week plans to my OPC pastor’s wife whose girls I’m staying with for a few days…