"I am not at all sure [the definition of Infallibility] will increase the Pope's power - it may restrict it. Hitherto he has done what he would, because its limits were not defined - now he must act by rule."
Vatican II very sensibly suggested that the old Breviary collection could be enriched by rescuing other hymns from the treasury of the Western Church. Happily, a gorgeous composition by S Peter Damian (d1072) was found for the Festum of S John the Evangelist: Virginis virgo venerande custos, in the Sapphic metre (I wonder what the dear old girl would have made of it if she could have known how
Henry Chadwick, the towering Anglican intellectual of the second half of the twentieth century, believed that Blessed John Henry Newman was the most superb writer of Satire and of Irony in the English language. True! I wonder if you have read Newman's semi-autobiographical novel Loss and Gain. He exposes to our laughter the absurdities of popular Evangelicalism; of sonorous, pompous, and
It is not easy to know what to make of the precipitous removal by PF of an American bishop called Holley. For nearly two millennia, Roman pontiffs have intervened to remove dysfunctional bishops. This was happening even before the Catholic Church had such a thing as Canon Law. And one can understand why, given the present atmosphere, it might be necessary for a Universal Primacy to act quickly
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