Above: Canossa, Italy, where Emperor Henry IV did penance before Pope Gregory VII. Public Domain. From Hypothetical Speculation to Fearful Reality In light of the unprecedented centralization of authority under the Francis pontificate, discussions on the extent of papal power take on a fresh urgency. The question is not so much on the pope’s doctrinal…
Above: Blessed Pius IX addresses the Liberal mob in Rome. Painting by Bryullov Karl (1799-1852). The Barque of Peter, the Holy Catholic Church, has been sailing the seas of history for two thousand years. Sometimes the sea is calm, the wind is favorable, and the barque glides smoothly over the waves. At other times,…
Editor’s note: this and related articles have now been published in a book entitled: Disputed Questions on Papal Infallibility (Os Justi Press, 2022). For part 1 see here. Question I: On the Extension and Limits of Papal Infallibility (Continued) Article 3 Whether the Infallibility of the Pope Is Limited to the Exercise of His Extraordinary Magisterium?…
Editor’s note: the genre of Quaestiones Disputatae is traditionally devoted, among true theologians of the Church, for resolving unresolved theological propositions. Part of the problem today is that 1.) many of the faithful assume that the following disputed questions are already resolved and 2.) our faith is so weak as to disallow for the degrees…
Above: Catholic counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre. The crisis the Church is experiencing today is certainly unprecedented in its characteristics, but it is neither the first nor the last in history. Think, for example, of the attack suffered by the Papacy in the years of the French Revolution. In 1799 the city of Rome was invaded…
In a previous article (here), I made the case that the pope, when he exercises his non-infallible teaching authority, as he typically does in encyclical letters, apostolic exhortations, letters to bishops, etc., does not speak therein with the full authority of the Church (as he does when he speaks ex cathedra), but rather with his…
We are at very curious time in ecclesiastical history. On the one hand, the shaky ecclesiology of the Orthodox Churches, already shaken further when Constantinople and Moscow excommunicated each other over the status of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, has received another blow when the section of the latter body that had given its allegiance to Moscow broke…
In 1967, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith introduced a new formula to be used in place of the Tridentine Profession of Faith and the Oath against Modernism in all cases where those used to be required. This was updated in 1988 and then re-promulgated again in 1998. The current version consists of…
Chesterton affirmed that great writers and artists are symbolic without knowing it. I would go further and say that human beings in general are symbolic without knowing it. Mountains represent a liminal space between heaven and earth, between divinity and mortality, and hence, I see more in the term “ultramontanism” than a reference to the…
Above: Bishop Karl Josef von Hefele and Bl. Pius IX. In his fascinating book Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church,[1] John W. O’Malley details the movements, ideas, personalities, and events that coalesced in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870. My intention here is not to furnish a complete account, much…
We see in the Latin liturgical tradition an interesting thing: with the major feast on June 29 as well as the minor feasts, both apostles are always commemorated[1]. If the feast is chiefly of the Prince of the Apostles, then St. Paul is also commemorated with an additional collect and vice versa[2]. Thus also today…
