From my email box and other places:<\/p>\n
Do bookmark Fr. Z – he is using the month of October to work his way through the Mysteries of the Rosary, offering insights from the Fathers on each.<\/a><\/p>\n Pro-Woman Answers to Pro-Choice questions – a new offering of Feminists for Life. <\/a><\/p>\n Fr. Martin Fox has really interesting advice to blogging seminarians.<\/a><\/p>\n Priests need to have quite a variety of gifts, including zeal, including holiness, including firmness and boldness, including orthodoxy and commitment to the Faith. But that is not the end of the list. We also need to be "gentle but ardent shepherds," as one of the collects in the Missal says; we need to be prudent, sensible, patient. We need to be able to choose our battles, because you will not be able to fight them all, at least not all at once. We need priests who can build bridges ("pontifex") to all we can. If I can find a way to proclaim the message faithfully, and<\/em> keep that person who disagrees from walking out? I think that’s the right way to be "pastoral."<\/p>\n You see, there are many temptations, and the most perilous ones are not obvious — they are disguised as "angels of light." The temptation to be more certain than you really have right to be (I don’t mean about the big things, but about more subtle matters, or about application rather than principle), the temptation to make the present situation more urgent and more unique than it is, the temptation to overestimate ones own importance (you will learn that when you’ve preached awhile: many listen well; but many will break your heart!)<\/p>\n Also, remember — this was important to me — that your primary task as a seminarian, is to learn and prepare<\/em>. It’s not your turn yet to lead. So wherever they send you: learn first; fix later<\/em>. No matter how much good you do, you won’t fix the whole Church — learn to accept that fact.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Do check out Kevin’s translation of all of St. Jerome’s prologues for the Vulgate<\/a>. Marvelous work – what a service!<\/p>\n Holy Challenge: an excellent article from NRO by John Cullinan on Benedict and Islam<\/a><\/p>\n The upshot is that purely theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims is pointless, if not counterproductive. Whatever its other attributes, the most fundamental elements of all orthodox Christian thought are Trinitarian and Christocentric; and these are precisely the same elements that orthodox Muslims necessarily find blasphemous on the one hand and idolatrous on the other. What\u2019s more, sharia<\/em> jurisprudence plays roughly the same role in Islam as systematic theology in Christianity. That\u2019s why purely theological dialogue inevitably mixes apples and oranges. But basic disagreement over the nature of God in no way precludes discussing how best to coexist peacefully in a pluralistic world. That\u2019s the meaning of Benedict\u2019s September 25 exhortation in favor of \u201csincere and respectful dialogue, based on ever more authentic reciprocal knowledge which, with joy, recognizes the religious values we have in common and, with loyalty, respects the differences.\u201d In other words, it\u2019s possible to share \u2014 and discuss \u2014 certain religious values<\/em> without sharing religious truths<\/em>.<\/p>\n Similarly, fruitful dialogue does not consist in futilely seeking to assign relative responsibility for religious conflicts lasting more than a millennium. These historical issues \u2014 all too easily reduced to whataboutery or the politics of the last atrocity \u2014 have rightly been relegated to a joint Vatican\/al Azhar commission. What really matters, as Benedict put it in another address<\/span><\/a> he quotes, is the \u201cimperative to engage in authentic and sincere dialogue, built on respect for the dignity of every human person, created, as we Christians firmly believe, in the image and likeness of God.\u201d Do Muslims believe in the equal, indivisible, and inviolable dignity of every person, or are some (namely Muslim males) more equal than others?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Rich Leonardi<\/a> insists we all look at the wonderful English Catholic writer Joanna Bogle’s blog – <\/a> and go back every day!<\/p>\n\n
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