Author: Father Ray Ryland

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Papacy

What’s An Antipope?

Father Ray Ryland

April 16, 2019 1:05 pm April 16, 2019

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An antipope is someone who makes a false claim to be the pope based on a process of election, installment or even self-appointment that is contrary to the Church’s laws….

An antipope is someone who makes a false claim to be the pope based on a process of election, installment or even self-appointment that is contrary to the Church’s laws. Historians typically recognize as antipopes only those false claimants with a significant following, such as large numbers of the faithful, powerful political backing or some portion of the College of Cardinals.

Lists of antipopes compiled by scholars vary because questions have arisen in particular cases over how to harmonize historical criteria with those of theology and canon law. The Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook), the annual directory of the Holy See, lists 37 antipopes, beginning with Hippolytus, whose false claim to St. Peter’s throne lasted from A.D. 217 to 235, and ending with Felix V (1439-1449).

Antipopes in the early Church were typically promoted by rival ecclesiastical parties in Rome. In later centuries, they were more often puppets of secular rulers attempting to undermine or co-opt papal power. A few, however, had broad enough international support within the Church itself to become serious rivals to the popes they opposed.

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4 min read

Culture

What Is Secularism?

Carl E. Olson

April 11, 2019 8:57 am April 11, 2019

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Catholics — especially those engaged in apologetics, evangelization and catechesis — hear a lot about secularism. There is the challenge of secularism, the spread of secularism, and the dangers of…

Catholics — especially those engaged in apologetics, evangelization and catechesis — hear a lot about secularism.

There is the challenge of secularism, the spread of secularism, and the dangers of secularism. But what is secularism? If you had to sum up secularism in a single sentence, how would you define it? What are the essential features of secularism?

That’s asking quite a bit, especially when I won’t be able to fully answer those questions in a single column, let alone a sentence. In offering three brief observations about the nature of secularism, I will draw on the thought of three men: a Catholic philosopher, a Calvinist professor and a Russian Orthodox priest.

Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher whose 2007 book “A Secular Age” has been widely praised for its thought-provoking insights into secularism. Taylor is especially keen to challenge the “secularization theory” — the belief that as modernity and science spread, religious belief will decrease, eventually becoming either rare or extinct. This is a presuppositon of most so-called new atheists, who pit science against religion and reason against faith. This leads to secularism being understood as the absence of belief in God. Taylor, however, distinguishes between three sorts of “secular.” The first is the classical understanding, referring to the earthly, temporal order. The second is the widely accepted notion of the absence of religious belief and participation. The third is Taylor’s definition of secularism being “a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.” This is unique to the modern era of human history, for people are now able to embrace “a purely self-sufficient humanism” aimed as material flourishing, without consideration of a transcedent order and reality.

James K.A. Smith is a professor of philosphy at Calvin College whose book “How (Not) to Be Secular” (2014) is a sort of CliffsNotes version of Taylor’s book. Smith, like Taylor, points out that “secular fundamentalists” often act as if their confident appeals to science and reason have adequately explained every aspect of reality. This, Smith argues, is only so much “secularist spin” that is, in fact, “the denial of contestability and thus the refusal to recognize secularity.”

Put another way, such secularists have simply created a narrative based on their materialist, scientistic assumptions, but without actually offering either real proof or satisfying explanations for a whole host of things. Among those is the deep sense of unease and malaise people feel or sense because, Smith notes, “our age is haunted,” bringing to mind the stories of Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor. Percy, an agnostic as a youth, once wrote of his conversion to Catholicism: “This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, ‘Scientific humanism.’ That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and infinite delight.” Secular humanism simply does not satisfy hungry souls and searching hearts.

Father Alexander Schmemann was one of the greatest Eastern Orthodox thinkers of the past century. My favorite book of his is “For The Life of the World,” written just over 50 years ago, a profound study of worship and sacramentality. In the final chapter, “Worship In a Secular Age,” He states that he thinks most people have missed the essential core — or grave defect — of secularism. “Secularism, I submit, is above all a negation of worship…. If secularism in theological terms is a heresy, it is primarily a heresy about man. It is the negation of man as a worshiping being.” Father Schmemann points out that secularism is not the same as atheism; in fact, secularism does not try to eliminate God as much as completely change man’s relationship with God. Put very simply, God becomes a commodity for our use. Man was made to adore, but has chosen to be autonomous. And now man is haunted, trapped in his secularist cage.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com) and writes from Oregon.

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Suffering

What Is The Stigmata?

Father Francis Hoffman

April 9, 2019 11:07 am April 9, 2019

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The stigmata is a miracle, and the Church does recognize it after careful scrutiny. But sometimes it turns out to be a hoax. The two worthiest Christians ever (Our Lady…

The stigmata is a miracle, and the Church does recognize it after careful scrutiny. But sometimes it turns out to be a hoax. The two worthiest Christians ever (Our Lady and St. Joseph) did not bear the stigmata, although Our Lady bore the wounds of Christ in her heart, which was pierced with a sword (see Lk 2:35). The stigmata can be a sign of holiness, but it does not make a person holy; nor does the absence of the stigmata suggest a person is not holy.

The stigmata, or the five wounds of Christ, are a blessing in disguise because it usually brings great physical and spiritual suffering to the person who bears it. The term comes from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: “I bear the marks of Jesus on my body” (6:17). The four most famous stigmatists were St. Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Padre Pio. There have been dozens of other verified cases of the stigmata down through the ages, with the majority of the cases happening to saints and blesseds, most of whom were women.

Sadly, there have been hoaxes about the stigmata, too, and some poorly formed Catholics consider mystical signs and wonders evidence of holiness, and flock to see the curiosity. But true holiness is usually found in the sanctification of ordinary life and ordinary daily duties, accompanied by growth in the virtues.

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4 min read

Creation

Discovering The Creator In Creation

St. Basil of Caesaria

April 9, 2019 10:45 am April 9, 2019

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“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gn 1:1). I’m struck with admiration at this thought. Yet the pagan philosophers have worked hard to explain nature apart…

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gn 1:1). I’m struck with admiration at this thought. Yet the pagan philosophers have worked hard to explain nature apart from God.

Not one of their intellectual systems, however, has remained firm and unshaken. Each one has been overturned by its successor. Why bother to refute them? They can destroy one another all by themselves.

Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of a God could not allow that an intelligent Cause presided at the birth of the universe. This was a primary error that involved them in sad consequences.

Some turned to purely material principles, attributing the origin of the universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union, the nature of the visible world — all on their own. Atoms, reuniting or separating, produce births and deaths, they said, and the most durable bodies owe their consistency only to the strength of their mutual adhesion.

It’s a true spider’s web woven by these writers who gave to heaven, to earth and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency! Why? Because they didn’t know how to say, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Deceived by their inherent atheism, it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that all was given up to chance. So to guard us against this error, the biblical writer about the creation, from his very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of God: “In the beginning God created.”

What a glorious order! The writer first establishes that there was a beginning, so that it might not be supposed that the world never had one. Then he adds “created” to show that what was made was only a very small part of the power of the Creator.

The potter, after having made with equal pains a great number of vessels, hasn’t exhausted either his art or his talent. In the same way, the Maker of the universe — whose creative power, far from being bounded by one world, could extend to the infinite — needed only the impulse of His will to bring the immensities of the visible world into being.

“In the beginning God created.” It is He — all-giving Nature, Goodness without measure, a worthy Object of love for all beings endowed with reason, the Beauty that is most to be desired, the Origin of all that exists, the Source of life, intellectual Light, impenetrable Wisdom — it is He who “in the beginning created the heavens and the earth.”

Nor must anyone vainly imagine that the world has no end. “For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31). And “heaven and earth will pass away” (Mt 24:35).

What was begun in time is destined to come to an end in time. If there has been a beginning, don’t doubt that there is an end.

Of what use ultimately, then, are mathematics and physics and far-famed astronomy — what a laborious vanity they become — to those who cannot conceive that a whole, whose parts are subject to decay and change, must of necessity end by succumbing itself to the fate of its parts? But “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:21-22). Seeing clearly into science, they have nevertheless willfully shut their eyes to the knowledge of the truth.

Such atheists may measure the distances of the stars and describe them, may observe with exactitude the course of the stars, their fixed places, their declensions, their return and the time that each takes to make its revolution. But they have discovered everything except one thing: the fact that God is the Creator of the universe, and in the end He will be the just Judge who rewards all the actions of life according to their merit.

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3 min read

Evil

Holy Innocents and the Problem of Evil

Msgr. Charles E. Pope

April 8, 2019 9:58 am April 8, 2019

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When God warned Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt, sometimes asked why God didn’t warn the other families? Some consider it cruel for God to allow this. This…

When God warned Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt, sometimes asked why God didn’t warn the other families? Some consider it cruel for God to allow this.

This goes to the heart of a very great mystery, the problem of evil. It is an unquestionable fact that God permits a great deal of evil to go on in our world and very seldom does He intervene to stop it.

We know that God permits evil as a “necessary” condition of freedom for the rational creatures He has created. Angels and humans have free and rational souls and, if our freedom is to mean anything, it must be that God allows some angels and men to abuse their freedom, and even become a source of evil and temptation for others. Were God to routinely step in every time one person does something God does not want, it could not be said that we are really free. And if we are not really free, we cannot love. And if we cannot love, we are not lovers, nor sons and daughters, but slaves.

As such, this life amounts for us as a kind of test wherein God permits some degree of evil to flourish, yet not without offering us the grace to overcome. It is also clear that, on account of temptations and trials, our “yes” to God has greater dignity and merit than if we lived in an essentially sin-free zone or paradise.

Further, it is a general rule of faith that while God permits evil, He can draw a greater good from it.

Many of us, who have remained faithful to God, are able to look back and see how our sufferings also brought strength to us, and even known goods. Surely, too, there are many unknown goods that God is able to draw from the difficulties and evils of this world.

As for the death of the Holy Innocents and God’s “failure” to warn other families, we can only apply such norms. We are not in a position to really say what was best for God to do. It is clear that God allowed the torture and death of His Only-Begotten Son to bring great good. It is also clear that God has chosen to associate many martyrs with the saving passion of His Son.

We are all called in some way to suffer with Christ, and die with Him, so as to rise to new life with Him (see Rom 6:2-14; 8:17; 2 Cor 4:10). All of us share in the cross of Christ, so as also to share in His resurrected glory. If this seems unfair, remember God offered us paradise.

But Adam and Eve (and all of us have ratified their choice) wanted a better deal where they would call the shots. Welcome to the “better deal.” So God makes use of suffering and death to bring greater life, if we have faith!

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5 min read

Church History

Exploring The Doctors of the Church

Father Ray Ryland

April 5, 2019 1:37 pm April 5, 2019

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When we hear the word “doctor,” we usually think first of a physician. But the word itself comes from the Latin docere, meaning “to teach.” It is in this literal sense…

When we hear the word “doctor,” we usually think first of a physician. But the word itself comes from the Latin docere, meaning “to teach.” It is in this literal sense that the title “Doctor of the Church” is bestowed on certain individuals whose teaching has greatly benefited the life of the Church.

The criteria for determining whether a person receives this title are a high degree of sanctity and great learning.

Investigation of a nominee’s sanctity is the responsibility of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also at the Vatican, makes the judgment about a nominee’s teaching. The latter congregation’s approval recognizes the contribution of the nominee’s doctrine, but does not guarantee that his or her writing contains no error.

With the approval of these two congregations, the Church proclaims a person to be a Doctor of the Church. This proclamation can be made by the pope or by an ecumenical council approved by him. In practice, all designations have been bestowed by the reigning pontiff.

The decree is made by a public proclamation of the pope. (This proclamation is not ex cathedra — that is, not an infallible declaration of the Church’s truth.) He also grants the universal Church the use of a Mass and an Office for the saint to whom the title of Doctor is given.

Some of the Doctors have been given special titles, reflecting their luminous reputations or significant themes in their thought: St. Augustine, for example, is Doctor Gratiae (Doctor of Grace); St. John of the Cross is Doctor Mysticus (Mystical Doctor); St. Cyril of Alexandria is Doctor Incarnationis (Doctor of the Incarnation).

Who Are the Doctors?

The naming of Doctors of the Church began in 1298, when Pope Boniface VIII named four eminent theologians and scholars as Doctors: St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory the Great. In the Eastern Church, three Doctors were preeminent: St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen.

Four women have received the title of Doctor in recent decades. Pope Paul VI bestowed the title on St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena in 1970. Pope John Paul II named St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face a Doctor in 1997. Pope Benedict XVI so honored St. Hildegard of Bingen in 2012.

Presently, there are 36 Doctors of the Church: nine Eastern and 27 Western. Two were popes, 15 were bishops (archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals), one was a deacon, one a diocesan priest. Several were monks and a majority were members of religious congregations.

Eight religious orders are represented in the list of Doctors: Carmelites (3), Jesuits (2), Dominicans (3), Franciscans (3), and Benedictines (5) and one apiece for the Cistercians, Redemptorists and Oratorians.

Four Doctors were founders of religious orders: St. Alphonsus Liguori (Redemptorists), St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross (Discalced Carmelites), and St. Francis De Sales established an Oratory of St. Philip Neri and the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary.

The national or ethnic identities of the Doctors of the Church include 11 Italians, 3 Syrians, 4 Anatolians, 4 French, 3 Spanish and 2 Germans. There is one each of the following: Armenian, North African, Dalmatian, Visigoth, Italian-English, Egyptian, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, and Portuguese.

The Church does not act hastily in naming particular saints as Doctors of the Church. The average length of time between a saint’s death and the time of the proclamation is 815 years! It was an early saint, St. Ephraem, for whom the greatest number of years elapsed between his death and his being named a Doctor: 1,547 years. The most recent doctor of the Church — St. Gregory of Narek — was named by Pope Francis in 2015.

The shortest lapse of time was that of St. Alphonsus Liguori, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church just 84 years after his death. The next shortest interval was that of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus: 100 years.

The longest life of all the Doctors is that of St. Alphonsus, who died at the age of 91. Yet not all the Doctors gained their wisdom over a long lifetime. The shortest life is that of St. Thérèse, who lived only 24 years. St. Catherine of Siena lived only 33 years, and St. Anthony of Padua, 36 years.

A Great Diversity

We find great diversity in the works for which the Doctors of the Church have been recognized. Some, such as St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose and St. Leo the Great, wrote many letters, homilies and short treatises. St. Thérèse composed only a single book — an autobiography — along with some poetry and personal correspondence.

St. Jerome was the first great biblical scholar, translating the entire Scripture into Latin and writing commentaries on biblical books. St. Augustine produced an enormous and varied corpus bearing on many aspects of theology. Like St. Robert Bellarmine, he defended the Church against onslaughts of heresy. Two from Avila, Spain were mystics: St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of Avila.

St. Ephraem and St. Gregory of Narek were celebrated hymnists. St. Bede’s history of the English people gives us our best information about England in the early Middle Ages. Systematic theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albertus Magnus, St. Anselm and St. Bonaventure all displayed deep wisdom in relating human knowledge to divine revelation.

Whatever their specialization, the Doctors have all served the Church as holy teachers, one of the great gifts of Christ to His people (see Eph 4:11-13). Through their labors, He has worked “to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (v. 12).

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