Best Books of 2019: One through Five

My ways of determining which books made this list were: 1) How much I enjoyed reading the book; 2) How much I learned from reading the book, especially as it added to knowledge I already had; 3) the author's skill in using sources and making an argument I could engage with; and 4) how well the book connected with other books I was reading or other events I was attending.

From February of 2019:

The late Margaret Aston took on Roy Strong's dating of the allegorical painting Edward VI and the Pope in this wonderfully illustrated and elegantly argued exploration of religious issues during Elizabeth I's reign. Aston does it with such good humour and careful explanation that I think that even Roy Strong wouldn't mind her suggestion that he was wrong to date this painting to the reign of Edward VI, even though it seems to depict events occurring while that new Josiah was on the throne and his Protectors and Council were implementing a truly Calvinist and iconoclastic Reformation in England.

Much of Aston's evidence is graphic as she dates the sphinx-like bedpost at the bottom of Henry VIII's bed, and indeed Henry VIII's posture, including the hand on his knee and the pointing finger, by citing another image, created after both Edward and Mary I reigned, on the Continent by Peter Galle in 1564. Aston also found a drawing of the Fall of Babel dating to 1567 upon which the inset picture of the destruction of idols could be based. Those two models take the allegorical picture out of Edward VI's reign and into Elizabeth's reign. . . .

This is really masterful work, explaining many facets of the English Reformation through the analysis of an allegorical painting which is not really a great work of art but a fascinating image nonetheless. 

Another royally titled book from November:

I certainly agree [with the publisher] that Fraser writes "character-driven narrative history": her profiles of historical figures from Lord George Gordon to Cardinal Consalvi, Bishop Milner to Daniel O'Connell, Maria Fitzherbert to Father John Lingard describe their contributions to the ongoing social, political, and Royal struggle to allow Catholics to practice their faith freely. Each chapter describes the proponents and opponents of Catholic Emancipation and the slow progress of Parliamentary efforts toward it. She begins with the Gordon Riots, continues with the situation of the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert (the heir to the throne married to a Catholic widow through a wedding not recognized by the State), King George III's breakdown, English sympathy for Catholic refugees from the French Revolution, Daniel O'Connell's efforts, etc. . . .

Fraser dedicates two-thirds of the book to the events and personages dealing with the cause of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland and in England. The last section details the final, reluctant assent of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, and King George IV to Catholic Emancipation after Daniel O'Connell had won a landslide election in County Clare. The remarkably horrid fear of Catholics--King George IV's brother, Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland (future King of Hanover) actually thought that Catholic Emancipation would mean that England would become a Catholic country with a Catholic government--when Catholics were such a minority in England (but not in Ireland!). . . .

So finally Catholic Emancipation was achieved, except that important supporters of O'Connell in Ireland were stripped of the vote when the property value limits were increased for freeholds from forty shilling to ten pounds, reducing the number of Catholic men who could vote. O'Connell regretted that part of the deal. He also had to stand for election again because the law didn't grandfather him in: under his original election, he still had to take an oath denying the Real Presence, etc.

Fraser rightly pays tribute to O'Connell's rhetoric eloquence and strategic brilliance: while not allowing any violence, especially after he had won election, Wellington's government knew there was a threat and the possibility of insurrection. He was one of the heroes of this effort. She also acknowledges Wellington's commitment and even Peel's change of mind. This is a great work of historical storytelling with important consequences. . . .

In August, I read this book by Deal W. Hudson in .pdf format before its release in September:

What Deal Hudson does in this book is help us teach ourselves--be autodidacts--about the classic works of literature, film, and music (adding the last two to the usual consideration of the Western Classical Tradition) and then help us maneuver in the world of social media, the mainstream mass media, and the progressive, anti-traditional cultural milieu we face--where we can lose our minds (and souls). He doesn't reject the internet, citing many sources, especially for musical compositions, that are on-line. Finally, he examines the Four Loves delineated by C.S. Lewis (Storge/Parental Love, Philia/Friendship, Eros, and Agape) and the classic works of literature, film, and music that depict them.

These three parts of the book reflect the three transcendentals that have always kept men and women from losing their minds: Beauty ("The Irresistible Canon"), Truth ("Bad Ideas in Motion"), and Goodness ("Love is the Crux"). Like the line from the Rilke poem in Chapter One, "You Must Change Your Life", the image on the cover depicts what great works of art mean to us and the roles they play in our lives: to challenge, inspire, and educate us: to see more than we have seen before. Hudson goes on to urge us to read or view or listen to works that don't immediately conform to our own comfort, that may be dark or tragic.

Before and after the Eighth Day Institute Florovsky-Newman Week in June, I read the next two books. 

In May:

Father O'Malley devotes three of the five chapters to the background of the First Vatican Council, the first Church Council since Trent in the 16th century. He reviews the political and culture situation in Europe, especially in Italy, where the Pope's temporal authority over the Papal States and Rome was in danger in the drive for Italian unity and nationhood. He examines the relationship between Church and the nations in Europe, especially trends like Gallicanism,  Febronianism, and Josephinism through which the state or the ruler controlled education, formation of priests, selection of bishops, monastic and religious foundations, etc. O'Malley's survey in those three chapters thus begins in the eighteenth century, explores the grassroots origins of the Ultramontane movement--meaning grassroots from the laity, to the priesthood, to the academic world, and to the episcopacy--and the pontificate of Pope Pius IX (including the history of the treatment of the popes personally during the revolutionary movements of France and Italy). . . .

In his Conclusion Father O'Malley discusses the aftermath of the First Vatican Council, including, all too briefly I think, Newman's response to Gladstone's overreaction to Pastor Aeternus. In his interview with Deal Hudson, O'Malley opines that since the decree on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there has been no exercise of Papal Infallibility in matters of faith and morals. But the Church has been more centered on the role of the Pope in the everyday lives of Catholics, with Papal documents, speeches, travels, audiences, etc. One could also argue that the greatest event of the twentieth century for Catholics was the Second Vatican Council, which changed many aspects of daily Catholic life on the local, not Papal, level. Father O'Malley doesn't discuss this, but the long papacy of Pope Saint John Paul II also changed Catholics' view of the pope's role in our lives: his travels, his theological and philosophical influence, the saints he canonized, the reforms he instituted (Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, World Youth Day, the Synods of Bishops, etc), his great project of the celebration of the Third Millennium of Christianity, have formed our image of what a pope should be and do.

Father O'Malley is great historian and writer. He uses the sources well; writes succinctly and clearly; analyses cogently.

Highly recommended: except that I think he should have dedicated a few paragraphs to show how Newman's response to Gladstone formed the mainline interpretation of Papal Infallibility and authority.

In July:

I appreciated Levering's method of exposition as outlined [by the publisher]. He limits his discussion to the 20th century, describing the teaching of the Catholic Church on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the different theological schools and how they explored the meaning this teaching--their speculative theology--and how in the case of Karl Rahner it led to correction by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Not having read any of Joseph Ratzinger's speculative theology before, Levering's description of his work on the Assumption surprised me.

His exploration of typological interpretation of the Holy Bible as practiced by three Protestant theologians, Richard B. Hays, Peter Ens, and Peter Leithart, seemed to balance exposition of their thoughts and his reaction to their limitations of biblical interpretation by the historical-critical method fairly.

What I appreciated even more was Levering's references to two of Blessed John Henry Newman's Discourses to Mixed Congregations, "The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son" and "The Fitness of the Glories of Mary", although I was surprised that he did not also include Newman's thoughts on Mary as the New Eve from the Letter to Pusey. Nevertheless, the last two chapters present an excellent argument for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary based first on "The Authority of the Church as Interpreter of Revelation" (Chapter 5) and then on "The Fittingness of Mary's Assumption in God's Economy of Salvation" (Chapter 6). . . .

Tomorrow: Best Books of 2019: Six through Ten.

Papal Primacy in Pastor Aeternus

As today is the anniversary of the definition of the Church's teaching on Papal Primacy and Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council on July 18, 1870, here are some comments from Father John Trigilio  at Legatus:

Papal primacy is the concept that the bishop of Rome (the pope) is the universal pastor and supreme head of the Catholic Church. He has full, supreme, immediate, and universal jurisdictional authority to govern the Church.

This means that no bishop, synod, or council of bishops can override his authority. His teaching authority is defined in the doctrine of papal infallibility. His governing authority is contained in papal primacy.

The Eastern Orthodox Church considers the bishop of Rome to have a primacy in honor among the five patriarchs of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome. They do not recognize his primacy in jurisdiction, however.

Every bishop in the Catholic Church must be approved by the pope and receive a papal mandate before being ordained and consecrated to the episcopacy, and it is the pope who confers on that bishop the authority to govern the diocese to which he has been appointed.

The First Vatican Council defined papal infallibility and papal primacy. “All the faithful of Christ must believe that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true Vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians.”

The charism of infallibility is exercised only when the pope issues an ex cathedra statement on faith and morals or when he proposes a teaching united with all the bishops of the world. Unlike divine inspiration of scripture, where God directed the sacred authors to write only what he wanted them to write, infallibility means there are no moral or doctrinal errors present in the statement.

And here's a conversation on these doctrines on Thinking With the Church:

These teachings – of an Ecumenical Council – are to be held by all the faithful on pain of mortal sin: to deny them is to separate oneself from the Body of Christ.

Only, what do these teachings mean?

More importantly, what don’t they mean?

Where did they come from?

Why did the Fathers of the I Vatican Council bother with them at all, and why do we bother with them today, when the Papacy as an institution often appears rather to be an impediment to Christian unity than anything else (and don’t be upset with me – I didn’t say it, Pope St. John Paul II did in Ut unum sint, 96).

This week, we explore these questions and others with Christopher Wells, a theologian doing Doctoral work at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, who has written extensively on both subjects, especially their treatment in the thought and writings of the great 19th Century theologian and Churchman, Henry Edward Cardinal Manning.

Among other comments, Christopher Wells contrasts Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, noting that the former did not use his primacy or authority as much as he could have, while the latter uses his primacy and authority as much as he can.

I'm still reading--in between assigned reading for my summer school classes at the Spiritual Life Center's Christendom Academy--Adam DeVille's Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.

Newman and Papal Infallibility, Part II

Finishing up my discussion with Anna Mitchell of Newman and Papal Infallibility on the Son Rise Morning Show this morning at 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central, I want to highlight a statement Blessed John Henry Newman made in his 1865 edition of the Apologia pro Vita Sua, expressing the depths of his belief in Jesus Christ and the Church He founded:

FROM the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervour; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.

Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. I am far of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of Religion; I am as sensitive of them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connection between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. . . . 

He offers the example of the doctrine of the Real Presence in Holy Communion (the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus coming to us under the forms of Bread and Wine) and compares believing in it to believing in the Holy Trinity, one God; three Persons:

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? just as much as the greatest philosophers, and that is nothing at all;"—so much is this the case, that there is a rising school of philosophy now, which considers phenomena to constitute the whole of our knowledge in physics. The Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone. It does not say that the phenomena go; on the contrary, it says that they remain; nor does it say that the same phenomena are in several places at once. It deals with what no one on earth knows any thing about, the material substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.

That's a remarkably humble statement from a fine mind like Newman's: I admit my own limitations to understanding the greatest mysteries of the world: the reality of God, the Holy Trinity, and God becoming man and leaving His Presence on earth in the form of bread and wine in Holy Communion. I admit that I cannot completely understand them, but I can still accept them--and I should! I cannot submit these great truths to the limitations of my intellect and knowledge when "the oracle of God" proclaims them!

I quote these paragraphs because they demonstrate that Newman was ready to accept the doctrine of Papal Infallibility as it was defined at the First Vatican Council. He saw some of the difficulties of the proclamation of that doctrine; its timing; its purpose; its context--but he already believed that the Catholic Church was infallible herself in her teachings. He accepted that when the pope spoke on certain matters, he was speaking infallibly, with the Church. Even if there were a ten thousand difficulties with the First Vatican Council and Pastor Aeternus, they would not make him doubt Jesus and His Church. He was predisposed to assent and obey.

Nevertheless, Newman also defended the right of individual Catholics to 'think on theological subjects' with a certain amount of freedom. He reminded the Duke of Norfolk and William Gladstone that he had said as much in 1850 when he spoke to those--like Gladstone--members of the Oxford Movement who'd remained in the Church of England:

"Left to himself," I say, "each Catholic likes and would maintain his own opinion and his private judgment just as much as a Protestant; and he has it and he maintains it, just so far as the Church does not, by the authority of Revelation, supersede it. The very moment the Church ceases to speak, at the very point at which she, that is, God who speaks by her, circumscribes her range of teaching, then private judgment of necessity starts up; there is nothing to hinder it … A Catholic sacrifices his opinion to the Word of God, declared through His Church; but from the nature of the case, there is nothing to hinder him having his own opinion and expressing it, whenever, and so far as, the Church, the oracle of Revelation, does not speak." (from Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered In Twelve Lectures addressed in 1850 to the Party of the Religious Movement of 1833; AKA Anglican Difficulties)

In his concluding remarks, Newman contended that “the field of religious thought which the duty of faith occupies, is small indeed compared with that which is open to our free, though of course to our reverent and conscientious, speculation” including his own method of answering Gladstone’s “Vatican Decrees”.

This was Newman’s final reply to Gladstone’s contention that Catholics had no freedom of thought and that any Englishman or woman who became a Catholic would give up the freedom of thought he or she had hitherto enjoyed as Queen Victoria’s subject.

Gladstone would reply to Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk but Newman did not respond. In Vaticanism: an Answer to Reproofs and Replies, Gladstone restated his regret that Newman had left the Church of England. He had been shocked and horrified when Newman had become a Catholic in 1845, but he also saw what a great intellect the Church of England had lost. Of course, he thought that intellect was wasted on "the Church of Rome"!

Almost more important than convincing Gladstone that the British Empire had little to fear for its Catholic citizen’s civil allegiance after the definition of Papal Infallibility, Newman was able to begin the process among Catholics of understanding the consequences of the doctrinal definition. Even Ward had to admit that Newman’s statement of the limits of Papal Infallibility was correct. In fact, he was not going to read an infallible papal encyclical every morning because it was not necessary nor practicable. As Anna Mitchell and I noted last Monday, he would had to live a long time: until 1950, when Pope Pius XII, after consulting the bishops and theologians, proclaimed the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ex cathedra.

Preview: Newman and Papal Infallibility, Part II

As I mentioned on Facebook on Monday, June 17, Anna Mitchell and I decided that we should continue our discussion of Newman and Papal Infallibility on Monday, June 24 at the usual time, 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central on the Son Rise Morning Show. We really didn't get to how Newman responded to William E. Gladstone when the Whig Politician/High Church Anglican wrote a pamphlet urging English Catholics to refuse to accept the recently announced teaching on Papal Infallibility so they could remain free and loyal English subjects. I presume I'll be talking to Matt Swaim this time.

In 1874 Gladstone published The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance and Newman responded in 1875 with his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Henry FitzAlan Howard was the pre-eminent Catholic peer, Earl Marshall of England, from a noble family boasting two Catholic martyrs (Philip Howard and William Howard).  Newman knew how important this response was because, as I told the participants at the Florovsky-Newman week:

Newman took his time in responding to Gladstone, because he knew he was also responding to the Ultramontanists, like William G. Ward, who wanted an Infallible Papal encyclical published every morning so he could read it at breakfast with The London Times. As editor of the Dublin Review Ward had also emphasized the pope’s temporal power including a medieval type of authority over rulers—exactly the kind of outrageous claims Gladstone believed Pastor Aeternus ratified. . . .

Gladstone stated that the Pope demanded "absolute obedience" but Newman noted that Pastor Aeternus never used the word "absolute" and stated:

“I give absolute obedience to neither [the Pope nor the Queen], because if either of them demanded absolute obedience “he or she would be transgressing the laws of human society.” He would have to pray, think, and perhaps consult others if given conflicting direct commands from both of them on the same matter at the same time. But then, Newman asks, “What is the use of impossible cases?” or presenting “hypothetical and unreal” situations; England is a nation of laws and administration; what is Gladstone afraid that Catholics will do? They would have to run for election, propose bills in Parliament like any other citizen of Great Britain if they wanted to do anything to advance any “Papal” or “Catholic” cause. Gladstone feared what the Pope might say about “discipline and regimen” imagining a wide range of papal commands. Newman suggested that if Great Britain had diplomatic relations with the Holy See, misunderstandings like this could be managed, since those terms referred to internal regulations and liturgical rubrics.

Gladstone thought that Papal excommunications were infallible. Newman reminded him that “a Pope is not infallible in his laws, nor in his commands, nor in his acts of state, nor in his administration, nor in his public policy. Let it be observed that the Vatican Council has left him just as it found him here.”

To Gladstone's most serious charge that Papal Infallibility interfered with the free exercise of English Catholics' consciences, Newman demonstrated that could not be true, even if the pope ordered some specific action, which he was unlikely to do:

Newman brings up a couple of “hypothetical and unreal” situations:

Thus, if the Pope told the English Bishops to order their priests to stir themselves energetically in favour of teetotalism, and a particular priest was fully persuaded that abstinence from wine, &c., was practically a Gnostic error, and therefore felt he could not without sin; or suppose there was a Papal order to hold lotteries in each mission for some religious object, and a priest could say in God's sight that he believed lotteries to be morally wrong, that priest in either of these cases would commit a sin hic et nunc if he obeyed the Pope, whether he was right or wrong in his opinion . . .

Again, if the pope did order some particular action, it would not be infallible when it did not fulfill the standard for an infallible papal definition:

“If he forbade his flock to eat any but vegetable food, or to dress in a particular fashion (questions of decency and modesty not coming into the question), he would also be going beyond the province of faith . . .” These would not be statements with infallible weight because they do not pertain to something necessary to salvation: “No one would so speak of lotteries, nor of a particular dress, nor of a particular kind of food;—such precepts, then, did he make them, would be simply external to the range of his prerogative.”

I'll conclude these comments and excerpts from the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk on Monday in my reminder for this special Santo Subito! sequel!

Image Credit: Gladstone in 1874, painted by Franz von Lenbach