I behold a new and wondrous mystery! My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing! The Archangels blend their voices in harmony! The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise! The Seraphim exalt His glory! All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly... Read more
In the face of those who equate a dourness with holiness, and the obsession with devotional practice with the practice of Christian virtue, St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th century Doctor of the Church who led the reform of the Carmelite Order into a more ascetic form, is noted to have prayed: From silly devotions and from sour-faced saints, O Lord, deliver us! Read more
Readers who may have had some interest in Campion College’s Conference on “Faith in the Marketplace” held in September may want to cast their attention to an Iconocast interview conducted by the folks at Jesus Radicals. The subject of the interview, Jonathan Moyer, is a co-founder with a group of Mennonites in Denver Colorado of a small, non-capitalist, economy that melds together with dominant modes of economic practice. The organisation, called “the Groupee“, sought to provide an economic shelter to... Read more
In the 4th century, the Arians proved to be not only a highly influential heresy, but a considerable political force within the Roman empire. The rivalry between orthodox Christians and Arians ostensibly threatened the empire’s stability. As an attempt to bring peace to the polis, the pro-Arian emperor, Valentinian II, commanded that the Church in Milan, then under Ambrose’s watch, hand over the Portian Basilica as a base of operations for the Arians. When Ambrose, with the support of the... Read more
The centrefold of the 24 November 2011 edition of Sydney’s mX tabloid featured an assortment of celebrities that insured their body parts. Some statistics included Mariah Carey insuring her legs for $1 billion as an accompaniment to an ad campaign by the shaving corporation Gillette. Another included Ugly Betty actress America Ferrera, who insured her teeth for $10 million as part of an ad campaign for a tooth whitening brand. One humorous example included Tom Jones, who insured his chest... Read more
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently reported on Anglia Ruskin University’s decision to grant an honorary doctorate to the singer Kylie Minogue, in recognition for her raising of cancer awareness. The trouble is…she did not actually do anything. The logic of the ARU, located in Essex in England, seemed to go something like this: 1) Kylie suffered from breast cancer; 2) Kylie is a celebrity; 3) Her celebrity status combined with her suffering from cancer caused the general public to be... Read more
Ukrainians are currently commemorating the anniversary of what is known as the Holodomor, a famine which struck Ukraine between 1932-3. Estimates of the deaths caused by the famine range from 1.8-7.5 million, unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. What makes the disaster more horrendous was the fact that it was man made, targeted at the Ukrainian population and used as a form of administrative control by Soviet authorities. This explains the reference to the famine by Ukrainians as a “killing... Read more
Distributism, about which Campion College recently hosted a day conference, is based on the notion of nurturing as wide a network of property owners as possible, as a corrective to the centralisation of property ownership that marks many contemporary economies. Whilst we are talking about private property, one is not talking about property in the Liberal sense, that is, as a means for the autonomous individual to close oneself off from dependence on or connections with others. Rather, one is... Read more
The religious blog portal Patheos is running an online symposium entitled “The Future of Seminary Education”. Thankfully, this symposium is not so much on the viability of seminaries per se, but that of particular modes of formation and the possible directions that such training might take. The symposium can be accessed by clicking here. Interestingly, Patheos has compiled Catholic blog reflections into a discrete section from non-Catholic ones, and these can be accessed by clicking here. This can be read... Read more
Patrick Deneen of the Front Porch Republic has written a highly instructive piece in response to an article blaming social networking sites like Facebook for higher rates of divorce among Baby Boomers. While there exists strong statistical evidence for a correlation between the breakdown of marriages and social networking, Deneen opined rather compellingly that the article gives too determinative a role for social networking technology, saying that the breakdown of the institution of marriage was already entrenched with centuries of... Read more
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