And for this week I only have two suggestions since both are time intensive:
For the Feast of St. Josaphat
I had no intention to write so much on “things Eastern” at the start of this week; it just worked out that way. What I had wanted to do was write a few words on St. Josaphat, the great Ukrainian Catholic martyr whose feast day is celebrated this week by Eastern and Western Catholics who are on the Gregorian Calendar. That may be too inflammatory at the moment. While in years past I facetiously wished my Orthodox friends and readers a “Blessed feast of St. Josaphat,” the ongoing tensions in Ukraine lead me to conclude that such well-wishing would be in bad taste. After all, none of the Orthodox sent me a special greeting on August 6, the feast day of Maxim Sandovich. (If there is an objective, non-polemical, account of this Orthodox priest’s life, I’ve never seen it.)
Metaphysics
“Does Christianity Need Metaphysics?” That’s the question Remi Brague and Jean-Luc Marion purportedly set out to answer during this talk at the Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago. I confess that on first viewing I became so lost that I was sure they were both doing metaphysics. Perhaps you, dear readers, will have an easier time with their accents than I.
Hunwicke on First and Third Rome
The delightful and insightful Fr. John Hunwicke has posted his thoughts on Metropolitan Hilarion Alfayev’s recent paper on primary which was delivered at St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary. There’s nothing surprising in Hilarion’s paper, which is to say that there’s nothing new in it at all. If you’ve paid even a modicum of attention to the public spat that has been going on between “Second Rome” and “Third Rome” concerning primacy then you already know where Hilarion stands. Hunwicke, not wanting to ignite a fresh round of “First Rome/Second n’ Third Rome” fisticuffs, refrains from critiquing Hilarion’s paper. Instead he draws out two points concerning local particular churches and the true meaning of synodality respectively and applies them to the present situation in the Catholic Church. Hunwicke then goes on to offer a post scriptum on the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and his recent behavior at the “Extraordinary Synod on the Family”:
Why Vladimir Putin and the Moscow Patriarchate Will Destroy Russian Christianity
Another excellent article from a fantastic Eastern Catholic web-log.
Weigel on Russia and Rome
I thought I would never find myself writing this . . . but three cheers for George Weigel! His latest piece at First Things, “Ecumenism and Russian State Power,” speaks forcefully in defense of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church against the half-truths and outright lies of the Moscow Patriarchate while calling on Rome to serious rethink ecumenical ties with the present representatives of Russian Orthodoxy. From the article:
No “dialogue” is worth the appeasement of aggression abetted by falsehood. Nothing is accomplished in terms of moderating Russian Orthodoxy’s historic deference to Russian state power (be that tsarist power, communist power, or the “managed democracy” of Mr. Putin) by giving Hilarion a platform like the Synod. And despite the fantasies of some Western pro-life and pro-family activists, there is nothing to be gained for those great causes in tandem with the current leadership of Russia, or of Russian Orthodoxy.
Stemming and then reversing the tide of Western decadence cannot be done by compromises with the truth.
Although I have some reservations concerning the Western-liberal lens through which Weigel views current events in Ukraine, his other piece, “Ukraine Rising,” at National Review Online is also worth reading.
A Lesson from Ukrainian Catholic Action
During the interwar period on through the advent of World War II, Ukrainian Catholic laity living in Galicia began to take a more active role in the promotion of the Catholic Faith and the rebuilding of Ukrainian social and political structures in an authentically Christian manner. This form of Ukrainian Catholic Action, like its Western relatives, was inspired by Pope Pius XI, and with the same confusing consequences. For unlike his predecessor, St. Pius X, who saw Catholic Action as a lay movement for the restoration of Christian Civilization which is only under the indirect authority of the Church, Pius XI’s understanding appears to contemplate—or was interpreted to contemplate—a more direct dependency of Catholic Action on the Church’s hierarchy. (For a far more detailed discussion of this matter, one should consult Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais’s “Catholic Action Defined.”) As Bohdan Budorowycz discusses in his illuminating article, “The Greek Catholic Church in Galicia, 1914-1944,” 26 Harvard Ukrainian Studies 291 (2002/03), the Ukrainian Catholic Action movement was split between “conservative” groups which remained closely tethered to the supervision of the hierarchy and “liberals” which operated with more independence. While some were skeptical of the formation of Ukrainian Catholic Action groups, “it was argued . . . [that] the members of Catholic Action could contribute to raising the level of spiritual life by assisting local priests in their work, by combating the growing influence of various religious sects, by trying to prevent the alienation of the younger generation from the Church and Church-sponsored organizations, and by generally exerting a constructive influence in public life” (pg. 315).
The Illiberal Catholic Posts
One of the minor tragedies of regularly updating a web-log is that a great deal of material gets lost in the archives. For those interested and/or new to Opus Publicum, I thought I would collect here the “illiberal Catholic” posts that have appeared over the last six months. Enjoy.
- Illiberal Catholic Manifesto
- The Fortnight for Freedom Begins
- Corpus Christi and the Fortnight
- Fortnight for Freedom Day Three
- The Sacred Heart and the Fortnight
- Inaction
- Tomorrow Liberty?
- The Other Illiberal Catholicism
- A Note on Illiberal Catholicism
- Opus Publicum and Illiberal Catholicism
- A Reminder on Illiberal Catholicism
- Zmirak At It Again
- On Royal Government
The above list does not include my posts on economic topics and other elements of Catholic Social Teaching, though you can find all of them housed under the “Catholic Social Thought” category tag the bottom of the main page.
Opus Publicum and Illiberal Catholicism
Since a reader questioned the “purpose” behind this web-log, I thought best to dip into the archives in order to provide an answer. The “About” tab on the main page also provides some thoughts on the matter.
On Human Rights Law
I have not read Eric Posner’s The Twilight of Human Rights Law, though I am familiar enough with his scholarly and popular output on the subject to have a fairly firm idea about the book’s contents. To confirm as much, I recently watched Posner’s talk on the book which he gave before the World Affairs Council. Posner is not the most engaging speaker on the planet, but it’s hard to argue with the substance of his claim that human rights law (or “human rights norm”) which, by and large, is a byproduct of Western liberal democracies, has no global efficacy. This is not to say there are not right and wrong ways for governments to treat people. (Posner denies several times that he’s a relativist, though he’s vague about what he believes and why.) However, no charter of rights is going to stay the sword of the Islamic State or keep the Chinese police from sexually torturing followers of Falun Gong.