Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Today's links

  • From TAC: Why can’t Catholics speak English? On Catholic Bibles in it. Echoing the great Thomas Day. One of my takeaways from him: for an obvious reason (Latin for worship) we have no big tradition of praying in English and Bible-reading. So the only English that has a tradition among us are the prayers of the Rosary: the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, which among almost all our churchmanships, from sound to Bad Catholic to Modernist, remain inflexibly Tudor thou. I can take or leave thous etc. except for sentimental value, which in Anglo-American culture the Anglican forms have and the Douay doesn’t. King James quotes are part of Anglo-American civilization. I use the RSV-Catholic Edition based on the KJV and for the psalms go for Coverdale from my Winfred Douglas diurnal and a well-worn but sturdy copy of 1662. (Thanks to a marriage conversion a generation back putting me with the Anglicans to start; they taught me high church when the Catholics wanted nothing to do with it; thanks. By the way, like old-school St Clement’s, Philly, I have no jones for the Prayer Book as such so every week I go Tridentine, not Novus/1979 mix. Hope the American ordinariate goes American Missal: Tridentine/1928 mix. Another division of trad troops on the front line and one that proves It’s Not About Latin™.) No tradition of English is also why Pope Benedict’s improved English Novus has no sentimental value and is criticized for lack of style. (Not going to look that gift horse in the mouth; thanks to him the true faith won the Catholic worship war.) Because I’m trad I never run across the NAB, Deo gratias. Not a fan of Knox’s super-modern version but love the idea of making it an app etc. to teach all nations and stations (evangelize) as he intended.
  • Church of England vote for women bishops fails this time by six lay votes. I don’t follow it. I don’t have to. Out of respect for freedom of religion I leave them alone. They obviously don’t want to join the church so talks are a waste. That said, big deal. The issue isn’t that the vote didn’t go that way but that it’s up for a vote at all. (Compare to the church: Christ didn’t give us that power.) That horse is out of their barn; they’ve had women priests for nearly 20 years. Only logical they’ll get this one next vote. Also: in their system, Apostasy’s Only a Vote Away™. And: Chris Jones on a fair system.
  • From LRC: Another one on why President Kennedy was shot. Not sure I believe this but it’s interesting: that he went off the script and secretly worked with Khrushchev for peace. Some in my corner say that the powers that be, whoever they are (the CFR, Bilderberg, Goldman Sachs?), break in a new president by showing him the full Zapruder film. ‘Any questions?’
  • Senate bill lets feds read your e-mail without a warrant.
  • From RR: The atheist killjoy anti-Christmas stories start. Their war on freedom of religion shows they’re not about fairness.
  • Libertarians to progressives: we have a better ‘social contract’.
  • How to send anonymous e-mail.
  • Not big news, nobody asked me and I’m not saying it’s moral but, thinking Roissy’s way, as a man I couldn’t help noticing Paula Broadwell isn’t particularly pretty. (Vaguely masculine as Roissy said.) A fairly good-looking guy Petraeus’ age with all that power ‘demonstrating higher value’ as Roissy’s jargon says could get better. Then there’s the hard reality of differing declining sexual market value between the sexes: had a look at Holly Petraeus (sorry but true).

7 comments:

  1. Re: Petraeus

    That whole affair has been one giant lesson on the truths of evolutionary psychology. All the progressive legislating and propagandizing in the world won't repeal the iron laws.

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  2. Re: Knox Bible

    Don't be so hard on the Knox translation! It is very readable even with the Thees and Thous! We had a Knox N.T. at home when I was a kid. I liked it although I used the Confraternity re-translation/updating of the D-R New Testament. Knox was aiming for accuracy, readability and literary quality (IOW, no blah, pedestrian translation like the original NAB). Yes, this obviously makes the Knox translation a paraphrase. I suppose dynamic equivalence is the actual term. I plan to buy the Baronius Press republication of the Knox Bible. A Christmas present to myself!

    Re: the not so extraordinarily beautiful Broadwell

    She doesn't need to be gorgeous; only beautiful enough (close enough for gov't work!). She does need to be "available" and it seems available she was!

    Jim C.

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    Replies
    1. I do acknowledge (with gratitude) the preeminence of the KJV tradition in Bible translation. I own the Oxford ecumenical edition of the RSV, RSV-CE, and RSV-2CE. I gave the RSV-CE to my son to get him away from the NAB and NRSV. I spend most of my time in the RSV-2CE and the Psalter of the Seventy (published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery).

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  3. Anonymous1:26 pm

    When did you become Catholic? I thought you were Orthodox!

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  4. Watching the Ordinariate in the US head full-steam towards a sort-of early 1980s Episcopalianism. I fear there is no real hope that the American Missal might survive as an option, which is quite depressing.

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  5. Those interested may wish to consult this legal case:

    http://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/vexatiouslitigant/vex_lit_queens_bench_williamson.html

    This 1997 case is a subsidiary to an earlier 1994 case, but I cannot find a report of the former case online. What is clear from it, however, is that it is still “settled law” in England that “the doctrine of the Church of England is whatever Parliament declares it to be.” So Erastianism rules okay.

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  6. Note, by contrast, the following (excerpted) concerning the Church of Scotland:

    Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland in Matters Spiritual, 1926.



    IV. This Church, as part of the Universal Church wherein the Lord Jesus Christ has appointed a government in the hands of Church office-bearers, receives from Him, its Divine King and Head, and from Him alone, the right and power subject to no civil authority to legislate, and to adjudicate finally, in all matters of doctrine, worship, government, and discipline in the Church, including the right to determine all questions concerning membership and office in the Church, the constitution and membership of its Courts, and the mode of election of its office-bearers, and to define the boundaries of the spheres of labour of its ministers and other office-bearers. Recognition by civil authority of the separate and independent government and jurisdiction of this Church in matters spiritual, in whatever manner such recognition be expressed, does not in any way affect the character of this government and jurisdiction as derived from the Divine Head of the Church alone, or give to the civil authority any right of interference with the proceedings or judgments of the Church within the sphere of its spiritual government and jurisdiction.

    V. This Church has the inherent right, free from interference by civil authority, but under the safeguards for deliberate action and legislation provided by the Church itself, to frame or adopt its subordinate standards, to declare the sense in which it understands its Confession of Faith, to modify the forms of expression therein, or to formulate other doctrinal statements, and to define the relation thereto of its office-bearers and members, but always in agreement with the Word of God and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Faith contained in the said Confession, of which agreement the Church shall be sole judge, and with due regard to liberty of opinion in points which do not enter into the substance of the Faith.

    VI. This Church acknowledges the divine appointment and authority of the civil magistrate within his own sphere, and maintains its historic testimony to the duty of the nation acting in its corporate capacity to render homage to God, to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ to be King over the nations, to obey His laws, to reverence His ordinances, to honour His Church, and to promote in all appropriate ways the Kingdom of God. The Church and the State owe mutual duties to each other, and acting within their respective spheres may signally promote each other's welfare. The Church and the State have the right to determine each for itself all questions concerning the extent and the continuance of their mutual relations in the discharge of these duties and the obligations arising therefrom.

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