Linkage

Yesterday on the Benedictine calendar was the feast of Pope Saint Gregory the Great (O.S.B.!).

Last September (on his feast day on the General Roman Calendar) I wrote a short post on one of the only three (or four) Popes to be called “Great”.

History! Pestilence! Intrigue! Chant!

Don’t miss it!

Help to restore the prayer book of Mary of Guelders!

Too fragile to touch, too beautiful to remain unknown. The prayer book that once belonged to Duchess Mary of Guelders is the greatest work of art from medieval Guelders. In 2015, this book will be exactly six hundred years old. It’s famous but unknown, since it cannot be examined before undergoing extensive restoration. Medievalist Johan Oosterman wants to achieve this with your help.

The inestimable Dr. Boli asks the question:

Is this categorization of literature by race and gender identity good or bad for literature as a whole? Does it relegate otherwise good books to ghettos from which they can never escape into the main stream of literary culture? Or does it bring to the attention of the literary world good books that would otherwise be neglected?

A discussion of G.K. Chesterton’s poetry, from the drinking songs to the sublime Lepanto.

Against the rise of new philosophies and cultural approaches to the old pagan beliefs, Chesterton found a way to question their underlying ideas while defending what he saw as the virtue of the old pagans and the wisdom of his Christian faith:

If I had been a Heathen,
I’d have piled my pyre on high,
And in a great red whirlwind
Gone roaring to the sky;
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And a richer man than I:
And they put him in an oven,
Just as if he were a pie.

Now who that runs can read it,
The riddle that I write,
Of why this poor old sinner,
Should sin without delight—
But I, I cannot read it
(Although I run and run),
Of them that do not have the faith,
And will not have the fun.

What it says on the package.

An amazing flyover video of one of the most beautiful places man has built.

A fascinating little essay on the core of Tolkien’s theology in his writing.

On more than one occasion, Tolkien referred to the Resurrection as the ultimate eucatastrophe of human history. In fact, On Fairy-Stories makes it clear that the Resurrection was at the heart of his creative vision. In a 1944 letter to his son Christopher, he discusses a particular mystical experience in which he realized that the Resurrection “was the way things really work.”

A very solid article that appeared in the Atlantic magazine. This is required reading for anybody who wants to know what these people believe, and where they think they’re going.

For those of you who have attempted to draw a moral equivalence between ISIS and the Catholic Church, I encourage you to read this article.

Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people. The lack of objective reporting from its territory makes the true extent of the slaughter unknowable, but social-media posts from the region suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks. Muslim “apostates” are the most common victims. Exempted from automatic execution, it appears, are Christians who do not resist their new government. Baghdadi permits them to live, as long as they pay a special tax, known as the jizya, and acknowledge their subjugation. The Koranic authority for this practice is not in dispute.

If I may, I’d like to contrast this with the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2261 Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: “Do not slay the innocent and the righteous.” The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere.

2262 In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord recalls the commandment, “You shall not kill,” and adds to it the proscription of anger, hatred, and vengeance. Going further, Christ asks his disciples to turn the other cheek, to love their enemies. He did not defend himself and told Peter to leave his sword in its sheath.

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.”

and

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”