Oct

28

Scientific Conference Refuting Evolution Theory to be held in Rome

October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment

Press release from the sponsors:

Scientific Conference Refuting Evolution Theory to be held in Rome, Italy

The Scientific Impossibility of Evolution

November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. St. Pius V University (Rome)

In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – OCTOBER 16, 2009


CONTACT: H. M. OWEN (U.S.), noevolutioninfo@gmail.com or PETER WILDERS (Europe), wilderspeter@gmail.com

The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov, “Everything contained in Darwin’s Origin of Species depends upon rocks forming slowly over enormous periods of time. The November conference demonstrates with empirical data that such geological time is not available for evolution.” Recently returned from a ground-breaking geological conference in Kazan, sedimentologist Guy Berthault will present the findings of several sedimentological studies conducted and published in Russia. In one of these, the age of the rock formation surveyed was found to be 0.01% of the age attributed to it by the geological time-scale—instead of an age of 10 million years, the actual age was no more than 10 thousand years. “Contrary to the conventional wisdom,” Lalamov observed, “these rocks formed quickly, and the fossils they contain must be relatively young. This finding contradicts the evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record.” www.sedimentology.fr Read more

Oct

24

Anglicans? Say Rather They Are Catholics!

October 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Here come the Anglicans! And it’s a good thing.

When England was evangelized, it was explicitly and directly a papal project, the inspiration of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who sent his fellow Italian, Saint Augustine, to do the job. This was after a providential misadventure trying to go there himself. For the rest of time, that Augustine would be distinguished from his African namesake as “of Canterbury,” and that city would be, for a millennium, the primatial see of happy Catholic England. Then came the brutal English Reformation that tore “Mary’s Dowry” away from the true Church, producing such martyrs as Saint Edmund Campion and Saint Thomas More in its sanguinary effort to efface “popery” from the realm.

Tuesday’s news brought us the generally unexpected announcement that His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has cleared a canonical path for Anglicans seeking union with the Holy See to do so in a corporate way, retaining part of their Anglican liturgical patrimony and customs, just as others had earlier been welcomed in and allowed to worship according to the so-called “Anglican Use” Missal, an expurgated version of the Book of Common Prayer. Read more

Oct

23

Hope in God, not the World; Spe Salvi

October 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment

(Originally published December 06th, 2007)

The Holy Father’s latest encyclical, Spe Salvi, was published on Friday, the Feast of Saint Andrew. Releasing it as he did just before Advent, the Pope Benedict seems to be consciously presenting us with an Advent theme. This is appropriate enough, for Advent is the season of hope par excellence. Some comments on this latest offering of the Holy Father will follow. First, I would like to draw the readers’ attention to the opening part of the Encyclical, wherein the Holy Father discusses Christian hope against the backdrop of the pagan world into which the Church was launched: Read more

Oct

15

Concerning Palantíri and Blogses: Technology without Grace

October 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment

A recent news story from the Los Angeles Times tells of a multi-level tragedy that reveals once again the the depravity of fallen human nature in its technologically-enhanced destructive ugliness. In brief, a teenage girl who was subject to depression was befriended by a sixteen-year-old boy online. After the six-week Internet friendship had developed to a point of apparent emotional attachment, the boy turned on the girl, terminating the friendship in a particularly cruel and vicious way. The girl killed herself. Read more

Oct

1

Saint Josaphat, Apostle of Eastern Catholic Unity

October 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Some years ago, Brother Francis wrote an article combining the history of today’s saint with that of Saint Andrew Bobola: Two Patrons for True Ecumenism. Towards the end of that article is an excerpt from Abbot Guéranger’s Liturgical Year. These brief prophetical utterances are worth pondering in our days, when the Moslem menace is such a threat to former Christendom, and when we await the consecration and subsequent conversion of Russia. The excerpt is reproduced below. I would also like to refer readers to my much longer comments on St. Josaphat from a year ago. Read more

Oct

1

A Great Man Has Died: Brother Francis, M.I.C.M. (Fakhri B. Maluf, Ph.D.)

October 1, 2009 | 1 Comment

This is a small tribute to my recently-deceased superior, mentor, father, and friend, Brother Francis. As our Byzantine brethren say, “May his memory live in eternity!“

Brother Francis was born, in the town of Mashrah, Lebanon, about thirty miles from Beirut, in 1913. His given name was Fakhri Boutros Maluf. The Maluf family is descended from the ancient Ghassanids, Christian and Catholic Arabs who courageously kept the Faith in the face of Moslem aggression.

Though poor, Fakhri’s family saw to his education, which was provided at home, in a small school that his father operated. In 1934, Fakhri graduated from the American University of Beirut with a Bachelor’s Degree in mathematics. From 1934 to 1939, he taught physics at that same University.

In 1939, he moved to the United States to attend the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he received first an M.A. and, in 1942, a Ph.D. in philosophy. After receiving his Ph.D., he continued post-graduate studies at Harvard University and Saint Bonaventure University. Read more

Sep

30

Longfellow and Tolkien: the Finnish Connection

September 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment

What do the “shores of Gitche Gumee by the shining Big-Sea-Water” have in common with the “Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie”?

The Protestant American author of Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha is not generally associated with the Catholic British author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. But there is one literary connection at least — curiously, a Finnish one. Both writers were influenced by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.

Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha was written in  the meter known as trochaic tetrameter, sometimes called “archaic trochaic tetrameter,” sometimes called “Kalevala meter.” This is rarely used in English. It is known that Longfellow had read the Finish epic — at least in a German translation and possibly in its Finnish original. Two journal entries, only a couple of weeks apart, reveal that Longfellow had recently read the epic, and soon after landed upon a meter for his own “Indian Edda” (as he called the Song). Longfellow was known to spend much time studying and meditating his subject before choosing an appropriate meter for his poem, so this is of great importance. Read more

Sep

28

Follow me on NetworkedBlogs

September 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment

For those of you who use NetworkedBlogs, you can now follow this blog there. Please go to: http://networkedblogs.com/blog/brother_andré_maries_weblog/  ?ahash=8fb3ae8d400b5941cdc013f058e4c7f2

Sep

17

Grace and the “Problem” of Man’s Desire for God

September 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment

This problem is important in establishing the relationship of nature to grace because it offers something of a “test case” by which we can illustrate certain fundamental truths of the Catholic Faith. These truths regard man’s natural powers and the elevation of those powers by grace that he may achieve his final end, the Beatific Vision. Read more

Sep

10

Russian Ecumenical Walkout, Aborted Babies not Martyrs

September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Rosary Rally a Success. We had about 120 people at our Rally in Keene on Saturday. For two hours, we prayed the Rosary, sang hymns, and gave witness to Our Lady’s Fatima Message. Two fourteen-foot banners, our Third Order’s Pilgrim Virgin, and lots of hand-held signs made for a highly visible display of faith and love of the Mother of God. We hope to have some pictures of the event published soon. We thank Our Lady for the beautiful fall weather. Read more

Sep

5

The Shire, not the Borg

September 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Recently, on two separate occasions, I discussed our apostolate with a couple of members of the media. One had something of a grasp of our community’s purpose. The other was far less aware and seemed swayed by some of the more ridiculous criticisms leveled against us. The contrasting lines of questioning from each was a bit amusing. Read more

Aug

28

Summorum Pontificum: the Battle Begins

August 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

Now that Summorum Pontificum has gone into effect, there are some interesting battle-lines being drawn. One of the most perceptive comments I’ve yet seen regarding the Holy Father’s motu proprio comes from Mr. Edwin Faust, who likened it to the Battle of Milvian Bridge and the Edict of Milan. That victory and that law did not make Rome Catholic, but they safeguarded Catholic liberties in the Empire. It was not until the reign of Theodosius the Great (379-395) that the Faith became Rome’s state religion. Mutatis mutandis, similar events have just occurred in the Church. Tradition is not the rule of the day, but it has been decriminalized. Read more

Aug

20

The Centenary of Pascendi, the Battle of Vienna

August 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

An Important Centenary. This past Saturday marked a very important centenary. On September 8, 1907, the Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity, Pope St. Pius X published his wonderful encyclical condemning Modernism: Pascendi Dominici Gregis. The vigilant pope’s definitive condemnation of heresy was a fitting birthday present for the most holy Mother of God.

The enemies of the Church certainly remember the encyclical, even if her own children generally don’t. Read more

Aug

13

Apostle of the Infinite: The Life of Saint Vincent Pallotti

August 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Nineteenth century Rome was not the uneventful place one may imagine. Rome of the 1800s saw Mazzini, Garibaldi, and their Masonic cohorts dare to assault the Vicar of Christ and send him into exile. It saw fickle mobs capable of murdering priests and desecrating Churches, and heard such slogans as “Death to the Jesuits!” and “Down with the Pope!” shouted in the streets. Read more

Aug

6

The General Relationship between the Virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Ghost

August 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The gifts of the Holy Ghost resemble the infused virtues in a number of ways. Both are operative habits which have God as their efficient cause and the perfection of man as their final cause. Both reside in the human faculties and have right behavior as their material object. Read more

Jul

30

Mary Ever Virgin

July 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment

“The friends of Christ do not tolerate hearing that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin.” -St. Basil the Great

Introduction

“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)[1]

In God’s plan for our salvation, the only-begotten son of the Father was also to be the son of Mary. This is simply a fact of history. Read more

Jul

23

Regensburg and James Carroll

July 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Regensburg and the Religion of Peace

Regardless of one’s opinion of the Holy Father’s talk at Regensburg and how the reaction has been handled by the Holy See, two facts are undeniable:

  1. The reaction of the Islamic world to criticism of its violence and irrationality was violent and irrational.
  2. The reaction of Western secularists to the Pope’s praise for faith and reason was perfidious and unreasonable. Read more

Jul

16

Friends Forever: St. Augustine, Friendship, and Catholic Evangelism (272K PDF file)

July 16, 2009 | 2 Comments

Friends Forever: St. Augustine, Friendship, and Catholic Evangelism

Jul

9

Christendom’s Building Blocks — Catholic Communities

July 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

(This is the paper written in preparation for a talk given at the 2005 St. Benedict Center Conference.)

In this talk, I am going to propose that the building blocks of tomorrow’s Christendom are Catholic Communities. Before I proceed in explaining why I believe this is the case, and before I explain the principles behind it and what it entails, it would be appropriate to give some definitions. Read more

Jul

2

What is Development of Doctrine?

July 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment

An explanation of authentic doctrinal development.

We hear a lot about doctrinal development. All too often, it is in the context of articulating some novelty that something is called a “development of doctrine.” Read more

Jun

25

The Contradiction of Core

June 25, 2009 | 2 Comments

And immediately as he had made an end of speaking, the earth broke asunder under their feet:85 And they went down alive into hell . . . and they perished from among the people. — Num. 16:31,33

The book of Numbers records the details of a rebellion violently suppressed by God Himself. Read more

Jun

18

La Reconquistadora – The Virgin Mary and the Virtue of Fortitude

June 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment

For the better part of eight hundred years, Catholic Spain fought to liberate herself from Islamic occupation. The Reconquista, or Reconquest, as this war of liberation was called, began to make great strides in the second half of the eleventh century. Read more

Jun

11

A Better Testament

June 11, 2009 | 3 Comments

“But now [Christ] hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is a mediator of a better testament which is established on better promises.” (Heb. 8:6)

The terms “supersessionism” and “replacement theology” are used by Jews and heterodox Christians alike to signify the traditional teaching that the Old Covenant is no longer in effect, but has been surpassed by a superior Covenant, the New Testament in Christ’s Precious Blood. Read more

Jun

4

They Prove Too Much

June 4, 2009 | 2 Comments

Recently, while researching an article, I had a bizarre experience. The thing shocked me into an interesting realization which, in turn, led me to write another article, namely, this one. Read more