Modernism, Not Ultramontanism, Is the “Synthesis of All Heresies” — A Response to Stuart Chessman

The following article was submitted to Rorate Caeli by José Antonio Ureta, co-founder of Fundación Roma (Chile) and advisor of its pro-life and pro-family project Acción Familia, a senior researcher at Société Française pour la Défense de la Tradition, Famille et Propriété (Paris), and author of Pope Francis’s Paradigm Shift: Continuity or Rupture in the Mission of the Church? (Spring Grove, PA, 2018). We publish it in the interests of open discussion of topics of grave importance in the Church.

Modernism,  Not Ultramontanism, Is the “Synthesis of All Heresies”

José A. Ureta

Back in Print: Cardinal Billot’s Liberalism: A Critique of Its Basic Principles and Its Various Forms in a Newly Revised Translation

Exciting news from our friends at Arouca Press!

This new edition of Billot's classic work on liberalism features an introduction and a newly revised translation by Thomas Storck. It also includes a foreword by Fr. Thomas Crean, OP.

Note: more on Josef Seifert's "retirement" for Amoris Laetitia critiques.

A few days ago, as reported by various Catholic websites such as Infovaticana, One Peter Five and LifeSite News, a notification was posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Granada denouncing Dr. Josef Seifert for his recent article "Does pure logic threaten to destroy the entire moral doctrine of the Catholic Church?". (Rorate was one of the websites that published it.) Dr. Seifert's positions are listed at the bottom of Rorate's repost:

Josef Seifert is the founding Rector of the The International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein, holder of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Chair for Realist Phenomenology at the IAP-IFES, Granada, Spain, and elected by Saint Pope John Paul II as ordinary (life-long) member of the Pontifical Academy for Life (a charge that ended with the dismissal of all PAV members by Pope Francis in 2016, and the failure to be re-elected as member of, a profoundly changed, PAV in 2017)

IAP-IFES stands for "International Academy of Philosophy -  Instituto de Filosofia Edith Stein". IFES, founded in 2005 and owned by the Archdiocese of Granada, notes on its website that it has acted as the Granada campus of IAP since 2009. In listing the IAP's faculty, the IFES website still starts, with evident pride, with Seifert: "The IAP has a permanent faculty of high quality professors, guest professors and friends who frequently teach at their campuses. Notable among them is the renowned phenomenologist Professor Josef Seifert, as well as figures such as ..."

However, the Granada Archdiocesan notification reveals that Seifert had already stopped (or, as is more likely, been stopped from) teaching in IFES since September last year, shortly after his much-longer critique of AL (Amoris Laetitia: Joy, Sadness and Hopes) was published. The same notification also speaks of Seifert's impending "retirement" from the International Academy of Philosophy because of his criticisms of AL. (It is not sufficiently clear from the actual notification if he is being retired only from IAP-IFES, or from IAP itself.)

The 2015 Newman Lecture in Melbourne: - Newman's Conversion of Conscience and the Resolution of the Crisis of Modernity

As last year, when we provided the text of "The Inaugural Blessed John Henry Newman Lecture" delivered by Dr Stephen McInerney on Newman and the Roman Rite, this year we bring you the text of the second lecture, delivered by Fr Scot Armstrong*, a founding member of the Brisbane Oratory in Formation.

***

“Newman's Conversion of Conscience

and the Resolution of the Crisis of Modernity"

Delivered at the Parish of Blessed John Henry Newman, Melbourne

17th October, 2015

The new Synod Council: split between "liberals" and "conservatives".Chaput has the biggest vote, Forte joins through a technicality

Lost amidst all the news from the just-concluded Synod was the election by the Synod fathers of the new "Synod Council" that will assist the Synod Secretariat until the next ordinary Synod (which is yet to be scheduled or announced, although it should take place in the next 3-4 years). 

The names of the 12 elected members of the Synod Council have not yet been officially revealed pending the appointment by Pope Francis of 3 more members, but Sandro Magister published the names yesterday:

Book Notice: Thomas Storck, From Christendom to Americanism and Beyond