Defending the 12th century since the 14th; blogging since the 21st.

Catholicism, Conservatism, the Middle Ages, Opera, and Historical and Literary Objets d'Art blogged by a suburban dad who teaches law and writes stuff.


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Who was Cacciaguida? See Dante's PARADISO, Cantos XV, XVI, & XVII.


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Exception to Anti-NYT Rule Day: I must say, they've done a rather good article on the resurgence of indulgences. Given numerous opportunities to misunderstand the issue and pass along its misunderstanding to its readers, as it usually does in Catholic matters, the Times here takes very few of them. Read this:

“Why are we bringing it back?” asked Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who has embraced the move. “Because there is sin in the world.”

Like the Latin Mass and meatless Fridays, the indulgence was one of the traditions decoupled from mainstream Catholic practice in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops that set a new tone of simplicity and informality for the church. Its revival has been viewed as part of a conservative resurgence that has brought some quiet changes and some highly controversial ones, like Pope Benedict XVI’s recent decision to lift the excommunications of four schismatic bishops who reject the council’s reforms."

Decoupled from mainstream Catholic practice" -- that's a good periphrasis for the more predictable, and utterly inaccurate, "suppressed." Also, the whole article gives a nice sense of "the old stuff's comin' back, and despite bumps in the road, there's nothin' you can do about it."

I also note that the Archdiocese of Manhattan's only indulgence church just happens to be the parish church of the Metropolitan Opera! (St. Paul's also has fantastic cathedral-like acoustics, for which reason it has often been chosen as recording site for medieval music groups.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:44 PM