Catho/lit/

[Anonymous No.23317732]

>Mere Christianity - C. S. Lewis
>Introduction to Christianity - Pope Benedict XVI
>The Confessions of St. Augustine
>St. Thomas Aquinas - G.K. Chesterton
>Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton
>The Everlasting Man - G.K. Chesterton
>A Shorter Summa The Essential Philosophical Passages of Saint Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica - Peter J. Kreeft
>Catechism of the Summa Theologi - Thomas Aquinas
>Catholic Catechism of Saint Piu - Pope St. Pius X
>Early Christian Writings The Apostolic Fathers - Andrew Louth
>History of the Christian Church (Complete Eight Volumes In One) - Philip Schaff
>Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament RSV 2nd Edition
>The Faith of Our Fathers - James Cardinal Gibbons
>The Spirit of Catholicism - Karl Adam Robert A. Krieg
>The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection
>United States Catholic Conference - Catechism of the Catholic Church-Libreria Editrice Vaticana (2000)

https://www.traditionalcatholic.co/free-catholicbooks/
https://www.traditionalcatholic.co/free-catholic-books-ii/
http://www.freecatholicebooks.com/
http://www.saintsbooks.net/BooksList.html
https://catholicebooks.wordpress.com/subject/

[Anonymous No.23317762]

>>23317732
I'm recently reading Neo Thomist manuals. They are great.

[Anonymous No.23317900]

Great work on the Doctrine of Transcendentals (the convertibility of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True) applied to and compared with modern philosophy. Really a great work.

His two part work on freedom is great two. Part one is on the truncated nature of freedom in the modern sense, which focuses on potency (the ability to do things) rather than actuality (the ability to do what one desires, which ultimately corresponds to the Good). The first book, Freedom from Reality look at modern conceptions of freedom with a focus on Locke and then compared them to Plato and Aristotle. The second, Retrieving Freedom, looks at the development of freedom as a concept through Plotinus, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and St. Aquinas before turning to how we ended up with the truncated modern conception begining with Ockham.

MacIntyre's After Virtue makes a good companion to these, since he is looking at how the Aristotlean tradition that helped information Catholic ethics through the ages compared to modern nations, and it also deals with why modern ethics has collapsed into emotivism, and a sort of misology where reason is only said to apply to parts of our lives.

I'd also recommend Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person, which is a really great synthesis of Aristotle, Husserl, and to a lesser extent Aquinas, which also is informed by modern cognitive science and philosophy of perception. It's a great work in that it charts a solid path out of the empiricist/Kantian problem of being "trapped inside the box of ideas" (i.e. we only know our ideas of the world, not the world itself) and the linguistic turn version of being trapped in the box.

Jensen's The Human Person, while not as original, is also a very nice, accessible introduction to Thomistic anthropology.

I read Clarke's "The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics" lately too. This is good, but didn't blow me a way. It seems to fail to fully acknowledge all the challenges that Thomism faces today.

[Anonymous No.23317904]

>>23317900
Forgot the pic.

Anyhow, does anyone know any good stuff that tries to apply Hegel's philosophy of history to more of the classical/Catholic school of thought?

Been thinking of the role of the Reformation and the rise of atheism in Providence lately, trying to think of how it works into the revelation of the divine plan for humanity as a whole.

[Anonymous No.23317921]

Anyone read this. I hear great things, but also that it's very difficult. Germans man, I've been struggling through the Science of Logic for almost three years now. Taylor's book is pretty good on the Logic, and Houlgate's commentary too, but I still get filtered by the essence chapter.

Ulrich apparently draws on German idealism along with St. Thomas, and Heidegger.

[Anonymous No.23317938]

Can't help you friends...
The only German I really like is Hildebrand. I'm usually much more into Thomism than into German stuff.

[Anonymous No.23317961]

Sorry, I'm not really interested in theology or metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.23317970]

>>23317762
Recommend your favorite

[Anonymous No.23318195]

>>23317732
Raised very Catholic, fairly traditional too. It was only in my teens I started taking it seriously, really believing it and taking a great interest in it. For a while it was mostly all of what I thought about, church history and how everything that is wrong with the modern world has its cure in Catholic living.
Then I'm my early 20s I began losing faith. Any avenue you could imagine for a conversion can also work the opposite way, and is valid imo, so many things were a factor; vague discontent and questioning, a study of history, philosophy and rational thought, art and literature, personal memories and emotions, but mostly it was other people that drew me away.
Until now my community was mostly Catholic, but then I began making real and close friendships with a group of very secular and leftist people. Until now these people were mostly just imagined boogeymen to me, gay/bi people and girls who get abortions, and in general, people who have casual sex.
I met them through a specific kind of job/program (imagine painting shacks in Africa, it wasn't that but something like that where it's a bunch of young people with a purpose together).
I realized that by living so close to them for months on end that I personally didn't actually care that they did all these sins. I began thinking, shouldn't I be telling them about Catholicism, aren't they in grave danger of Hell? But when it came down to it, I didn't think they were in any kind of danger. They seemed fine to me. Good people who are just maneuvering through life with the same basic tool kit as I had, a conscience, an intellect, a body, they have passions and desires, some of which they permit, some of which they restrict.
I just felt no need for them to be Catholic. They seemed basically good, it didn't seem like they needed to be baptized by a priest, or confess there sins, or receive the Eucharist. It just didn't seem necessary. So obviously I started feeling no need for myself to be Catholic either. Just didn't feel it was necessary for a human life.

For a while this process of "deconstructing" my faith was very turbulent, kept flip flopping. Sometimes seeing my self as going through a process of changing my belief system based on truth and personal experience, so of course it could be painful or hard. And sometimes framing it all in a Catholic way, so what the struggle I was feeling was one for my soul, and the devil was winning, having lulled me into a selfish stupor.
Now it's been some time. Pretty firmly not a Christian anymore. But having been raised the way I was, it doesn't dislodge itself easily. I still have that framework of mind running in the back of my mind, of what's sinful and what's right. I haven't seriously studied something Catholic in a while now. Maybe I should.

[Anonymous No.23318821]

>>23318195
>Good people who are just maneuvering through life with the same basic tool kit as I had, a conscience, an intellect, a body, they have passions and desires, some of which they permit, some of which they restrict. I just felt no need for them to be Catholic. They seemed basically good, it didn't seem like they needed to be baptized by a priest, or confess there sins, or receive the Eucharist. It just didn't seem necessary.
>midwit falls away from a doctrine he apparently never understood
Many such cases. Good luck with your apostasy

[Anonymous No.23319121]

>>23318821
I understood it well enough to be called a Catholic, to affirm it, so then why is that understanding insufficient to deny it?
Also what don't you think I understand about Catholic doctrine?

[Anonymous No.23319145]

>>23318195
Just sounds like one kind of social conditioning amorphously supplanting another. If you spent your daily life around nudist pygmies, you'd slowly start to think that people were "good enough" without clothes as well.

[Anonymous No.23319195]

>>23319145
Seems besides the point to call it social conditioning. Just focus on the ideas and attitudes, of course a group that holds those ideas can affect or convince someone who comes from a different group.
I guess what my problem with Catholicism was that it didn't seem like people needed saving. Now I don't know what the after life looks like, so maybe we really are naturally deserving of hell and need Christ to save us. But I thought it was supposed to show itself in this world as well, that we need the church. I never met a person who seemed deserving of eternal hell, to me, as far as my judgement goes, apparently God's would be harsher? Thats what I couldn't handle.

[Anonymous No.23319240]

>>23317732
>reading anything published 1965 or after
If you’re not a sedevacantist you’re not Catholic.

[Anonymous No.23319327]

>>23319195
The Church doesn't definitively declare anyone to be automatically sent to hell, either. There's venial sin, mortal sin, vincible and invincible ignorance, and purgatory all at play in how we would best arbitrate a decision that is ultimately left to God. "Needing to be saved" isn't some harsh judgment either; John 3:16 and the parable of the prodigal son capture it as the pinnacle of God's mercy rather than judgment. On a non-metaphysical level you're also downplaying the extent to which western secular morality is still fundamentally shaped by Christian ideals.

>maybe we really are naturally deserving of hell
This isn't what most branches of Western Christianity teach. Read Augustine's theory of Concupiscence.

[Anonymous No.23319951]

>>23318195
Take whatever I say with a pinch of salt. I'm a beginner and this is a case of the blind guiding the blind.

You should do a back to the basics. Read Plato, Plotinus and then the Cathechism.

And you don't know what other people are facing. Their inner struggles, their difficulties. We shouldn't really judge the state of other people, either as good or bad.

Remember that the purpose of Catholicism is not cleaner cities with less corrupt politicians or other Earthly issues (if we do get this, it is great, but this would be a good side effect). The purpose is the union with God. To love God.

[Anonymous No.23319959]

The RSV2CE is objectively the best English translation of the Bible currently. Believe me, I've read a bunch.

[Anonymous No.23319967]

>>23319240
Cool story bro. Go serve "Pope Michael" then.

[Anonymous No.23320002]

>>23319959
How does it stack up against the douay-rheims challoner version?

Does Scott Hahn provide quality commentary?

[Anonymous No.23320051]

>>23320002
There isn't much commentary in the plain versions. But there is in the Ignatius Study Bible. It's mostly done by Hahn and Steubenville type of scholars. They've only released the NT and some of the OT, but apparently it's being finished this year. You might want to wait until that comes out. If you like Hahn, you know what to expect. He's more of a Ratzinger Catholic. Not a strict trad or modernist.
A nice plain hardcover of the RSV2CE bible on its own is a nice thing to have. Or the bonded leather version which is the same size. They have a good font and page color (kind of creamy) and aren't too big or small (picrel).

[Anonymous No.23320080]

>>23318195
Funny enough, I grew up in a militantly atheist household and went to a similar program when I was young. But of course for me it was socialism they made charity make sense. I can only say that the deep flaws in my "good enough," view of how I was then only appeared to me much later, in my 30s. What was "good enough," was actually extremely self-centered and rotten compared to any ideal, and only Christ could free me to actualize the higher good, and only contemplation of the Divine reached out to that true Good and Beauty. Much like St. Augustine, I was left with a deep regret for wasted time.

Of course they aren't boogie men! This would be a good experience for you even if you come back to the Church. We aren't called on to fear the world or others, but to love them. There is lots of good outside the church.

Think of it this way, no one knowingly wants to have wrong beliefs. Very few people want to think of themselves as evil either (you may have your rare exceptions). So if you see people striving for the Good, this should be no surprise. But the question is if they are aligned to the Good itself, or only relative goods. Even the out of control addict, the dead beat dad, the /pol/ spree shooter, etc. think they are chasing after some sort of good. They are just doing so in a broken and defective way, in a way such that their intellect, which might properly recognize the Good, is generally a slave to the passions and appetites.

People might seem "good enough," from some perspective, but it's important to see that basically everyone ends up like St. Paul in Romans 7 at various points in their life. They are a slave to instinct, desire, and circumstance, unable to fulfill the higher good identified by their inner self because they are at war with themselves, driven to pursue lower goods. Paul describes this as death in sin or slavery in sin; it is a loss of autonomy and personhood. What Christianity ultimately offers is freedom. Not a defective freedom of mere potency (modern conceptions), the ability to do anything, even what we hate and what is bad for us, but the freedom to actualize what we hold on highest regard in our inner most being.

[Anonymous No.23320104]

>>23320080
You might also consider here Plato's "civil war within the soul," described in the Republic or in the chariot analogy of the Phaedrus. It is an interesting parallel that it is ultimately Christ, the Logos (Divine/universal reason) that is who is thanked for resurrecting St. Paul from the death of personhood and autonomy he suffers from being divided in himself. The role of Christ in Christian freedom isn't reducible to "being ruled by the higher/rational part of the soul," but it is part of it.

Some people reach out to God outside the Church and God seems to answer them. We might consider here Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Rumi, Proclus, Avicenna, etc. We can respect these people and learn from them even as we come to see their answers are imperfect.

"All truth is God's truth," after all (Augustine). All revelation of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True is through God and man's reflection of God. The world is a ladder handed down through grace, that man might ascend to God (St. Bonaventure).

Sometimes we are tested for a reason, that we might better understand the loss. Boethius even comes to see his own immanent torture and death as part of Providence in the Consolation. But he no longer fears it or morns his past honors and comforts. He is no longer reliant on external goods, and so is more self-determining and more free. The problem with the athirst is, in part, an inability not to be determined by external goods, since this is all they can recognize as truly existing.

[Anonymous No.23320118]

>>23318195
I was a delinquent with no religion other than beating people's asses and getting high and got kicked out of school enough that the only place that accepted me was some Catholic school run by nuns on the other side of town. And I still somehow turned out to be worse than the cholos there too. Until some old nun, the quietest of the bunch, took me into her classroom and told me to pick a rosary I'd like out of a box she had. Then she told me God would speak to children soon and left it at that. And it totally upended my life. He's relentless. The Hound of Heaven, as one poem states it. And here I am years later telling anons "Yall need Jesus."

[Anonymous No.23320169]

>>23317921
This book is incredible. It's a rebuttal of Heidegger. Though engages sympathetically despite rebuttal. Also a rebuttal of Hegel. Similarly sympathetic however. Hard to describe really. Completes German Idealism and Existential Phenomenology IMO. By way of Scholasticism curiously. Uses generous amounts of Aquinas but quite creatively and not in any uncritical way. Anyway, I bought a copy last year. Just finished it round Christmas. Ended up buying Schindler's companion piece as well afterward. Has been quite helpful to my understanding. Contains a short summary. Couple articles on context. Also a short paper on Homo Abyssus by Ulrich himself. Would recommend too. Just pre ordered another Ulrich translation coming down pipeline this summer as well. Three Short Works. Makes me wanna read Hans Urs Von Balthasaar since apparently they were friends...

[Anonymous No.23320184]

>>23320169
>Hans Urs Von Balthasaar
Expensive to really dive into. Maybe go for the library, if they even have him.
But he also has brief meditations and primers that are good starts for his thought. Like "Credo" (just about the Apostle's Creed) or even his little book on the mysteries of the rosary (the Threefold Garland).
His huge Systematic Theology is like $500 total. But there is a smaller 4 volume set called Explorations in Theology comprised of his public talks that encapsulates some of his bigger subjects.

[Anonymous No.23320248]

>>23320169
Thanks. I have always been a big fan of Hegel, although lately I have come to the conclusion that he flattens out the drama and beauty of being by wanting to reduce everything to first principles. That and he is a horrid writer lol. I made it through the Philosophy of Right, which is very interesting and has a lot of interesting extensions of the Republic and Laws, but I have been struggling through the Science of Logic for years now, even with multiple commentaries (Houlgate is great).

I actually discovered von Balthasar fairly recently, through his book on St. Maximus. He seems to offer up something of a solution to the problems in Hegel by reintroducing a notion of the drama and beauty of individuals lives and events.

One of the things that always bothered me in the classical tradition is how it sometimes seems implausible that "everything works out for the best." Boethius makes the best case that it does, in Book V of the Consolation, but it seems in danger of slipping into the farce of Candide's Dr. Pangloss. What saves it is a look at salvation history and the Incarnation at a corporate level. I think the Orthodox get a lot right in terms of corporate election as opposed to always focusing on the individual (interestingly, Baptists found this notion too). Covenants are with a people. As Schindler notes, reason (practical/theoretical/aesthetic, corresponding to Goodness/Truth/Beauty) have to relate to the whole. I think the same is true for covenants.

Clearly, individual events can be bad for individuals. We need certain things in our environments for us to develop the way we need to in order to be self-determining. Special grace might help in exceptional situations, but most people raised in cultures where a virtue is made of vice will fall into vice.

But all this makes sense in the context of Providence guiding man (the entire race) to self-determination. That is, collective misfortune is needed for the free development of collective, social freedom. Hegel's philosophy of history offers an explanation of this, with echos of Eusebius, whereas St. Augustine's two cities seem in danger of collapsing out the meaning and purpose of this life (indeed, this happens in Calvinist readings of Augustine). Hegel gives us a way to explain the dialectical churn of the Reformation, and also a profound explanation of social freedom and our interdependence on one another (e.g., we are not free to eradicate small pox or traverse continents in a day on jets without working together). Techne plays a special role in enabling freedom and right action, and it is a social project.

So I'm quite interested in Ulrich, to see if he can resolve the problems in Hegel. I don't think Hegel is quite the pantheist that Catholics often make him out to be. Too much of the view of him is colored by Marxist readings that take out religion.

[Anonymous No.23320256]

>>23320248
do think he flattens things out to much, denigrating religious experience and contemplation through his sole focus on what finite human reason can comprehend. But ultimately, I see him more in line with the Panentheism of orthodox Christianity, even if he veers even closer to a sort of Pantheism than Meister Eckhart.

>>23320184
There is also the Cambridge Companion for his work. I got it from the library, it's nice in containing summaries.

[Anonymous No.23320259]

Having fun LARPing today?

[Anonymous No.23320267]

Who's the most Orthodox-Sympathetic Catholic and likewise?

[Anonymous No.23320280]

>>23320259
Have fun not going outside?
There's over a billion Catholics in the world and 2+ billion Christians, some of which are at least adjacent or interested in Catholicism. You think they're all larping and the world revolves around your memes? Just like everything else about the average anon's conception of reality, it's stupid. Whether they're far left or right, they see chuds and trannies hiding behind every corner Or /pol/ sees Jews rubbing their hands behind every event. And you see larpers. All of you need to get a life.

[Anonymous No.23320296]

>>23320267
Pope Francis himself. He gave relics of St. Peter to Constantinople and reinstated the old pontifical title of "Patriarch to the West".

[Anonymous No.23320452]

>>23320248
Lovely response. Do read Ulrich. Schindler is very influenced by him methinks. I am a recovering Hegelian. A panentheist reading is nice and where my sympathies would err. But ultimately I think the charge of Spinozism in the texts is on the money. Ulrich gives Hegel his due. But see sees him as does Heidegger as culmination of modern metaphysics and ontics without ontology alongside other critiques of his temporality and historiography too... Ulrich to my reading is moreso Heideggerian than Hegelian (and moreso Thomist than either) but nevertheless sees both as different moments or movements of truth in a logic of being in human incarnation given meaning thru Christ which is not only historical and spatiotemporal (non-separate!) but also above and beyond...

I suppose Chardin is somewhat of a baptized Hegelian history if into that.

If like Hegel also check out Solovyov on Orthodox side. Somewhat sophiological/christian theosophist but more classical than Hegel.

Ulrich thinks the classical tradition of being and God esp in christian platonism and aristotelianism ie le aquinas n scholastics (but also esp church fathers?) evades Heidegger's critiques of metaphysics and are perhaps the only true ontology. Trinitarian ontology.

I have Balthasaar's book on Origen. Nouvelle theologie is curious. Need to see some critiques perhaps: is it too v2? Hah. Idk

Speaking grace, Lubac on Supernatural is one of my next planned reads as well.

Pangloss did nothing wrong. Except being ontic and modern. Consider an inexhaustible ontological perfection otherwise perhaps.

[Anonymous No.23320456]

>>23320280
Christianity is a LARP yes. The masses are braindead, it’s not a good thing to brag about how many Mexicans and Africans follow your religion.

[Anonymous No.23320723]

>>23320296
You think he's trying to begin a process of ending the Great Schism?

[Anonymous No.23320733]

>catholic literature
>first author is CS Lewis
I'd make the joke about high Anglican travelogues but nobody would get it

[Anonymous No.23320824]

>>23319121
If you think people are "basically good" and don't require saving then you clearly don't understand even the most basic fundamental principle of Christianity. Everything else you said is merely confirmation of that fact.
>I understood this thing well enough to call myself thing
Not how it works. A fat out of shape fuck who knows what a push up is doesn't magically become fit because he calls himself that. Especially if he thinks a push up is actually what a bench press is.

[Anonymous No.23320869]

>>23320456
You seem to think this is /pol/.
You hate God, you hate Christ, you hate everyone else on top of that. And you think this is persuasive? Enjoy your bitter and insular little life, I guess. But why you would think anyone else would find this is appealing? You literally offer nothing except to be a loser. Jack shit. Get out of here.

[Anonymous No.23320952]

>>23320184
Ignatius has some very accessible paperbacks of a lot of Von Balthasar's minor works like his biography of Adrienne Von Speyr. But yeah getting individual editions of each of the volumes of The Glory of the Lord is a costly undertaking for how important a work it is.

I wouldn't be surprised if Word on Fire/Bishop Barron put out an edition of Glory of the Lord at some point; Von Balthasar is their main guys. Some of it went over my head, but the book really did a good job at theologically justifying the different charisms of the Church through the lens of apostolic archetypes. St. Peter = administrative, St. Paul = evangelical, St. John = contemplative.

[Anonymous No.23321507]

>>23320452
Thanks for the recs Anon.

[Anonymous No.23321994]

Gonna repost some good shit I saw in the Starting with the Greeks(Catholic Edition) thread

[Anonymous No.23321996]

>Should I read the pagan philosophers like plato and aristotle first
Reading the primary sources without commentary is a meme of Harris tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking, Chesterton-quoting "classical education" dilettanti. Proper classical education, which ends in sacred theology only after mastery of the trivium, quadrivium, and the natural sciences, builds on commentaries and manuals.
Reading Plato and Aristotle is acceptable for leisure but not if you want to have the sacramental worldview. Here are some paleo-Thomist manuals:
isidore.co/aquinas/
aquinas.cc
isidore.co/CalibreLibrary/Woodbury, Austin Maloney, S.M., 1899-1979/
isidore.co/CalibreLibrary/Pohle, Joseph, 1852-1922/
maritain.nd.edu/jmc/aristotl.htm
https://www.faith.org.uk/article/january-february-2014-the-collapse-of-the-manualist-tradition
https://onepeterfive.com/defense-manuals-manualism/
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2008/11/neo-scholastic-revival.html

[Anonymous No.23322149]

>>23317732
Benedict XVI covered up the pedophilia, he's more of an anti-pope than Francis could ever hope of being.
>>23318195
Pope Francis just said it's okay for gay marriages to be blessed in the Catholic Church. Nobody else on /co/ will tell you this, but being an atheist is not the only way to look at this. I would advise you to examine whether your reaction is really against Christianity, or the specific radical right-wing version of it you grew up in that taught you people went to hell for saying fuck or fucking up the butt and that evolution and vaccines aren't real.

[Anonymous No.23322153]

>>23322149
>Nobody else on /co/ will tell you this
wat

[Anonymous No.23322165]

>>23317732
How do Catholics handle the doctrine of Hell? It confuses me.

[Anonymous No.23322174]

Idk where to post this but wow
Did anyone watch the Upon Friar review channel? It was a catholic reaction youtube channel
I always strongly disliked Fr. Patrick Tuttle but liked the younger guy and apparently Patrick has been accused of some serious sexual misconduct

[Anonymous No.23322175]

>>23322149
JPII had a bigger role in covering it up than Benedict, remember that most of the cases occurred under his papacy.

[Anonymous No.23322178]

>>23322174
was it this channel? Its blank now
https://www.youtube.com/@blankname776

[Anonymous No.23322180]

>>23322178
Yeah it got nuked
The older guy always seemed to have a very strange demeanour, very close minded, quick to anger, etc

[Anonymous No.23322183]

Thoughts on the Diamond Brothers?

[Anonymous No.23322197]

Have any of you read Huysmans?

[Anonymous No.23322213]

>>23322174
Never heard of this guy but apparently the Franciscans made an active point to say they cut ties.
>https://friars.us/article/2024/04/10/fr.-patrick-tuttle--ofm--removed-from-ministry
What exactly was he accused of?

[Anonymous No.23322227]

>>23322183
Charlatans. Most of their youtube followers probably don't know that they're heretics and that "Vatican Catholic" is actually neither Vatican nor Catholic. They tell people to actively avoid going to literally any church on Sunday which is literally advocating for apostasy under the guise of piousness.

The funniest thing about them is they try to say that even though you shouldn't go to mass, technically Byzantine Catholicism is still ok in their eyes but you should tell the Byzantine priest to buy their DVDs and learn how the Church has been compromised kek

[Anonymous No.23322237]

>>23322213
probably diddling

[Anonymous No.23322253]

>>23322183
The Diamond Brothers and Michael E.Jones should collab together and combine their schizo powers

[Anonymous No.23322481]

>>23322149
Pope Francis did not. He explicitly condemned this. Homosexuals, like all other sinners, can ask blessings from priests.

[Anonymous No.23322523]

I read a book recently after anonymous shilled it on here called Death Comes for the Archbishop. I loved it you guys should read it

[Anonymous No.23322531]

>>23317732
Highly recommended

[Anonymous No.23322662]

>>23322531
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlheinz_Deschner#Works
This nigga was absolutely obsessed lol

[Anonymous No.23322858]

>>23322531
these are just a compilation of Christianity's victories lol

[Anonymous No.23322896]

Thoughts on this?

[Anonymous No.23323234]

>>23320723
the schism is held up by the orthodox really. the pope doesnt really care about them much, catholics say that orthodox are in union and have valid sacraments. the orthdox arent as amendable to the pope.

[Anonymous No.23323235]

>>23322523
>after anonymous shilled it

How is he so prolific?

[Anonymous No.23323321]

>>23321996
>Yet why such “manualism” is objectionable is a question to which no one has ever given a satisfying answer. We are told, for instance, that the teaching of the manuals was too “constricting” and pre-packaged, that the systematic and rigorous character of Scholastic thought stifles “creativity.”

We really need to start a discussion about what happened in the 1960s and 1970s and what the high Church hierarchy was thinking at the time. Was it some kind of pride?

Wouldn't it be better for a seminarian to learn with a rigorous and well organized textbook rather than reading some hard to understand German philosophy book and being like picture related?

[Anonymous No.23323333]

>>23323321
unironically Chuds have been holding back the Church for a really long time and we're suffering even more for it due to this weird Tradcath revival where Aquinas has replaced Jesus

[Anonymous No.23323336]

>>23323333
Holding back from what, exactly?

[Anonymous No.23323362]

>>23323336
progress in theology by which diversity (of wprship, of expression, of sexuality) can be welcomed into the church

[Anonymous No.23323381]

do the Dominicans accept 30 year old losers with no direction in life

[Anonymous No.23323396]

>>23317732
Just finished the second book. Outside of sacred scripture itself this is the most amazing thing I've ever read. So much creation and salvation history that isn't in the Bible.

[Anonymous No.23323995]

Does anyone have a chart for reading the Church Fathers?

[Anonymous No.23324351]

>>23323396
I'm surprised more people don't confuse this one with Augustine's City of God. This one honestly always seems even longer. Also seems very connected to the tradition of Spanish baroque literature, just in the aesthetics of how it's presented and Mary of Agreda's life.

[Anonymous No.23324451]

Should I stop reading authors like Nietzche?
It shakes my faith a little bit but I feel like I need to read him and others to know how to counter their arguments. Maybe I should get some companion book that tackles Nietzche on a Catholic perspective, any suggestions?
Also, his prose is really nice. So I want to keep reading if only for that.

[Anonymous No.23324494]

>>23324451
Why would Nietzsche shake your faith?
He comes from different assumptions than us, so he is not really relevant for us.

[Anonymous No.23324540]

>>23324451
Nietzsche's "arguments" really just boiled down to opinion about what would be good for people. He doesn't really "disprove" anything and his own opinions were disproven by the fact that every regime influenced by them (Italian fascism, WWI Germany, Nazi Germany) failed miserably.

[Anonymous No.23324549]

>>23324451
See the Schindler recs and After Virtue mentioned here: >23317900

Actually, The Phenomenology of the Human Person also sort of speaks to problems in Nietzsche in some ways, in that he misses how the desire for Truth is essential to us. But bigger issue in Nietzsche is his defective understanding of freedom as only freedom from external constraint and potentiality and his very poor understanding of the classical tradition. He's a Greekboo but he only deals in strawman ghosts of Plato and Aristotle and doesn't seem to understand what is going on in the tragedies in terms of moral conflict. Everything gets filtered through 19th century Protestant pietism for him.

[Anonymous No.23324587]

>>23324451
As a Catholic I believe you are supposed to avoid that material because it can lead you astray and spending hours reading a book makes cognitive dissonance kick in causing anything in the book to seem convincing. Try out something like 5 proofs of the existence of God. It looks at God from a philosophical point of view and will provide you with counter arguments. IMO nietzche was an idiot who claimed God was dead during one of the biggest religious revivals in history and died because he wanted to see what happened if he gave himself syphilus

[Khata !QbbPtVuCKo No.23324653]

>>23322227
Based.
>>23322253
Jones is not a Sedevacantist, if they were to collab Dimond will most likely start an autistic discussion against him for not being a Sede.

[Khata !QbbPtVuCKo No.23324665]

>>23324451
Read the Carmelites anon.

[Anonymous No.23324688]

>>23324587
Saying Nietzsche's writings should be avoided as a blanket statement will just make them pique more curiosity and subconsciously feel like they're some kind of intellectually unstoppable thing that needs to be cowered in fear from, which they obviously aren't.

[Anonymous No.23324716]

>>23322481
Homosexuals as individuals if they are seeking God, yes. Not the couples. They were explicit to not bless the actual unions.

[Anonymous No.23325451]

>>23322531
Based, unironically

[Anonymous No.23326632]

blessed bump

[Anonymous No.23326665]

>>23317732

Catholic (pagan) literature: jskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldtjskdfsdfsidufhsiunkiskuhskkjfnsdkfjneiurhsliuisdufhsiutkjsdhtfghdiuthrhtiuhrncdkhctdfhttdkhndifcuhgdiufgchdkfiughdkriuthdknflisdvhsirtsdsouvhldjnfkhuhvlintldithdlfutdlftdnfltdhfgoudhldutfldt

Protestant (Christian) literature: THE BIBLE (KJV)

[Anonymous No.23326670]

>>23324451

NEETzsche is nothing but Catholic (pagan). Name one NEETzschean brain fart that is not integral to Catholic tradition, EXPLICITLY sanctioned somewhere in a phone book. You cannot.

[Anonymous No.23326681]

>>23324451
Just critically engage, what I got from reading Nietzche was a realisation that I was sometimes engaging in slave morality. I became Christian during a time when I felt absolutely hopeless and worthless and I'd be lying now if part of that wasn't a cope, reading Nietzche helped me to take my faith seriously and make everyday an attempt to serve God, rather than engage in saccharine quasi-socialist nonsense that you see a lot of Christians engage in.

[Anonymous No.23326687]

>>23326665
>>23326670
This is childish behaviour.

[Anonymous No.23326828]

>>23326687

You worship pachamama.

[Anonymous No.23326835]

>>23326828
k

[Anonymous No.23326888]

>>23326687
>>23326835

Note how the Catholic never denies being a pagan. His only reply is "paganism is good, actually". Not even a pagan proper is this abject. A pagan does not want to be a pagan. A Catholic DOES.

[Anonymous No.23326902]

>>23326665
The most obvious falseflag in the world and people will fall for it.

[Anonymous No.23326923]

>>23326888
k

[Anonymous No.23327433]

>>23318195
What you “feel” has no bearing truth. Those people you met can be plenty fine and fun to be around. They can be friends, family, lovers, etc, but that doesn’t change their sin. Notice how your rejection of Catholicism came from your own “feelings” of what they should and shouldn’t have to do. This is why I love Catholicism so much because this is what Sola Fide does to a person. Faith alone can be shaken. It depends on the individual. Your faith was shaken and you left. Catholicism is the only faith with a coherent sense of theology and philosophy. Your trust in yourself is unfounded. Suppose you’re a brain in a vat, subjected to sensual perception based on electrical signals. Your “feelings” would be fully fake. As it is, you don’t know if you’re a brain in a vat. You have no idea of the outside world. You can only truly assume what Descartes pointed out, that being “I think therefore I am”. That and math are the only absolutes. Working from math and objective philosophy is the only way to have any sort of coherent truth, and all philosophy eventually leads to god, and more specifically Catholicism. Fuck the morality, read the philosophy. The morality will spring from that naturally.
>>23319195
You entirely misunderstand hell and god. You never understood Catholicism in the first place. Whether YOU consider hell being justified forever is besides the point. All of actuality is gods expression. Our free will is his expression. We have the free will to choose him or not. You have to understand omnipotence and omniscience are entirely based upon reality and actuality. God is not limited, but he is perfection. Meaning he can not be joined by that which is imperfect. The imperfect joining the perfect would cause the perfect to become in part imperfect. That’s what hell is. Separation from god and the Holy Spirit. That’s why hell is torture. You are away from all that is good, not by gods decision, but by yours. The reason god can not save you after hell is because doing so would violate free will, his nature, and by extension actuality - which we’ve determined is what god is purely. Your own judgement is nothing in the face of anyone or anything else, hence the need on a broader societal level for god.

[Anonymous No.23327459]

Do any Catholic Nietzscheans exist?

[Anonymous No.23327521]

>>23327459
Incompatible.
Nietzsche has as an assumption that God doesn't exist. Catholics have as an assumption that God exists and we should follow His will.

[Anonymous No.23327566]

>>23327521

See: >>23326670

Pardon? Catholics claim that God is in the world to such a degree that he cannot be said to be out of the world, which is exactly what NEETzsche claims. Moreover, both positions affirm the idiocy of "becoming" and ascribe it, absolutely, mind you, to God.

[Anonymous No.23327893]

>>23327566
He's a schizo trying to derail the thread, don't engage.

[Anonymous No.23328049]

>>23327433
My definition of sin changed from 'something that is wrong to do' to 'something the church says is wrong but I think is permissible'.
My conscience use to have a feature which would remind me to submit to my best understanding of Catholic teaching. But now my conscience is grating against itself. So it's my conscience which would prompt and guide and keep me in the faith. And then it was my conscience which started to prompt me to question it, and eventually I left aside the feature that seeks answers in the church.

Another way I thought of this was this.
Is a Muslims faith the same as a Catholics faith? I mean having the virtue of faith, the mental process of that or the feeling in the heart. Of staying true and faithful to the religion in a deep deep way. Despite intellectual challenges or desires or moral doubt etc.
But if you were to convert a Muslim, at some point his faith in Islam would have to break, or be defeated, or in someway transfer(convert) to Catholicism. How would you go about that, challenging a Muslims faith? Let's say he did convert after going through the possibly very hard process of abandoning his faith. But in a Catholic sense, it can't have been a sin to break that sense of faith to leave Islam for Catholicism. But now that he is Catholic he has a new target for this faith, but this time if he abandons it, it is a sin.
So if the virtue of faith is identical in a Muslim and a Catholic (I'd be really curious to hear how they're different), then it seems like it's sometimes a good thing to question and abandon, and sometimes a bad thing, from a Catholic view. A non universal virtue. I found this very odd to think about.

I understood what you're basically describing about hell. I'm just using very basic language. God damns people to hell.

[Anonymous No.23328066]

>>23320824
Eh I did understand it. It's just that I'm trying to use my new understanding of reality to talk to my old and it's odd.

[Anonymous No.23328104]

>>23319327
>>23319951
>>23319951
>>23320104
Thanks for the reccs. Part of me does want to be Catholic, a larger part would just want to Christian.

[Anonymous No.23328120]

>>23328049
>My definition of sin changed from 'something that is wrong to do' to 'something the church says is wrong but I think is permissible'.
Not that Anon.
The name of the sin you are commiting is Pride.
There is ignorance too. But it mostly Pride.

[Anonymous No.23328124]

>>23327893
I'm >>23327521
How am I trying to derail the thread? I just said Nietzsche and Catholicism are not compatible.

[Anonymous No.23328142]

>>23328120
Fair enough. I wouldn't ask you to speak on my terms. I just don't understand how one would go about leaving a false religion without being immoral then. How would someone leave a cult or Jehovah's Witnesses. Are they prideful too?

[Anonymous No.23328196]

>>23328142
Leaving a false religion is not immoral. Is your point that Catholicism is a false religion?

[Anonymous No.23328213]

>>23328196
The point is that you can't tell if you're in a false religion unless you challenge it.

[Anonymous No.23328374]

>>23328213
What you are doing is not really a challenge...

You are more or less saying (I'm over simplifying here) "I like those people, so if they are sinners, there is nothing wrong with sins". The problem is, you are not really thinking about what is the nature of sin.

Also, unless you live in a small community of saints, in this Earth you will always be surrounded by sinners.

[Anonymous No.23328611]

>>23328049
Anon, originally you stated your reason for not being able to come to terms with Catholicism was because of people going to hell. Once again I reiterate, people damn themselves to hell with their actions. Their actions are their own, and are contrary to perfection as defined by pure actuality aka god. You can say “that’s not fair” but you’re just warring against reality at that point. God is simply what he is, his nature is that which has been and can not change, as perfection is necessarily static.
As for your idea of faith in other religions, it is in fact the same faith, but their faith is in the wrong thing. Anon, it is no sin to critically look at Catholicism (as far as I know), but you have to be intellectually honest and no jump any guns. Once again this is what separates Catholicism. The Catholic Church developed science and post classical philosophy as a way to understand god. We are encouraged to learn more about these subjects and challenge, as it creates a greater understanding of actuality aka God.
>>23328213
Faith is one thing anon. You need to have it at some level to believe in literally anything. I’m not gonna say I’m an Idealist or a Sophist, but they have a great point that you genuinely do not know anything is real or if you’re that previous brain in a vat. That’s your faith. But once you assume reality is real and you do live in reality (which is what you have to at some point), you always find your way back to god and Catholicism logically. The church and Jesus do not ask us to have blind faith anon. In fact, if you want to get your faith back go look at the miracles across the world. There are many, and you can reason your way through it. Go study western philosophy. You end up at Catholicism. Go read historical accounts of Christ, you come to realize he’s 100% historical. There is so much evidence for the lord. You just need to go out and want to find it.

[Anonymous No.23328698]

>>23320452
>Nouvelle theologie is curious. Need to see some critiques perhaps

Matthew Minerd has stepped up on that front. See:

The Thomistic Response to the Nouvelle Théologie: Concerning the Truth of Dogma and the Nature of Theology
>https://matthewminerd.com/books

Who Wasn’t the Sacred Monster of Thomism?: Overcoming Certain Narratives about Fr.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrage, OP, in the Hope of Mutual Honesty Among Faithful Catholics
>https://isidore.co/misc/Physics%20papers%20and%20books/Zotero/storage/IW8HL9KP/Minerd%20-%202023%20-%20Who%20Wasn%E2%80%99t%20the%20Sacred%20Monster%20of%20Thomism%20Overcom.pdf

Of Manuals and of Those Who Did Not Write Them: The Case of Garrigou-Lagrange
>https://www.athomist.com/articles/of-manuals-and-of-those-who-did-not-write-them-the-case-of-garrigou-lagrange

He has a lot of interesting talks and interviews on youtube: https://matthewminerd.com/talks-and-interviews

E.g.,
“Lectures on the ‘Nouvelle théologie’ crisis” (Lecture 1: High-Level Overview)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDlt0YDiClo

Top-notch academic. Cool guy.

[Anonymous No.23328890]

>>23326665
Paganism is based

[Anonymous No.23329535]

Would you recognize Palamas as a Saint?

[Anonymous No.23329557]

>>23329535
I'm logically led to believe yes because he's a saint in Eastern Catholicism, and Eastern Catholicism preserved what was worth preserving in Orthodoxy (I regularly go to liturgies of two different Eastern Catholic rites' Liturgies and they're great, I prefer them to Novus Ordo mass).

He was never formally excommunicated by the Church because the schism had already happened. I don't care that he disagreed with Thomism and I frankly think Thomism is very overhyped as the end-all be-all of Catholic thought.

[Anonymous No.23329571]

>>23329557
>I don't care that he disagreed with Thomism and I frankly think Thomism is very overhyped as the end-all be-all of Catholic thought.
The Dominican domination of Catholic thought has been a great disaster for the faith and we're paying for it right now. Thomism needs to be challenged more.

[Anonymous No.23329577]

>>23329571
Thomism already was challenged with the Renaissance resurgence of Neoplatonism. Ficino was an absolute genius but didn't really take off as much because for everything good about reviving Neoplatonism he also had some weird Renaissance-era quasi-pagan proto-occult bullshit to him too.

That brief moment of Renaissance Platonism in the spirit of the ancient world could have led to the greatest purification and renewal of the Faith ever seen, and perhaps in that moment it even was. But something about it didn't stick and instead laid the grounds for modernity in its wake.

[Anonymous No.23329590]

>>23329577
I really should read more about this, I never liked the Dominicans. As a disclaimer, I come from and grew up in a school that was ran by the Dominicans and nearly all of my friends now who used to be my schoolmates are either agnostic or are atheist leftists, 3/5 of them grew up in devout Italian-American families but the way the Dominican brothers who handled some of the faculty treated us was really terrible. I'm still somewhat Catholic now but it isn't a coincidence that most of the stubborn ignorance I see from Catholics are either affiliated with Dominicans or are inspired by them.

[Anonymous No.23329708]

>>23329590
I don't have anything particularly bad to say about the Dominicans as a whole; they were effective in converting the Cathars out of their heresy before they decided to murder a papal legate and kick off the Albigensian Crusade.

The school I went to was run by Jesuits who are exponentially more of a boogeyman outside of the Church (and even within certain corners of it). I feel like there's a pretty okay retention of Catholicism from its community, but I'm from a place where Catholicism is still a very big part of daily life for most people.

[Anonymous No.23329793]

I don't want to be the aggressive apostate who thinks he knows more about Catholicism than anyone. But I'm trying to say what the problem was in simple terms.
>>23328374
I did think of the nature of sin, at least I think I did. One thing is that obedience is not a virtue. It seems neutral. Think of a kid with bad parents, a young kid would not be blamed for obeying his parents if let's say they trained him as a pickpocket. But would you call his obedience a good thing, a virtue? But it seems a stretch to say his obedience is a vice, perhaps it could be though.
And what if he resisted them, disobeyed, because his own moral sense was superior to his parents and he didn't want to steal from an old lady.
Then his disobedience is part of his bravery, part of his morality, to do what is right despite his parents. But it's not the disobedience we'd be praising, we wouldn't say, "nice to see a young lad disobeying his parents" it was the not stealing that was the good thing. It seems like obedience is neutral. It's just submitting to power, if the power is good, you're good, if it's bad, you're a little bad.
This is the kind of stuff I was thinking about. And which prompted me to begin to think that the only reason I thought these people were living wrong was the authority of the church to tell me that. Where as my own senses were in agreement with the "sin".
So I suppose to become Catholic again I'd either have to resubmit my own subjective views to the Churches authority, or to have my subjective views brought into alignment with the teaching.

So the nature of sin, well I have no idea really. But the idea of it being when you break Gods untouchable Law now rubs me the wrong way. I know that's not an argument at all I'm just expressing it. It makes it seem like not sinning is then just the highest form of delayed gratification, obeying the law so you don't get any bad outcomes, and not being shortsighted and wanting some pleasure now that would mean much more pain later.
But that seems in conflict with what I'd say the principal of a compassionate act is, that it's not selfish. When you gain nothing, but just want the other person to have something.
Maybe that's not even possible though, you'd always gain something, but it seems to be the theme.
Idk I'm kind of at the edge of my thoughts now.

[Anonymous No.23329839]

>>23329708
Jesuit-ran schools had all the qts

[Anonymous No.23329862]

>>23328611
Good points. People damn themselves to hell, but why would God ultimately allow that. There is this perfect actuality that everyone would fail to meet, and it would be Jesus' sacrifice that pays the debt for everything. But it seems insufficient in Catholic teaching because people are still ending up in hell, I suppose they deserve it, we all would, original sin. At first I tried to believe in universalism. Watched some lectures from David Bentley Hart. Why would God allow for a complete soul suicide? An earthly parent should respect a child's individual choices to an extent. But not when they harm themselves beyond repair.
But yeah, I'll keep trying to make reality make sense. Hopefully if Catholicism is true I'll realize it. I suppose I should try and thoroughly study it. If its true the ln obviously it's important, if it's wrong I'll be able to at least come to terms more accurately why.
And you know I really do have to admit that this all came about due to my somewhat traditional Catholic community being pretty distorted. Small homeschooling groups in an area in the world with basically no Catholic history. Lots of mental problems. When I got out into the world I was surprised to find that the average secular bimbo had more compassion and inner peace than most of the people I knew. So that's an emotional experience. I think it's valid though, not on its own, but it leads the rest of the human faculties to investigate truth.

[Anonymous No.23330244]

>>23329793
In our case, the issue here is obedience to God, not to bad parents. Obedience to someone who is better than you and know better than you do.

I think you are looking at sin in a Pharisaical way. As a rule based thing.

Think of the main commandments:

>37He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Sin is whatever deviates from this.
The ending of human life is to get closer to God so that we can see His face. Are your friends concerned with that or with material things?
>Wait, everyone is more or less like that, does it mean we are all sinners?
Yes

[Anonymous No.23330250]

>>23329571
What? Thomism is not dominant since the 1960s. And the results were not nice.

[Anonymous No.23330278]

>>23330244
How are we supposed to know we're being obedient to God, or obedient to am institution which falsely claims to speak for him. That's the issue. Earthly authority, like parents or bishops and teachers and churches alike.
And yes I'd say they are concerned with the Golden Rule over material things. Generally. Not that thats a given in secular culture but it was and is with the specific friends I know.