A Sound of Sheer Silence

In my last post , I previewed a discussion of Cardinal John Henry Newman and his highly influential work  An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.   A couple of months back, I talked about a discussion between Ross Douthat and Dr. Massimo Faggioli , regarding the future of the Roman Catholic Church in the Era of Francis.  One of the things that struck me about that conversation was that there was a hole in the middle of it--no one was able to really grapple with theological change and how it works.  Usually when issues involving theological change comes up, the default move is to cite to Newman .  I have read a great deal about  this work, but I had never actually read it myself. So, I went out and read it.  It was a clarifying read, because it is clear to me that the hole that Douthat and Faggioli circle around in their talk is a product of Newman and his approach.  Newman doesn't actually provide a theological basis fo...

Last night I listened to a discussion/debate between Ross Douthat and Dr. Massimo Faggioli, staged under the auspices of the Canadian Catholic media outlet Salt and Light Media, regarding the first five years of Pope Francis's pontificate ( video replay can be found here ).  Douthat has a book coming out about how Pope Francis is ruining everything (though, his posture at the debate was more like "he might ruin everything"), and Faggioli is and was one of Pope Francis's most articulate defenders.  While much of the ground covered was rather predictable, there were a couple things that cropped up that were interesting and clarifying for my own thought. I found myself listening to the debate while also following it on Twitter, especially following the excellent Twitter account of Dr. Natalia Imperatori.  To me, she got to the heart of the matter with this exchange: Changes in sexual ethics are a big thing, don't you think? asks Ross. "No" responds Mas...