Here and There

• Phil Lawler asks "whose magisterium?":

  In an interview with the German-language Kathnews service (now available in translation on the Rorate Caeli site), Father Franz Schmidberger, the former superior of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), offers his perspective on the possibility of an ultimate agreement between the traditionalist group and the Holy See. In a nutshell:

  An agreement between the Holy See and the Fraternity could only mean one thing: that Rome accepts the voice of the preconciliar Magisterium.

  Well, that makes things easy. I don't speak for the Holy See, obviously, but this is a no-brainer. Rome accepts the voice of the preconciliar magisterium. Now where do we sign the deal?

• Caritas et Veritas on "becoming a Saint in the midst of the world":

  Often, I’ve had people come up to me and ask how we lay people are supposed to put some of these applications into practice: how are we to pray continually? How are we to share our faith? How can we devote our lives to serving others day-to-day? I’ve often encountered objections like the following: sure, I could pray continually if I were a monk or nun in a monastery. Sure, I could share my faith with others if I were a full-time missionary, like a religious brother or sister in some foreign country. Sure, I could devote my life to service if I were a Franciscan. But what about those of us who stay at home all day with children? What about those of us who work long hours in our various occupations, with computers or in manual labor or in other professions?

  Recently my wife and I have been reading through St. Francis de Sales’ masterful spiritual classic, Introduction to the Devout Life, 400th Anniversary Edition . St. Francis de Sales’ preface has a great passage that I think has much to say on these matters. ... [[more]

• By way of the Catholic Anarchist, some interview videos with Dorthy Day (circa. 1974).

• Sol Stern reflects on the history of Ramparts magazine:

  The mainstream press celebrated my leftist colleagues and me as heroes of American journalism. Ramparts’ rise to celebrity status seemed to herald a new era of the media’s speaking truth to power. The reality was far less luminous, and Ramparts’ legacy, which a new book celebrates, was not a positive one for the country.

• Depicting the Whole Christ: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Sacred Architecture, by Philip Nielsen. (Sacred Architecture Volume 16 — Fall 2009)

• Wrong turn revisiting Brideshead - the Jesuit blog Whosoever Desires reviews the botched 2008 cinematic adaptation of Brideshead Revisited:

  The problem is that none of the characters’ actions in the book or movie make sense without a sense of positive desire for God. The 2008 filmmakers are forced to reduce the motives of all the characters to the most simplistic forms of desires: Sebastian wants to sleep with Charles; Charles wants to sleep with Sebastian’s sister Julia (he also wants her house); Lady Marchmain simply wants control over everyone. In the movie Lord Marchmain’s Italian mistress Cara unconvincingly explains her “Italian” view of Catholicism: “We do what the heart tells us, and then we go to confession.” Waugh recognizes that the “heart” is capable of many different kinds of desires, not just those which require a trip to the confessional—some of which even bring one closer to God.