Christian Discussion Thread XI: Anicetus’ Revenge

[Outer Acharet]

I always understood it as a consequence of us having free speech. Our choices don't matter otherwise. One's devotion is worthless if it's required by fate. But that means we're free to choose to make horrid decisions. One can be wrong just as easily as one can be right, after all.

[Lost Memories]

Today i learned the Vatican has a national football team
(their home stadium is called Field Pio XI)

Though, be it the players are swiss guards, archivists, or priests/seminarists, that team is never going to be too strong, even if the players were picked worldwide as some secretary of state thought. Since professional football players train all the time, it's a full-time work to be a professional athlete; and swiss guards, archivists, or priests/seminarists have other things to attend to, they can't train full-time.

Then again, the kind of football the church seems to endorse is more like the one played on the little fields, on amateurish level, the one with an educational trait ("a vehicle of education for the values of honesty, solidarity and fraternity, especially for the younger generation." as Pope Benedict XVI said in 2008), not the money-farm football.
So the vatican national team being an non-professional team, playing more for fun than for winning, it's rather fitting.

[Salus Maior]

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

[Diopolis]

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

Eh. They're mostly not interested in pushing their particular school of thought on the canonical-situation thing.

[Luminesa]

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

At least a porcupine recognizes it has a head.

[Salus Maior]

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

At least a porcupine recognizes it has a head.

SSPX aren't Sedes, they're just in a weird place canonically speaking because at one point they consecrated priests without permission, iirc.

[The Archregimancy]

Today i learned the Vatican has a national football team
(their home stadium is called Field Pio XI)

That's not the most remarkable thing about Vatican football.

No; the most remarkable thing about Vatican football is that they've somehow managed to cobble together a national women's football team.

I shall look forward to the next edition of the Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby.

[The Blaatschapen]

Today i learned the Vatican has a national football team
(their home stadium is called Field Pio XI)

That's not the most remarkable thing about Vatican football.

No; the most remarkable thing about Vatican football is that they've somehow managed to cobble together a national women's football team.

I shall look forward to the next edition of the Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby.

How is that a derby? Mount Athos is not in Rome.

[The Archregimancy]

That's not the most remarkable thing about Vatican football.

No; the most remarkable thing about Vatican football is that they've somehow managed to cobble together a national women's football team.

I shall look forward to the next edition of the Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby.

How is that a derby? Mount Athos is not in Rome.

'Derby' doesn't necessarily always refer to matches between teams in the same city. The Portsmouth-Southampton rivalry, for example, is referred to as the 'South Coast Derby'.

While it does usually refer to matches between teams with geographical proximity, it's increasingly informally used in English to refer to any rivalry, thematic or geographical. For example, the Perth Glory v. Wellington Phoenix A-League rivalry - the most geographically distant top-flight league match in the world (at least while Vladivostok and Kaliningrad languish in the Russian second division) - is referred to, admittedly with tongue slightly in cheek, as the 'distance derby'.

So, it would be perfectly reasonable in informal English usage to jokingly refer to a 'Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby' on the basis of shared unlikely religious theme.

That said, any joke you have to explain in that level of detail is automatically ruined.

[The Blaatschapen]

How is that a derby? Mount Athos is not in Rome.

'Derby' doesn't necessarily always refer to matches between teams in the same city. The Portsmouth-Southampton rivalry, for example, is referred to as the 'South Coast Derby'.

While it does usually refer to matches between teams with geographical proximity, it's increasingly informally used in English to refer to any rivalry, thematic or geographical. For example, the Perth Glory v. Wellington Phoenix A-League rivalry - the most geographically distant top-flight league match in the world (at least while Vladivostok and Kaliningrad languish in the Russian second division) - is referred to, admittedly with tongue slightly in cheek, as the 'distance derby'.

So, it would be perfectly reasonable in informal English usage to jokingly refer to a 'Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby' on the basis of shared unlikely religious theme.

That said, any joke you have to explain in that level of detail is automatically ruined.

You're welcome

[Lost Memories]

That said, any joke you have to explain in that level of detail is automatically ruined.

Nah, calling it a derby makes it sound cute, it highlights the similarities of what the teams represent.

Though, is there really a mount Athos football team? I tried to search for it, but couldn't find much on the web.

[The Archregimancy]

That said, any joke you have to explain in that level of detail is automatically ruined.

Nah, calling it a derby makes it sound cute, it highlights the similarities of what the teams represent.

Though, is there really a mount Athos football team? I tried to search for it, but couldn't find much on the web.

No; that was also part of the joke.

More specifically the unlikelihood that there would ever be a women's Mount Athos football team.

[The Blaatschapen]

Nah, calling it a derby makes it sound cute, it highlights the similarities of what the teams represent.

Though, is there really a mount Athos football team? I tried to search for it, but couldn't find much on the web.

No; that was also part of the joke.

More specifically the unlikelihood that there would ever be a women's Mount Athos football team.

That's because the men keep hogging the pitch

[Lost Memories]

I shall look forward to the next edition of the Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby.

No; that was also part of the joke.

More specifically the unlikelihood that there would ever be a women's Mount Athos football team.

Then i guess you'll have to wait for quite some time.

[Lost Memories]

For today's random personal research, i tried to look into the existence of any sci-fi writer including religion into their works from an informed point of view. (contrasted with most sci-fi works of the latter part of the 1900, either containing zero religious mentions, or containing distorted and satirical ones)

So i discovered there was an english anglican converted catholic priest, Robert Hugh Benson (1871 – 1914), who did write some sci-fi. He seems to be credited with the writing of one of the first modern dystopian novels, called Lord of the World.

Lord of the World is a 1907 dystopian science fiction novel[1] by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson that centres upon the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world. It has been called prophetic by Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

According to his biographer Fr. Cyril Martindale, the idea of a novel about the Antichrist was first suggested to Fr. Benson by his friend and literary mentor Frederick Rolfe in December 1905. It was Rolfe who also introduced Mgr. Benson to the writings of the French Utopian Socialist Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon.

Writing during the pontificate of Pope Pius X and prior to the First World War, Monsignor Benson accurately predicted interstate highways, weapons of mass destruction, the use of aircraft to drop bombs on both military and civilian targets, and passenger air travel in advanced Zeppelins called "Volors".

The story takes place in the 21th century. So the jump in time from the author, and the first readers of it, was around 100 years in the future.

Reading some synopsis of it, it would seem the more famous work of 1984 of orwel (published in 1949) did take some ideas from the work of Benson (or maybe those ideas were pretty common, though the two works are more than 40 years apart in publication), as the three power blocks of: america, europe+russia, asia. But in Benson's story, the three power blocks get unified by something like a super dictator of the whole world, who in a very french-revolution way, goes to establish his own pseudo-religious cult, to substitute all pre-existing ones.
It would also seem that an other later dystopian work, brave new world(1932) of Huxley, did actually continue the story of Benson, to picture a world unified under a single system where religion has been wiped out.

Benson did also write an other sci-fi work, The Dawn of All (published in 1911), which while still built on the same basics of the previous work, was at least in intention, more optimistic and less dystopian. Apparently he wrote it after many of the reviews he received about Lord of the World said the work was too depressing.

Preface of The Dawn of All:

In a former book, called "Lord of the World," I attempted to sketch the kind of developments a hundred years hence which, I thought, might reasonably be expected if the present lines of what is called "modern thought" were only prolonged far enough; and I was informed repeatedly that the effect of the book was exceedingly depressing and discouraging to optimistic Christians. In the present book I am attempting -- also in parable form -- not in the least to withdraw anything that I said in the former, but to follow up the other lines instead, and to sketch -- again in parable -- the kind of developments, about sixty years hence which, I think, may reasonably be expected should the opposite process begin, and ancient thought (which has stood the test of centuries, and is, in a very remarkable manner, being "rediscovered" by persons even more modern than modernists) be prolonged instead. We are told occasionally by moralists that we live in very critical times, by which they mean that they are not sure whether their own side will win or not. In that sense no times can ever be critical to Catholics, since Catholics are never in any kind of doubt as to whether or no their side will win. But from another point of view every period is a critical period, since every period has within itself the conflict of two irreconcilable forces. It has been for the sake of tracing out the kind of effects that, it seemed to me, each side would experience in turn, should the other, at any rate for a while, become dominant, that I have written these two books.

Though, even if he attempted to be more optimistic (resulting in the work actually being utopian), the result was still sort of weird. Maybe because Benson wasn't really inspired, or not very motivated, in writing a revision of his first work. (or maybe because all utopian and dystopian works are weird)
From a review/synopsis:

The Dawn of All

...explain...how Catholicism suddenly conquered the world. This he does by annexing, more or less, the authority of the sciences, for he argues that the findings of maturing sciences, especially medicine and psychology, began to corroborate the claims of Catholicism. Illnesses, it is discovered, are almost all psychosomatic, and it is Catholicism’s cure of souls that is found to most effectively cure the body too. Miracles are confirmed by scientific observation. And so the Catholic faith comes to be generally accepted, but not really on spiritual grounds. It’s just due to an objective finding, rather than an interior conversion.

The scenario Benson describes, for instance, is perhaps not so different from how things looked in medieval times, when the Church was powerful and generally acknowledged as a teacher of truth, and when there was harmony between faith and reason. People believed in the Church more as a brute fact, like we view the political sphere, yet weren’t always greatly devout in consequence.

But maybe the trick to his second work, was to read it for what it is, fiction.

[Luminesa]

How is that a derby? Mount Athos is not in Rome.

'Derby' doesn't necessarily always refer to matches between teams in the same city. The Portsmouth-Southampton rivalry, for example, is referred to as the 'South Coast Derby'.

While it does usually refer to matches between teams with geographical proximity, it's increasingly informally used in English to refer to any rivalry, thematic or geographical. For example, the Perth Glory v. Wellington Phoenix A-League rivalry - the most geographically distant top-flight league match in the world (at least while Vladivostok and Kaliningrad languish in the Russian second division) - is referred to, admittedly with tongue slightly in cheek, as the 'distance derby'.

So, it would be perfectly reasonable in informal English usage to jokingly refer to a 'Vatican City - Mount Athos women's football derby' on the basis of shared unlikely religious theme.

That said, any joke you have to explain in that level of detail is automatically ruined.

I still find it funny and want to buy a jersey now.

[Lost Memories]

I'm reading a bit of the second work of Robert Hugh Benson, and it would seem he was a big fan of Pope Pius X, the SSPX you guys often mention here would probably get wet dreams out of that novel.

Story written in 1911, taking place in 1973.

[New Visayan Islands]

I'm reading a bit of the second work of Robert Hugh Benson, and it would seem he was a big fan of Pope Pius X, the SSPX you guys often mention here would probably get wet dreams out of that novel.

Story written in 1911, taking place in 1973.
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And the Integralists?

[Diopolis]

At least a porcupine recognizes it has a head.

SSPX aren't Sedes, they're just in a weird place canonically speaking because at one point they consecrated priests without permission, iirc.

Not precisely.
The SSPX consecrated four bishops without permission. This has been canonically dealt with- as in the penalties were lifted ten years ago(although in the interests of full disclosure, one of them turned out to be a nut and went underground consecrating another bishop every other year or so. He is now separate from the SSPX but still calls himself the SSPX. If you hear someone talking about "the true SSPX" or similar, that's who they're referring to. And they're quite far off the deep end, even by my standards.).
The SSPX's current problem is largely their tendency to do things without getting permission from local bishops. Relations with the Vatican are... odd and complicated, but on the official level they tend to be treated as if they're already part of the church by Rome, and usually by local bishops when they bother to ask.
Fixing that problem is not an overnight thing, but it is well underway.

[Lost Memories]

Today i learned Chrislam is a thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Chrislam

Chrislam

Chrislam refers to the assemblage of Christian and Islamic religious practices in Nigeria; in particular, the series of religious movements that merged Christian and Islamic religious practice during the 1970s in Lagos, Nigeria.[1] The movement was pioneered by Yoruba peoples in south-west Nigeria.
Chrislam works against the conventional understanding of Christianity and Islam as two separate and exclusive religions, seeking out commonalities between both religions and promoting an inclusive union of the two.[1] Chrislam also occupies a distinct geographical space; Nigeria is often understood to be geographically and religiously polarized, with a predominantly Christian base in the South, and a Muslim base in the North. However, the Yoruba peoples that occupy the South-Western Yorubaland region of Nigeria are almost evenly divided between Christian and Muslim populations.

First Wave: Ifeoluwa (1976-)

The first dated Chrislam movement is traced to a Yoruba man named Tela Tella.[1] It is generally known that Tella was originally a Muslim prior to his revelations that necessitated his career as a Chrislam preacher. Ifeoluwa is translated from Yoruba to mean “The Love of God Mission”, which Tella uses to refer to his Chrislam mission. Similar to Islam, Ifeoluwa is based on 5 pillars: ‘love’, ‘mercy’, ‘joy’, ‘good deeds’, and ‘truth’.[1]

Tella conducts services for a small congregation in Lagos, who meet weekly on Saturdays. Tella explains that he did not want to conduct services on Friday because it leant itself to the Muslim faith, nor on Sundays for fear of favoring the Christian faith.

Once a year, a pilgrimage to "Mount Authority" is made, which lasts for 3 days of uninterrupted prayer and fasting. Tella states that like Muslims have Mecca, and Christians have Jerusalem, the holy site of pilgrimage for Chrislamists is Mount Authority, which was divinely chosen by God.

Tella states that the holy scriptures of Islam and Christianity are “incomplete and contain some inaccuracies”.[1] Hence, Tella is working on compiling the Ifeoluwa Book, which will be the last Holy Book containing his divine revelations.[1] Tella’s teachings focus on the closeness of Christianity and Islam, and how God does not love one religion over the other.[1]

So Chrislam is basically islam inspired by some form of protestantism.
As the focus on the book alone shows: "holy scriptures are “incomplete and contain some inaccuracies", a catholic would have known there is also tradition to complete scriptires, hence, Tella must have been inspired by some protestant branch.
(catholicism in nigeria is afterall a minotity, only 12% of the population it would seem)

There are also other iterations of chrislam:
Second Wave: Oke Tude (1989-)
The Ogbómòsó Society of Chrislam (OSC)(2005)

The ironic thing is, the name chrislam may be a western invention to describe something called differently in local nigerian languages, but the "christ" part in "chrislam" is purely cosmetic, as it seem most iterations of chrislam don't recognize the divinity of christ, so why are they using the term at all?
As much as the intention of finding peace in a middle ground between nigerian christians and nigerian muslims is admirable, the results of chrislam is neither christian nor islam, maybe something more aback to judaism in some cases, and more like plain polytheism in other cases.

Whereas the tension between christians and muslims in nigeria seems to be worsened, or condensed, into Boko Haram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram

... is a jihadist terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon.
Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002.
Since the current insurgency started in 2009, Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands and displaced 2.3 million from their homes[19] and was at one time the world's deadliest terror group according to the Global Terrorism Index.

All that said, chrislam seems to have even less support in nigeria than the cult called Grail Movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grail_Movement

The Grail Movement is an organization which originated in Germany in the late 1940s, inspired by the work of the self-proclaimed Messiah Oskar Ernst Bernhardt (also known by his pen name Abd-ru-shin), principally In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message. Abd-ru-shin did not establish the organization; the Movement as it exists today was formally organized by followers.

The Grail Movement is a new spiritual movement dedicated to the dissemination and spread of the work In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message by Abd-ru-shin.

A shame, at least chrislam, in its base intentions, is admirable.

[Ghost in the Shell]

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

At least a porcupine recognizes it has a head.

Every SSPX chapel has a portrait of Pope Francis and masses said by SSPX priests are una cum, which is why sedevacantists like Sanborn et al say it is a mortal sin to attend SSPX masses.

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

Nah, you absolutely do. Diocesan TLMs, the FSSP and ICKSP have some great priests, very intelligent people who will provide great spiritual advice, and I still have a soft spot for the Diocesan TLM priest near me and my old priest who was affiliated with the FSSP, but the SSPX is a whole other level. SSPX priests don't take orders from modernist bishops who will forbid them from giving the sacraments in line with the 1962 Missal because of some social distancing bullshit. The SSPX and the older FSSP priests (who tend to be like 99% theologically aligned with the SSPX) are the only ones who are willing to be straight forward about the Council and the problems the Church is facing today. I don't have an issue with people going to FSSP/ICKSP parishes but if I was away from home and the choice was NOM, FSSP, ICKSP or SSPX I would go to SSPX just for quality of priests they produce.

SSPX aren't Sedes, they're just in a weird place canonically speaking because at one point they consecrated priests without permission, iirc.

Not precisely.
The SSPX consecrated four bishops without permission.

There is a state of necessity in the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre's writings make it clear he believed this, therefore he didn't need papal permission.

This has been canonically dealt with- as in the penalties were lifted ten years ago

There was no excommunications in the first place.

(although in the interests of full disclosure, one of them turned out to be a nut and went underground consecrating another bishop every other year or so. He is now separate from the SSPX but still calls himself the SSPX. If you hear someone talking about "the true SSPX" or similar, that's who they're referring to. And they're quite far off the deep end, even by my standards.).

Yes, Bishop Williamson is a very intelligent man but one of those people who is too intelligent they go absolutely crazy and let their intelligence be overshadowed by the insane stuff they spew out every now and then.

The SSPX's current problem is largely their tendency to do things without getting permission from local bishops.

Such as what?

Relations with the Vatican are... odd and complicated, but on the official level they tend to be treated as if they're already part of the church by Rome, and usually by local bishops when they bother to ask.

The SSPX as an organisation has no canonical status but their priests are validly and licitly ordained (something the Vatican has affirmed since like 1976), as are their sacraments.

[Luminesa]

At least a porcupine recognizes it has a head.

Every SSPX chapel has a portrait of Pope Francis and masses said by SSPX priests are una cum, which is why sedevacantists like Sanborn et al say it is a mortal sin to attend SSPX masses.

A Catholic college buddy of mine coined a pretty great phrase (well, idk if he made it but I heard it from him).

The SSPX is like a porcupine; they have a lot of good points but you don't want to get too close to them.

Nah, you absolutely do. Diocesan TLMs, the FSSP and ICKSP have some great priests, very intelligent people who will provide great spiritual advice, and I still have a soft spot for the Diocesan TLM priest near me and my old priest who was affiliated with the FSSP, but the SSPX is a whole other level. SSPX priests don't take orders from modernist bishops who will forbid them from giving the sacraments in line with the 1962 Missal because of some social distancing bullshit. The SSPX and the older FSSP priests (who tend to be like 99% theologically aligned with the SSPX) are the only ones who are willing to be straight forward about the Council and the problems the Church is facing today. I don't have an issue with people going to FSSP/ICKSP parishes but if I was away from home and the choice was NOM, FSSP, ICKSP or SSPX I would go to SSPX just for quality of priests they produce.

Not precisely.
The SSPX consecrated four bishops without permission.

There is a state of necessity in the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre's writings make it clear he believed this, therefore he didn't need papal permission.

This has been canonically dealt with- as in the penalties were lifted ten years ago

There was no excommunications in the first place.

(although in the interests of full disclosure, one of them turned out to be a nut and went underground consecrating another bishop every other year or so. He is now separate from the SSPX but still calls himself the SSPX. If you hear someone talking about "the true SSPX" or similar, that's who they're referring to. And they're quite far off the deep end, even by my standards.).

Yes, Bishop Williamson is a very intelligent man but one of those people who is too intelligent they go absolutely crazy and let their intelligence be overshadowed by the insane stuff they spew out every now and then.

The SSPX's current problem is largely their tendency to do things without getting permission from local bishops.

Such as what?

Relations with the Vatican are... odd and complicated, but on the official level they tend to be treated as if they're already part of the church by Rome, and usually by local bishops when they bother to ask.

The SSPX as an organisation has no canonical status but their priests are validly and licitly ordained (something the Vatican has affirmed since like 1976), as are their sacraments.

That “social distancing bull****” is what’s keeping churches open.

[Ghost in the Shell]

That “social distancing bull****” is what’s keeping churches open.

Maybe where you live, but they were shut down for 4 months here. Four months with no sacraments and no mass. And now that they've reopened there are only two priests in my entire country that are giving communion on the tongue and they sure as hell aren't FSSP or ICKSP.

[Luminesa]

That “social distancing bull****” is what’s keeping churches open.

Maybe where you live, but they were shut down for 4 months here. Four months with no sacraments and no mass. And now that they've reopened there are only two priests in my entire country that are giving communion on the tongue and they sure as hell aren't FSSP or ICKSP.

I mean they were closed for two months here too. I don’t like receiving on the hands either, but any Eucharist is better than not Eucharist.

[Ghost in the Shell]

Maybe where you live, but they were shut down for 4 months here. Four months with no sacraments and no mass. And now that they've reopened there are only two priests in my entire country that are giving communion on the tongue and they sure as hell aren't FSSP or ICKSP.

I mean they were closed for two months here too. I don’t like receiving on the hands either, but any Eucharist is better than not Eucharist.

Except it is impossible to receive communion on the hand in the 1962 mass. And it is also a disgusting liturgical abuse. I'd rather not receive than receive it on the hand. The Novus Ordo Missae is protestant in nature so it allows for receiving communion in the hand, because this desensitizes people to the fact that they are receiving the literal Body of Christ and disbelieve in the real presence.