The Catholic Message Board

Kage_ar wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2024 2:38 pm The Last Samurai by Helen De Witt (it has nothing to do with the Tom Cruise movie). I had to force myself to put it down in order to go to sleep.

Speaking of guilty pleasures, I actually like the Tom Cruise Last Samurai movie.

Earlier, I mentioned watching the baddish Britbox version of Agatha Christie's Murder is Easy. We very recently made the inexplicable decision to watch a recent remake of her Ordeal by Innocence. I found it deeply objectionable right from the start, but mrs. gherkin prevailed on me to continue watching. It was deeply, truly, horrifyingly awful.

On the reading front, I've kind of hit a brick wall. I finished rereading the Lord Peter Wimsey stories, which are great fun, and have finished rereading the various Agatha Christies that I didn't know so well. I have read a couple of the Father Gabriel mysteries, which are not bad at all, and need to try to get ahold of the rest. I dunno how many there are. Maybe 4 total, so that won't last long. Good mysteries are hard to find. I like cozy mysteries, not like Dashiel Hammet stuff.

Nero Wolfe?

Kage_ar wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 7:56 am Going to try your suggestion with "Jurassic Park".

Ohh, yay! I hope you like it! The book is fun. You need to put yourself back in the late 80s/early 90s before computers were so ubiquitous.

One of my other (somewhat) recent favs is Ready Player One. There were maybe 2 pages early on with a slight at God/religion in general and then another 2-3 pages later on (about sex) that didn't improve the book in anyway and could have just been left out. They seem out of place and not sure why the author put them in. But I think that book is a lot of fun.

More on the religious side, I'm going to start reading Army of Angels again. I really like the author's prose and style.

Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses

Well, I read it a few months ago, but it crossed my mind in the last several days that the author, Erik Varden, might be papabile (Pope Francis was laid to rest yesterday, so we are in an interregnum) were he not so young (born 13 May 1974), though he is already the Bishop of Trondheim, Norway, and a Trappist monk. In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him as Bishop of Trondheim. That Pope Francis appointed him might raise eyebrows but what little I've read by Bishop Varden so far seems not only kosher, but impressive.

Bishop Varden has a blog: Coram fratribus intellexi

He's also not a cardinal, and while it's not impossible for a non-cardinal to be elected, it would be most unexpected.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 5:51 pm He's also not a cardinal, and while it's not impossible for a non-cardinal to be elected, it would be most unexpected.

And he's also not an archbishop. Not sure how much that affects things. Does getting a cardinal's hat usually follow or accompany getting an archbishopric?

No. Cardinals often come from the ranks of archbishops, but many archbishops aren't cardinals.

Better than halfway finished with The Mill on the Floss by Victorian writer Eliot. Interesting section in which the heroine Maggie Tulliver encounters Thomas a Kempis and the virtue of silence in suffering:

"[S]he felt the satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: “Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way soever thou dost turn thee, ever" (Book Fourth/chapter 3 - A Voice from the Past).

A few nights ago I finished Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians by Rev. Thomas J. Herron. This book is according to the preface a re-working of the late author's doctoral dissertation from 1988 at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Monsignor Herron died of pancreatic cancer in 2004). It argues for a date of circa 70 AD for 1 Clement rather than the commonly accepted circa 96 AD. Rev. Herron was not the first to argue for this earlier date. There is little dispute that the letter was written by Clement, but such an early date means it may have been written before Clement was monepiskopos of Rome. Rev. Herron also concludes that the letter shows no trace of monepiscopacy.... He also states "[a]n earlier 1 Clement, [sic] would help locate Ignatius [of Antioch, who was martyred in Rome circa 107-110 AD] on a more linear track of development from the simple presbyteral doctrine of 1 Clement. In effect, then, 1 Clement should not be seen to conflict with Ignatius' monepiscopal emphasis since 1 Clement does not represent the Roman church order shortly before Ignatius, i.e. in AD 96, but substantially before, i.e., in AD 70. Thus 1 Clement can be seen to provide a precious and primitive defense of the apostolic origin of church order in itself, while Ignatius gives us the earliest extant specification of that order in tripartite form." [T]ripartite form refers to the bishop (singular), priests, and deacons that St. Ignatius repeatedly indicated in his several letters.

So just what was St. Clement when he wrote this epistle if in fact it was before he was Bishop of Rome, that is, before he was pope (presuming Clement, the author of the epistle, is the same Clement as Clement I)? According to his entry in A Dictionary of Popes, which places Clement's papacy as c.91-c.101 AD: While Clement's position as leading presbyter and spokesman of the Christian community at Rome is assured, his letter suggests that the monarchical episcopate had not yet emerged there, and it is therefore impossible to form any precise conception of his constitutional role.

Anyway, Rev. Herron's book is fairly technical reading but should interest those curious about the first century church. And it is only 136 pages. And as many good books do, it alerts the reader to other good books, one of which I'm now reading and about which I wrote in another thread: .pdf books online & Amazon's Send to Kindle

Riverboat wrote: ↑Tue May 06, 2025 10:33 am Better than halfway finished with The Mill on the Floss by Victorian writer Eliot. Interesting section in which the heroine Maggie Tulliver encounters Thomas a Kempis and the virtue of silence in suffering:

It's been years since I read this but I recall enjoying it.

1. The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture Paperback – Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno.

2. The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives Paperback – Christopher Harding

3. World War II at Sea: A Global History - Craig L. Symonds

4. The Battle of Midway - Craig L. Symonds

5. No Better Time: A Novel of the Spirited Women of the Six Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion - Sheila Williams

While I was pushing my double-wide shopping cart through Sam’s, I passed by the book section. Pickings are slim, but inexpensive. I found a collection of Sherlock Holmes and stories by the Brothers Grimm. That might be worth saving for the day the grandkids get older.

And then this brick of gold hove into view! A biography of Mark Twain by Ron Chernow! The author also wrote a biography of Alexander Hamilton upon which the fabulous musical is based. But don’t hold that against him. It weighs almost 3 ½ pounds, and comes to 1174 pages, including notes, bibliography, and index. Now that I have my summer reading project lined up, I have to wonder what I could possibly learn that I don’t already know. I have 26 books on my shelf, half of which are about the American Master, the rest written by him.

One of the most charming books in my collection of Twain is a biography one of his three daughters wrote when she was thirteen. If Susy Clemens “didn’t use any sandpaper” in describing him, as her father claimed, I guess Chernow will give us an unvarnished view as well.

I’d better get started. The first week of June is almost done.

Tired wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2024 10:03 pm Guilty pleasure... I'm reading Jurassic Park and Ender's Game again (it's fun to read them a chapter at a time and then switch to the other book).

Have you read Speaker for the Dead? Very powerful.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2025 9:16 pm No. Cardinals often come from the ranks of archbishops, but many archbishops aren't cardinals.

Normally, yes. But Francis had a habit of ignoring convention and skipping over the traditional sees that usually had a Cardinal in favor of giving the red hat to a FOF (Friend of Francis), this is how Bishop Robert Prevost was made a Cardinal in 2023, this combined with his habit of appointing far from the canonical limit of 120, are the reasons why he was often (I think with some justice) accused of attempting to "pack" the college of Cardinals to influence the next conclave. The strategy did not work because Leo is not a Francis clone, as many of his fellow Cardinals were; he respects Francis, but he is going to follow his path and not be Francis II.

peregrinator wrote: ↑Wed Jun 18, 2025 5:54 pm

Tired wrote: ↑Wed Sep 11, 2024 10:03 pm Guilty pleasure... I'm reading Jurassic Park and Ender's Game again (it's fun to read them a chapter at a time and then switch to the other book).

Have you read Speaker for the Dead? Very powerful.

I have read all of them; I have lost count of how many there are, maybe 15 or 16. Although later entries in the Ender Quintet (namely Xenocide and Children of the Mind) are weakened a bit by Card's fairly overt crypto-Mormonism. I expect an author to write about what he knows, so I am not surprised by the Mormon influence on his writing, but unlike writers like Tolkien, where the Christian themes are subtle enough one might never notice them unless you knew the author's views. With Card the Mormonism is often so overt that one could reasonably infer he must be influenced by Mormonism even if you knew nothing about him.

Holland - The Battle of Britain.

I swore I was done reading about WWII in Europe, though I found the Med still interesting and I am still pursuing Italy in the War. Holland is a great popular historian, and he has drawn me back into the topic.

I have just started the Book by N.T. Wright on the life of Paul. it is titled 'Paul: A biography"....I am looking forward to reading it next week while on vacation with the grandkids.

Deacon Arky wrote: ↑Mon Jun 23, 2025 7:51 am I have just started the Book by N.T. Wright on the life of Paul. it is titled 'Paul: A biography"....I am looking forward to reading it next week while on vacation with the grandkids.

How wonderfully naive that you think grandchildren will allow you to read!

That is not a terrible book, it helps that Wright is an exponent of the so-called "New Perspective on Paul," which holds that the traditional Reformation reading of Paul goes back to Luther was just a result of Protestants reading their own theological assumptions and their conflict with Rome into the text. I've seen some say that the development of the New Perspective is "the end of the Reformation" in the sense that it undoes the Reformation, and I think there is a degree of truth to that.

Along with NT Wright, others in the "New Perspective" school include E.P. Sanders and James DG Dunn, although there are significant differences between them, they do represent a new "Post Protestant" interpretation of Paul.