The Arrow's Path

Due to some unforeseen changed in my personal life (you know, little things like career change and going back to graduate school), I have fallen woefully behind on continuing my reflections on Pope Leo XIV's new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas . This is also partly due to the fact that I found Chapter 4 to be a bit of a slog to read through and mentally process. So, I have taken some weeks to got through it and collect my thoughts. While I would quibble a bit over various sections in the preceding chapters and prologue, I was generally on the same page of where he was going (or at least where I thought he was going) with this encyclical. His overviews and recaps of Catholic Social Teaching since Rerum Novarum in the late 1800s have been solid. He took a few liberties in his summations of Catholic Social Teaching, but, for the most part, I was in general agreement with where he started and where he landed in those chapters.  Chapter 4 was a bit of a different bird. I was a bit surp...

I apologize for being woefully behind on my continued reflections on Pope Leo XIV's latest encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas.  I have been meaning to sit down and write my thoughts on Chapter 3 for a few weeks now, but real life has taken over.  There is one thing I would clarify before continuing. I have noticed particularly in Chapter 3, but beginning in previous chapters of this encyclical, the Pope Leo has started using the terms "technocrat" and "technocracy" quite a bit. As someone who understands what he is referring to, this does not bother me. Unless I missed it, he never clearly defines what he means by those terms; he alludes to (dare I say heehaws around) definitions, sometimes imprecisely. As I do not believe these terms are common English parlance outside certain political science and techno-babble circles, I feel the need to try to define the terms, or at least my understand of them, as it becomes a very central concept in Chapter 3.  As I understan...

I just finished reading the second chapter of Magnifica Humanitas , continuing my series of reflections upon it in real time as I read it. Chapter 2 was entitled, "Foundations and Principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church." Largely, Pope Leo XIV attempts to set forth the framework of how Catholic Social Teaching is understood and applied to the Church itself. I presume so as to then be able to pivot in the next chapter on how these same principles might be applied to greater society outside the Church. There was nothing too remarkable, in my opinion, about this chapter. He sets about laying the foundations of Catholic Social Doctrine. He grounds this Social Doctrine in paragraph 48 in being centered and following out of the Trinity. Being an Augustinian priest, this does not surprise me as St Augustine wrote an entire book on the Trinity where he partially goes through nature looking for triads found in all levels of society and nature that prove the Triune nature of Go...

As I stated previously , Pope Leo XIV has released his first encyclical entitled Magnifica Humanitas . I opened with a reflection on the Introduction to this teaching document. The opening was concise but theologically solid, as it presented the core of Catholic Social Teaching from the 1890s onward. I am continued to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this encyclical chapter by chapter in real time. I have not read the entire document yet, but rather reading it privately in sections and then commenting on it before reading more. I find it helpful to engage in pieces and not read the entire thing and then start my analysis, as that tends to lead to a more broad overview and not looking at each section in it's unique own right.  Today, I read through Chapter 1 of the document. My initial reaction to the 1st chapter is not quite as positive as my enthusiasm for the opening introduction. It gets a little theological squishy in the early middle section (more on that in a moment), ...

As I alluded to in my previous post here , Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical last week . I was curious about it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Pope Leo is an Augustinian priest. I have read some of his homilies from years past as well as his public pronouncements since he became Pope. Being firmly in the grip of St Augustine of Hippo myself, I was pleased an Augustinian became Pope. I was hoping the new pope would not try to divorce himself from his grounding in the theology of St. Augustine.  Secondly, to new Pope took Leo as his Papal name. There have been several popes of that name, going back to the first Leo (known as Leo the Great) in AD 440. Popes named Leo have had considerable influence in influencing world affairs and Christendom. Leo the Great bargained with Attila the Hun to not sack Rome. Leo II was a large player in the 6th Council of Constantinople. Sadly, Leo VII was complicit in allowing Jews to be violently expelled from Germany in the early 900s. Leo...