History

Yves Congar, True and False Reform, Part 1, Finding Common Ground

When Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, reflected on this book, he asked, “A reform of the church? Is such a thing really possible?” Yves Congar reflects, What is the role of the church? Is the church the hierarchy in the Curia; or is the church the parishioners in the pews? What are the sacraments? What is the church’s definition of commonly misunderstood concepts, such as infallibility?
This book, along with help by the Holy Spirit, encouraged the pope to call for a church council, and helped set the tone for Vatican II. As Yves Congar teaches us, spiritual reform cannot be a revolution, false reform divides rather than unites. […]

Five Miniute Theology

Should the Books of the Apocrypha Be Included In the Bible?

The Church Fathers differed on what should be included in the Old Testament canon, St Jerome, who had updated the Latin translation of Scriptures in the Vulgate, preferred a narrow canon including only the Hebrew books of the Jewish canon. St Augustine preferred the wider canon which included the deutero-canonical books written in Greek, which are called the Apocrypha by Protestants. St Jerome and St Augustine were contemporaries, they often corresponded with each other. […]

Early Church Writing

Shepherd of Hermas on Envy, Dangers of Luxury, and Salvation

The Shepherd of Hermas, also known as the Pastor of Hermas, was regarded by some early Christians as Scripture. A consensus was reached that only books that were apostolic would be included in the canon, and the Shepherd was written in the generations after the apostles. But it was recommended by many for profitable spiritual reading, and reading this work is profitable still, for the message of Hermas runs counter to the prosperity gospel, condemning luxurious living. He has a vision in Similitude 6 of a false shepherd, “an angel of luxury and deceit,” whose sheep “were feeding luxuriously and riotously, merrily skipping about,” “deceived by wicked desires, forgetting the commandments of the Living God.” Those who are lost in luxurious living, spending their time eating “the richest delicacies and in drunken revels,” cannot “return to life through repentance, because they are adding to their sins, and blaspheming the name of the Lord.” […]