Liturgy Preparation - Association Of Catholic Priests

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NCR Online – Ilia Delio: Teilhard de Chardin points to what Pope Leo missed in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’
June 8 2026
Joe O'Leary
oops, I see 4 references that reach beyond the Vatican enclave: Guardini, n. 120; Frankl. n. 133; Arendt, n. 143; Tolkien, n. 187. But what are these amid the incredible deluge of papal references in the 224 notes? How does this autoreferential excess communicate and animate?
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NCR Online – Ilia Delio: Teilhard de Chardin points to what Pope Leo missed in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’
June 8 2026
Joe O'Leary
Sean, it was the TITLE of the Encyclical I faulted for inelegance. As the TITLE of any work is what is most widely read, this is a serious issue. The title will float around for a long time, like Humani generis, Mater et magistra, Humanae vitae, and the mythical Onus iamdudum intolerabile. Please ask Copilot what makes the title unsatisfactory. Of course the encyclical contains good stuff -- I pointed the same region of it that you pick up. But I think it is a stretch to praise the long resume of church social doctrine as a luminous synthesis. It is more a chronological laundry list of the encyclicals since Leo XIII, which celebrate one another in an incestuous manner, with very little if any dialogue with the many prophetic Catholic writers on social justice. Leo XIII's Rerum novarum itself is elegantly titled but is it not turgidly written, though he was a pope who tried to make the clergy pursue literary studies? Pope Francis was perhaps the most dialogal encyclicalist we have had, citing writers of the most unexpected kind, such as Hölderlin. Leo XIV is very Vaticanocentric in his references, despite alleged synodality. Does he refer to ANY modern philosophers or ethicist or literary writers or AI researchers (even though some were present at the presentation event), or any contemporary theologians by name, or any non‑Catholic authors? In this regard he seems to be reversing the openness of his predececessor. (BTW, Dilexit nos and Dilexi te are incredibly expanded laundry lists, even if the material is less familiar.) The church is in a state of Stockholm Syndrome in regard to the horrible language inflicted on it in the English liturgy, for that, I would not use the word "inelegance" but "illiteracy". PREFACE OF EASTER I It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, at all times to ACCLAIM you, O Lord, but ABOVE ALL to LAUD YOU YET MORE GLORIOIUSLY, when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. For he is the true Lamb who has taken away the sins of the world; by dying he has destroyed our death, and by rising, restored our life. Therefore, OVERCOME WITH PASCHAL JOY, every land, every people exults in your praise and EVEN the heavenly Powers, with the angelic hosts, sing together the unending hymn of your glory, as they ACCLAIM By the way, elegance goes hand in hand with clarity in Latin (and also in English, as in the case of our most elegant Christian writer, J. H. Newman, steeped in Cicero and Jane Austen), and it serves "not only to communicate but to animate" whereas the inelegance of the current English liturgy not only fails to communicate but it also fails to animate. It has robbed us to the First and Fourth Eucharistic Prayers--which I used to use often, but now cannot; the First, the Roman Canon, was very well translated before the massive abuse of the new translations, and there was a booklet explaining every single translation choice in the c.1970 translation. In the Renaissance there was a huge effort to boost the elegantia of Latin, with the result that John Calvin is probably not only the most luminous intellectually but the most radiant stylistically of Christian writers (in French as well). Newman accorded the palm to Athanasius and Jerome among patristic writers. Athanasius, like Calvin and Newman, wrote only to express what he wanted to say, which is the source of true elegance. When the church throws away the beauty of its language it will be bitten in the posterior (as elegance bids me call it). Droves drift to the Traditional Latin Mass because they cannot bear the linguistic dreck foisted on them. And true communication in synodal symphony yields to the old barren dogmatic insistence and to the aridity of canon law bureaucracy. CAVEAT EMPTOR!
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09 June 2026 – Feast of St Columba (Colum Cille), Abbot and Missionary
June 9 2026
Joaqum Caldeira de Oliveira
Even to today Christ could say Be not afraid. I think our world could be calm again
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The Irish Catholic editorial: The Synod that forgot to save the Church – The Irish Synodal Pathway process is a serious undertaking by serious people. But who is it for?
May 30 2026
Paddy Ferry
Well said. Roy, Soline and Seán. But, you know, having been bragging over here in Scotland in the early stages of the process about how we Irish at home had been embracing the whole concept of synodality —- very little said about it here in Scotland — I was shocked when I next went home to find that nobody seemed to know what I was talking about.
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NCR Online – Ilia Delio: Teilhard de Chardin points to what Pope Leo missed in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’

NCR Online – Ilia Delio: Teilhard de Chardin points to what Pope Leo missed in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’

09 June 2026 – Feast of St Columba (Colum Cille), Abbot and Missionary

The Irish Catholic editorial: The Synod that forgot to save the Church – The Irish Synodal Pathway process is a serious undertaking by serious people. But who is it for?