10 Papal Beard Facts

I plan to do a post on 10 Awesome Papal Beards (and yes, I know that "Awesome Beards" is a tautology), but first let us note some Papal Beard Facts.

PAPAL BEARD FACT #1:
There have been a total of 266 Vicars of Christ. Out of these, 188 have had beards. That means 70% of the popes have had beards!

PAPAL BEARD FACT #2:
Out of the 188 bearded popes, 82 are saints and 2 are blesseds. 43% of bearded popes are saints.
Out of the 78 beardless popes, only 4 are saints and 5 are blesseds. Only 5% of beardless popes are saints.

PAPAL BEARD FACT #3:
There have been 86 total popes who are saints. 82 of these had beards. That is 95% of the papal saints!

PAPAL BEARD FACT #4:
For the first 643 years of the Church, Papal Beards reigned from 33AD with St. Peter to 676AD with Pope Adeodatus II.

PAPAL BEARD FACT #5:
The first pope sans beard, Pope Donus, is not a saint. Coincidence? I think not.

My face is cold.

PAPAL BEARD FACT #6
The next pope after Donus was Agatho. He had a long and marvelous beard. Oh, and he's a saint.

Doesn't this halo look good with my beard?

PAPAL BEARD FACT #7
After, Pope St. Agatho, beards reigned until 827AD with the election of Pope Valentine.

Also not a saint.

 PAPAL BEARD FACT #8
After Pope Valentine, there was a dispersion of beardless popes mixed with the bearded. The next stretch of bearded glory (with goatees towards the end) reigned from 1523AD to 1700AD, with the end of Pope Innocent XII's papacy.

Had Innocent XII known that he would be the last pope with facial hair, he surely would have grown a bushy beard like his namesake, Pope St. Innocent I!

His beard is a relic.

PAPAL BEARD FACT #9
There have been 9 popes named Stephen. All of them had beards.
Here is a picture of Pope Stephen IX:

I was rocking this beard style way before Lincoln!

 PAPAL BEARD FACT #10
This guy would make a great Stephen X!

Ahem! My eyes are up here.

10 Reasons Why Catholic Men Should Have Beards

10. William Shakespeare

"The Bard" was a corruption of his real nickname: "The Beard"

He was Catholic and the greatest playwright to have ever lived. Also, he knew the value of a beard:
"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man" -Much Ado About Nothing Act 2, Scene 1.

9. Aristotle

His beard is praeparatio for Christian beards.

Had he lived after the time of Christ, he surely would have been a Catholic. He is likewise the main philosophical source for the greatest theologian of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas (who, sadly, was beardless. But think of the heights he could have achieved had he been bearded!)

8. Scott Hahn

Scriptural Beard

I've lost track of how many converts his beard has made!

7. St. Jerome

Beard of Biblical Proportions

Only a man with such epic beardage could translate the entire Bible into Latin. An apocryphal story has it that the reason for his fiery temper was due to the constant interruptions of his translating by angels who wished to marvel at his whiskers.

6. St. Philip Neri

This is my impersonation of St. Philip. 

Can you see the resemblance?

St. Philip Neri was the founder of the Congregation of the Oratory (the Oratorians). He had a great sense of humor and a fervent love for Christ. Blessed John Henry Newman was a member of the Oratory. Sadly, he also did not have a beard, but one of his spiritual brothers and a member of the Pittsburgh Oratory, Fr. David Abernethy, has a beard worthy of St. Philip.

5. St. Pius V

Dominican Beard

St. Pius V was the first Dominican Pope and was a great reformer (a true reformer, not like those other guys), who implemented the decrees of the Council of Trent. He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I for her heresies and helped ward off the Muslim invasion at Lepanto by imploring the intercession of Our Lady.

4. St. Patrick

The Beard that struck fear in reptiles everywhere!

St. Patrick was the great evangelist to the Irish people. Yes, I know he wasn't Irish, but he loved Ireland and her people. Yes, I know he was not the first to bring Christianity to the island. But his beard had a much greater effect on those pagan chiefs than those who came before him!

3. St. Paul

 

Apostolic Beard

Ephesians 6:17 says it all: "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Likewise, grow out the beard of truth."

2. St. Peter   

Papal Beard

Just look at that beard! You'd give him the keys to your kingdom, too.

1. Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior

Is there a devotion to the Sacred Beard?

Growing a beard is the perfect imitation of Christ.

Pope Francis On Wonder As The Beginning Of Philosophy

The beginning of every philosophy is wonder, and only wonder leads to knowledge. Notice that moral and cultural degradation begin to arise when this capacity for wonder is weakened or cancelled or when it dies. The cultural opiate tends to cancel, weaken, or kill this capacity for wonder. Pope Luciani [Pope John Paul I] once said that the drama of contemporary Christianity lies in the fact that it puts categories and norms in the place of wonder. But wonder comes before all categories; it is what leads me to seek, to open myself up; it is what makes the answer—not a verbal or conceptual answer—possible for me. If wonder opens me up as a question, the only response is the encounter, and only with the encounter is my thirst quenched. And with nothing else is it quenched more.

-Pope Francis (formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio), "For Man" in A Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of Luigi Guissani

Habemus Papam Franciscum!

I love Pope Francis already!

 
From all appearances and reports, he is a very humble and holy man, truly embodying the spirit of the saint of Assisi, after whom he is named. And I'm not talking about the tree-hugging, hippy, vulgarization of St. Francis, but the Christ-like saint who not only cared for the least among us, but also had the courage to preach the Gospel to the Sultan...and lived to tell about it. Francis confounds the "social justice-Catholic-in-name-only" notion that says that one cannot be both caring to the poor and oppressed, while steadfastly maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy. Let us pray for our new Holy Father, for he has a momentous task ahead of him. The world is increasingly hostile to the Gospel and all kinds of aberrations against the natural law and revealed law are being pushed in the public square. May our gentle, but firm Pope Francis lead the modern world back to Christ!

TRADITIONAL PRAYER (LATIN)

V. Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Francisco
R. Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius. Pater Noster, Ave Maria
Deus, omnium fidelium pastor et rector, famulum tuum Franciscum, quem pastorem Ecclesiæ tuæ præesse voluisti, propitius respice: da ei, quæsumus, verbo et exemplo, quibus præest, proficere: ut ad vitam, una cum grege sibi credito, perveniat sempiternam. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

TRADITIONAL PRAYER (ENGLISH)

V. Let us pray for Francis, our Pope.
R. May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies. Our Father, Hail Mary
O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Francis, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here is also a biography of Pope Francis.

What Does A Pope Do When He Retires?

Catch up on reading, of course!

It is reported that His Holiness, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has brought with him and is currently (re-)reading Hans Urs von Balthasar's The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics (which consists of 7 volumes). I have written on the first volume, Seeing The Form, as it relates to the interpretation of Scripture. Give it a read and then I would recommend taking after our dear Pope Emeritus' example and read this great work by von Balthasar.

Pope Benedict XVI Resigns

 It is a sad day for Holy Mother Church. I have a great fondness for Pope Benedict XVI, as it was through reading his works as Cardinal Ratzinger that I started to not only move towards the Catholic Church, but also to fall in love with theology. Even as an Anglican, his election to the papacy was a moment of great joy for me. Yet, Pope Benedict has said from the beginning of his pontificate that after seeing what Bl. John Paul II went through in his last years, if he ever felt that he was not mentally or physically able to fulfill his office, it would be his duty to step down for the good of the Church. It appears that he now feels he has reached that point. It's very sad, and out of selfishness I wish he wouldn't, but he is much wiser than I and truly has what is best for the Church at the forefront of his thought. Below is the full text of his announcement.

"Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer".

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Charity As A Political Virtue

 

Now one can love the good of a city in two ways: in one way to possess it, in another that it might be preserved. If someone loves the good of a city in order to have and own it, he is not a good political person, because in this way even a tyrant loves the good of a city, in order to dominate it, which is to love oneself more than the city. He wants this good for himself, not for the city. 

But to love the good of the city that it might be kept and defended, this is truly to love the city and this makes a person a good political person, so much so that some expose themselves to the danger of death and neglect their private good in order to preserve or increase the good of the city. In the same way, to love the good that is participated by the blessed, to love it so as to have or possess it, does not establish the right relation between a person and blessedness, because even evil people want this good. 

But to love that good according to itself, that it may remain and be shared out and that nothing be done against this good, this gives to a person the right relation to that society of the blessed. And this is love [caritas] which loves God for his sake and the neighbors, who are capable of blessedness, as oneself.

-St. Thomas Aquinas, De Virtutibus, 2.2 c.  

Thus Sounds The Death Knell For The Anglican Communion

In 2003, Vicky Gene Robinson was elected as the first openly homosexual bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA), a branch of the world-wide Anglican Communion, which has the Church of England as its primatial see. Orthodox Episcopalians who upheld the two thousand year old traditions of Christ were faced with a dilemma. How does one remain part of the Anglican Communion, while at the same time rejecting the heterodox downslide of ECUSA? A fascinating charade was worked out, whereby the Episcopalians who did not agree with the leadership of ECUSA would be under the jurisdiction of an Anglican Ordinary from Africa or South America, where traditional Christianity was upheld, allowing them to remain in America without being under the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA, and at the same time still in union with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.

On paper, this is a nice little trick, but in reality ECUSA and the traditional Episcopalians who became the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) are still in the same communion because they both are in union with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus are, by default, in union with each other. So long as the Church of England was on the level, so the sentiment went, all is well. Well, with the most recent ruling by the House of Bishops in the Church of England allowing homosexual bishops, all is not well.

Now, the safeguard that allowed the ACNA to be able to split from ECUSA and yet remain Anglican has been eliminated. The Church of England has turned its back on the orthodox Anglicans in its communion and left them with the choice to violate their consciences or cease being Anglicans. There is no way around it this time. No amount of slight of hand or misdirection will hide the reality that the orthodox Anglican is no longer welcomed in the Anglican Communion. The House of Bishops wishes to assuage any fears by stating that only those homosexuals who are in a partnership and vow to be celibate will be admitted to the episcopacy. Yet, if they are to be celibate, why the partnership in the first place? Do they think that the people are so naïve as to think that they will truly remain celibate while at the same time living in a homosexual partnership? One priest of the Church of England has already stated that the celibacy requirement is a let down. Might we not reasonably expect this to be the sentiment of most, if not all, those lobbying for homosexual partnered bishops?

At the end of the day, the choice for ACNA members who wish not to violate their consciences is clear; either they move to a different Protestant denomination, where they will most likely encounter similar battles, or join the Roman Catholic Church through the Anglican Ordinariate and thereby retain their Anglican heritage while simultaneously being part of the one communion that has upheld, and will continue to uphold, traditional Christianity from the beginning.

Modernity: How Did We Get Here?

As a Catholic looking at Modernity, provided that one is aware of the goings-on around him, the world can seem like a pretty messed up place. And it is. Original Sin has radically effected the state of the world and there continues a constant battle against personal sin throughout the history of man. One of the effects of sin is the darkening of the intellect. That's right....sin makes you stupid! Throughout Christian history, however, there have been thinkers who, aided by the supernatural grace of God, have risen above this ignorance of the intellect to soar to great heights. The most famous of these was St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) who, building off of the great pre-Christian thinker Aristotle, systematized the union of faith and reason unlike anyone before or after. Yet, shortly after the death of Aquinas, the Aristotelian-Thomistic approach to the world (i.e. the via antiqua) was subverted, leading us into the via moderna. One of the first casualties of modernity was the rejection of the philosophy of being found in Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics.

The root of the problem known as the via moderna goes back to John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) who was the founder of voluntarism and William of Ockham (d. 1347) who was the founder of nominalism. These two concepts (voluntarism and nominalism) replaced logos (contemplative reason) as the highest act of man and led to the idea of reason as will to power. Ockham and Scotus thereby influenced Luther, Bacon, Newton, Kant, etc., so that not only was the notion that there are greater realities above mankind done away with, being replaced by a mechanistic view of nature where man is the highest reality in existence, but also nature was seen as something to be controlled, manipulated, and conquered for purposes of humanity. Rene Descartes (d. 1650) started what is known as the "turn to the self", whereby the only certain things in existence are clear and distinct ideas (Cogito, ergo sum/I think, therefore I am). Everything else is to be approached with radical doubt.  After Descartes came Immanuel Kant (d. 1804), another key figure in this history. Due to him, modern man is egotistically centered on himself. Kant's categorical imperative is based on radical autonomy so that each man becomes the measure of the universe and the arbiter of law, rather than something objective outside of man, such as an infinite God. In Kant's world view there is no such thing as natural law, which Thomas Aquinas defined as the "rational creature's participation of the eternal law" (Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 91  a. 2). Most of the modern world is Kantian without having read Kant. Thus, if you know how to answer Kant, you are on your way to steering people back in the right direction.

If you are interested in learning more about the via moderna, what it is, how we got here, and how to counter it, here are some books I would recommend:

Metaphysics -Aristotle

Nicomachean Ethics -Aristotle

Summa Theologiae -St. Thomas Aquinas

The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society -Brad S. Gregory

The Last Superstition -Edward Feser

Socrates Meets Hume -Peter Kreeft

Socrates Meets Kant -Peter Kreeft

A Refutation of Moral Relativism -Peter Kreeft

Back to Virtue -Peter Kreeft

Faith and Certitude -Thomas Dubay

The Evidential Power of Beauty -Thomas Dubay

Answering the New Atheism -Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker

Reasons to Believe -Scott Hahn

Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists -Benjamin Wiker

Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700 -Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker

Christianity and the Crises of Culture -Joseph Ratzinger

Introduction to Moral Theology -Romanus Cessario

Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body -John Paul II

Another Sort of Learning -James V. Shall

Leisure the Basis of Culture -Josep Pieper

Bride Of Yahweh: An Exegesis of Isaiah 54

A. Outline and Structural Analysis

54:1-10—The Fecundity of the Barren Wife.

         1-3: Call for Jerusalem to rejoice and promise of renewed fertility.

         4-8: Reunion of Yahweh with His bride.

         9-10: Comparison to the covenant with Noah.

54: 11-17—The Security of the Afflicted City.

         11-14: The rebuilding of Jerusalem.

         15-17: Yahweh’s protection of the city.

            The structure of Isaiah 54 would seem to suggest two major sections, vv. 1-10 and vv.11-17. Blenkinsopp divides the chapter into three main sections: vv. 1-8, vv. 9-10, and vv. 11-17a, with v. 17b as a concluding statement summarizing the whole (360-361). His basis for doing so, is that “the only clear markers in the text itself…are the references to who is speaking” in verses 6, 8, 10, and 17. There are, however, a few problems with the ratio for this division. First, if the basis of the division is based on who is speaking, why not add another division after verse 6, which Blenkinsopp skips over? Second, in his translation, he skips over the יהוה אמר at the end of verse 1, which would further complicate his division based on references to the speaker. Finally, the references to the speaker do not seem to be the only basis for dividing the text. One could make a plausible argument for dividing the text based on the addressee marked out in verses 1 and 11. Blenkinsopp points out that BHS and 1QIsa^a also divide the text in the way I have suggested and it seems to be the preferred one based on the context of the chapter (360). Whybray, Westermann, North, and Sawyer also make the same division (though not necessarily for the same reason as myself). Thus, the assessment of Watts that “form-critical analysis has agreed on dividing the chapter into four sections: vv 1-3, 4-6, 7-10, and 11-17” is a striking one (236).