felix hominum

an interesting (to me at any rate) discussion

over in the comments section at simplemassingpriest

"the rhythm of immediate response denies the place and importance of reflection"

A new blog in the 'sphere

Pop over and say hello on Bishop Greg's Blog. 

Bishop Greg Kerr-Wilson is the 11th Bishop of Qu'Appelle.

Primate Hiltz writes Primate Greg Venables

Anglican primate blasts South American rival
MICHAEL VALPY
April 22, 2008

Leaders of the Anglican Church in Canada and South America drew beads on each other yesterday with Canadian primate Fred Hiltz posting a letter on the Internet telling South America's Gregory Venables to stay out of the country and Archbishop Venables icily criticizing Archbishop Hiltz's manners in reply.

"My number is there on the Anglican Communion network," Archbishop Venables said in a telephone interview from Buenos Aires. "I mean, this is only my humble opinion, but if somebody really wants to talk to me, they can pick up the phone and talk to me.

"Do you write a personal letter, between primates, on the Internet if you seriously want a personal dialogue?"

Globe & Mail

The Canadian Primate's letter can be seen here.  An Anglican Journal piece is here.  The National Post article is here.

While there is much to discuss in this latest round of Anglican World Traveller, the thing that struck me was that the letter to Venables was posted on the internet before Venables received it.  That's okay, though.  This fast internet stuff happens to the best of us.  On the other hand, I wonder if these two Primates have ever had a face to face?

a comment on Good Friday

Over at Magic Statistics, Russel Sutherland left an intersting comment describing his experience at a Good Friday service.

lenten series: Dante's Divine Comedy - some links

For those about to descend, here are a few links for information about the Dante, the Comedy, assorted online texts and translations, how to stop the mouth of underworld beasts from classical mythology and that sort of stuff.

Have a miserable Lent!

Why I've taken up Dante for Lent
--By A.N. Wilson - article in the Telegraph from Lent 2007

Welcome to Danteworlds, an "integrated multimedia journey--combining artistic images, textual commentary, and audio recordings--through the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) presented in Dante's Divine Comedy. The site is structured around a visual representation of Dante's worlds: it shows who and what appear where. Click on regions within each realm (circles of Hell, terraces of Purgatory, spheres of Paradise) to open new pages featuring people and creatures whom the character Dante meets during his journey. Click on individual figures in the regions to view larger images in pop-up windows. Available for each region are explanatory notes, a gallery of artistic images, recordings of significant Italian verses, and study questions--all aimed at enriching the experience of reading Dante's poetic vision of a voyage literally out of this world."
--University of Texas

Harvard Classics, Vol. 20 The Divine Comedy:  an English trans. by Henry Cary

DIGITAL DANTE  trans of Henry W. Longfellow, and the Allen Mandelbaum translation
-- Columbia University project

The Princeton Dante Project,  of particular interest is the series of lectures on this page.

The Dartmouth Dante Project (DDP) is "a searchable full-text database containing more than seventy commentaries on Dante's Divine Comedy - the Commedia."

And if you can get your hands on "The Figure of Beatrice" by Charles Williams, you will be close to the Kingdom of Heaven.

In addition, a bit o' reading in Aristotle's Ethics, Virgil's Aeneid, Augustine generally and Boethius should round out all that extra time you will have from doing a TV fast...

Update:  from Mike's recommendation in the comments comes a link to Father Robert Crouse's series on Dante.  This comes via a site I've previously described as "the best little anglican church website in Canada".

thoughts on the end of week of prayer for Christian unity

This Sunday marks the end of yet another 'Week of Prayer for Christian Unity'? No doubt this past week has been filled with ecumenical services around the world as different Christian traditions (denominations) join together in worship of our Lord.

I must admit that I find much of what goes on during this week somewhat trite. It's almost as if we're saying to the world, "Look at us! We're holding hands, singing the same hymns, and worshipping the same way for this one service. See, we're united!

from a priest in Labrador

Canadian Blog Awards - final round

Hot off the heels of my sought-after endorsements of presidential candidates, let me draw your attention to a more important election:  the annual Canadian Blog Awards.

After my glorious showing last year, I've retired for the time being from such rites of public splendour, preferring to spend my time sifting through the book-deal offers coming in from various publishing houses, and drinking coffee.

Seriously, though, the awards are a great way to find some new and interesting blogs in a variety of categories.  I personally follow 3 of the blogs in the "religious" category.  Have a look and have a vote.

Days of past glory...

the lenten blogging series: Dante's Divine Comedy

With Lent just around the corner, it is almost time to start planning the annual lenten blogging series.  Last year I blogged through Augustine's Confessions as a bit of online lenten discipline.  My intention is to pick a "Christian Classic" and try to get through it during lent.  This year I'm contemplating Dante's Divine Comedy.  At least it begins with a good down-in-the-mouth lenten theme:  Abandon all hope, you who enter here. (Inferno. 03.009)

The general plan, as it is now being formulated, is to work through the Inferno and Purgatorio up to Easter weekend, and then spend Easter week exploring the joys of the Paradiso.

distributed knowledge

...in stark contrast, top-down systems are characterized by very centralized knowledge - and hence very centralized power.  The early church Gnostics with their "secret knowledge" were not the first (and won't be the last) to realize the power of holding knowledge back and sharing it only with a select few.

Kester Brewin - Signs of Emergence, 109 (emphasis mine)  I was reading it just this morning.

Interesting.

The Anglican Church of Canada website has a news item which consists of a statement expressing concern over the "Global Anglican Future Conference".  However, there is no actual news item on the ACofC site telling us anything about the "Global Anglican Future Conference."  Which all seems odd to me. 

News item, condemning an event we have no news of.

Anyway, actual news of the conference can be found here.

Interesting update:

While not opposed to the principles motivating the gathering of traditionalist Anglican bishops, clergy and lay leaders six weeks before Lambeth, Bishop Darwani does not want it to take place on his turf.

Strongly opposed to the notion of gay or women clergy, the diocese also has strong financial links with a number of American dioceses that are at the forefront of the progressive agenda. Highlighting the diocese’s traditionalist stance within the Anglican Communion at this time could have immediate financial consequences, Jerusalem clergy tell us.

full article here.

update on "law is cool", steyn & all that jazz

Update: The Canadian Islamic Congress has a pdf on their site entitled: 

MACLEANS MAGAZINE: A CASE STUDY OF
MEDIA-PROPAGATED ISLAMOPHOBIA
Prepared by:
Khurrum Awan, Muneeza Skeikh, Naseem Mithoowani
LLB (Osgoode Hall Law School – 2007)
Ali Ahmed
LLB Candidate (Osgoode Hall Law School - 2008)
Daniel Simard
LLB Candidate (Osgoode Hall Law School - 2009)

The Canadian Islamic Congress and 4 law students from Osgoode have requested proceedings in our Human Rights Commissions against Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn's recent book.

Further research into the legal issues was conducted over the Christmas season.  This consisted mostly of several glasses of port in front of a roaring fire at the home of the local paterfamilias. He recently retired from the bench, and has more than a passing interest in the variety of issues involved in this case.  Apart from all the interesting conversation around justice, multiculturalism, freedom of expression, I also discovered (i think after the 3rd glass) that he has, tucked away in the library, a document signed by Sir John A himself.  Great-great Granddad was sworn into judicial office by Canada's first Prime Minister.  I wonder what he would make of the case...

Posts at LawisCool are here and here.

Mark Steyn has comments here., and links to the text of the complaints can be found on this page.

In addition, there is this story about a Catholic journal being brought under the same body, for publishing stuff which, well, appears to be the teaching of the Catholic Church:

Today, Catholic Insight magazine has also become a victim of the new anti-religion. We, too, have been denounced to the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa for speaking out against the activists who agitated for adding so-called sexual orientation to the Hate Crimes Act in 2003 and the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2005. The politically correct activists brook no opposition. See the article ”Catholic Insight under human rights attack”, page 10; and David Warren,“Suing for silence”, page 17.

from here

"Suing for silence" - has a nice ring, no?

related post:  an interesting article or two on the Mark Steyn affair

Goodbye Oscar.

Food for thought.  Commenting at CBC on the death of Aqsa Parvez,  the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress (the same person bringing the complaints) had this to say:

"I don't want the public to think that this is really an Islamic issue or an immigrant issue," said Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress. "It is a teenager issue."