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Oct 14, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Robert P. Imbelli |Xavier Rynne II
In 1827 or thereabouts, Felix Mendelssohn attended G. W. F. Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics at the University of Berlin. Those were the days in which Mendelssohn was writing the charming overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, while pondering how he might revive Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which hadn’t been performed since Bach died in 1750—a feat Mendelssohn pulled off in 1829, earning the everlasting gratitude of all musically-inclined humanity.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Robert P. Imbelli |George Weigel |Xavier Rynne II
The Church’s One Foundation
by Robert P. Imbelli
A critique repeatedly voiced in discussions over “synodality” is that the critic does not understand the meaning of the term. “What does ‘synodality’ even mean?” goes the lament. I suggest that the problem is other. It’s not that the term is unintelligible or lacks content; rather, it is hyper-saturated with content. And trying to do too much, its repeated use risks accomplishing little.
Let me offer one, not unrepresentative, example.
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May 29, 2024 | 
commonwealmagazine.org | Robert P. Imbelli |Gareth Dale |Alice McDermott |Phil Christman
Let me cut to the chase: this book is a stunning achievement. Brian D. Robinette, associate professor of theology at Boston College, has gifted us with a deeply pondered work about God’s utterly gratuitous gift of creation, redemption, and fulfillment in Christ. The Difference Nothing Makesmeditates on the loving God for whom “nothing” is fertile with possibilities.
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May 10, 2024 | 
americamagazine.org | Robert P. Imbelli
Three years ago, on the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter, “Candor Lucis Aeternae” (“Splendor of Eternal Light”).
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Sep 27, 2023 | 
commonwealmagazine.org | Robert P. Imbelli |Arvin Alaigh |Xavier M. Montecel |Dorothy Fortenberry
In 1961, I started my one and only year at Saint Joseph’s Dunwoodie, the New York archdiocesan seminary. The monastic regimen and set course of studies were pretty much the same in that year as they had been in 1951, or 1941, or…. We knew, of course, that the Church’s first ecumenical council in over ninety years would open in October 1962. But it promised to be a short affair. Or so we supposed. One person thought differently—not a faculty member, but a student in his third year of theology.
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Sep 13, 2023 | 
firstthings.com | Robert P. Imbelli
In his magisterial study Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff treats at length Bach’s The Art of Fugue. He writes: “The Art of Fugue, though linked to earlier fugue compositions, moves to a level that is utterly novel.” Wolff expounds further: “The governing idea of the work . . . was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.
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Aug 17, 2023 | 
commonwealmagazine.org | Robert P. Imbelli |Randy R. Potts |Jacqui Oesterblad |Nolen Gertz
Peter Steinfels’s polemical response to two pieces I wrote about the forthcoming Synod on Synodality and its Instrumentum Laboris should not go unanswered. Let me reply to it by focusing on three key issues. First, Steinfels’s response wrongly suggests that my reflections were directed against Pope Francis himself. I fear Steinfels’ animus against Sandro Magister has skewed his reading of my article on Magister’s blog, Settimo Cielo.
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Jul 28, 2023 | 
firstthings.com | Robert P. Imbelli
Henri de Lubac, S.J., one of the twentieth century’s greatest Catholic theologians, was among the prominent figures in the ressourcement movement that prepared the way for Vatican II. Indeed, many of his writings influenced the very terms employed by the Council, especially in the constitutions on the Church (Lumen Gentium) and on revelation (Dei Verbum).
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Jul 13, 2023 | 
freerepublic.com | Robert P. Imbelli
Free RepublicBrowse · SearchReligionTopics · Post ArticleSkip to comments. [Catholic Caucus] Church Up in Smoke. A Theological Critique of the Guidelines of the Synod on SynodalityL'Espresso ^ | July 11, 2023 | Robert P. ImbelliPosted on by ebb tide(s.m.) Joachim of Fiore had foretold the advent of an age of the Spirit, with the happy dissolution of the structure and doctrine of the earthly Church.
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Jul 11, 2023 | 
magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it | Robert P. Imbelli
> Italiano> English> Español> Français> All the articles of Settimo Cielo in EnglishIf you want to receive (or go back to receiving) a notification for every new article, click HERE and subscribe to the Newsletter from Settimo Cielo!*(s.m.) Joachim of Fiore had foretold the advent of an age of the Spirit, with the happy dissolution of the structure and doctrine of the earthly Church.
