Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Relic Escort

“Led by 18 sharply dressed Italian military police on horseback, hundreds of people who care for the sick escorted a relic of St. Bernadette Soubirous into St. Peter's Square.

The procession down the main street leading to the square opened festivities at the Vatican marking the Feb. 11 feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the World Day of the Sick.

The golden reliquary containing one of the French visionary's ribs was carried into St. Peter's Basilica, where midday prayers were led by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of the basilica.”

-Catholic News

Friday, February 1, 2008

Canon Ratified at Trent

Yves Congars writes:" "...an official, definitive list of inspired writings did not exist in the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent..."Congars, Tradition and Traditions, p.38

The English translator of the Council of Trent, H.J. Schroeder: "The Tridentine list or decree was the first infallible and effectual promulgated declaration on the Canon of Holy Scriptures." The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, footnote #4, p.17

“The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.” Old Catholic Encyclopedia

The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent.” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967