meditatio

1. Bultmann's New Clothes - Fr. Dwight Longenecker on "de-mythologizing" the Bible.

What Bultmann wanted to do was to steer around the historical accounts of the miraculous--to leave them in place as 'marvelous stories' but assuming that the supernatural simply couldn't have happened like that, they wanted to draw people to the 'real meaning' of the stories. The implication, of course, is that the events didn't really happen at all, or if they happened they were ordinary events that the 'aw gawrsh!' stupid early church members interpreted as miraculous (like everybody sharing their lunch becoming a miraculous multiplication of food) What Bultmann the de-mythologizer actually did therefore, was to turn what was reported as real events and historical accounts into--hey presto!--myths. A myth being a beautiful (but fictional) story with transcendent meaning to guide us through life.

Bultmann's 'great accomplishment' therefore was to turn historical events into myth while claiming to "de-mythologize" them.

2. Let’s move on from condoms. What the Pope said about the priesthood is more interesting

3. The new Roman Missal's prayers for Advent and Christmas from the USCCB [PDF]

4. Fr. Dwight on "Rooster Cogburn Catholicism."

5. Oh yes ... "iPhone confession." Yes, there is an app for that. No, it does not replace confession, it is an aid for the penitent - just like a pamphlet with an examination of conscience and the Act of Contrition. If you're the media, however, you have your own ideas about what this is.