Podcasts about beguines

Savez-vous que la teinture végétale peut transformer non seulement des fibres, mais aussi notre compréhension de l'écologie et de l'histoire ? Dans cet épisode captivant d'ArtEcoVert, la voix de la couleur végétale et des plantes tinctoriales, Pauline Leroux reçoit Sylvie Le Chat, une experte passionnée qui nous plonge dans l'univers fascinant des colorants végétaux. Sylvie nous raconte son parcours inspirant, débutant par un stage en Wallonie, où elle découvre les merveilles des plantes tinctoriales. Élevée par une mère artiste botanique, son amour pour la flore sauvage s'est épanoui au fil des années.Au cœur de cette discussion, Sylvie partage comment sa passion pour la teinture végétale a évolué, influencée par des rencontres marquantes, notamment avec Michel Garcia, un pionnier dans le domaine. Ensemble, ils explorent l'histoire de la teinture à Bruxelles, dévoilant l'évolution des techniques et des couleurs qui ont façonné notre patrimoine textile. Les plantes comme l'indigo et la garance prennent vie sous ses mots, illustrant l'importance des colorants biosourcés et des pigments végétaux dans la création de nuances uniques.En plus de ses connaissances techniques, Sylvie présente son projet de jardin de plantes tinctoriales, un espace où elle cultive des espèces locales et partage des informations précieuses sur leur utilisation. Ce jardin devient un véritable laboratoire de teinture, où la couleur végétale s'allie à l'agriculture tinctoriale, révélant les secrets des tanins et des fibres naturelles. À travers cet échange enrichissant, nous découvrons comment la teinture végétale est bien plus qu'une simple technique, mais un véritable art qui lie l'homme à la nature.Ne manquez pas cette belle opportunité d'apprendre et de vous inspirer par les récits de Sylvie, qui nous rappelle que chaque couleur a une histoire, et que la teinture végétale est un chemin vers une compréhension plus profonde de notre environnement. Pour ceux qui souhaitent approfondir leurs connaissances, des liens utiles seront partagés à la fin de l'épisode.Préparez-vous à plonger dans l'univers vibrant des couleurs de plantes et à explorer le potentiel infini de la teinture végétale. Belle écoute !

Show Notes:: There has been much debate on who has finally say and authority in the church, much of the debating has happened amounts Protestants and Catholics, but who is right? In this week's episode of Real Talk Christian Podcast, Marc Hyde and Chris Fuller look at where the truth may actually be and try to navigate through all the false doctrines surrounding final authority. Grab a cup of Joe and tune in. //Resources Used In This Episode// https://christianrenaissancemovement.com/2017/10/31/sola-scriptura-7-fatal-flaws-of-a-bleak-doctrine/ https://media.ascensionpress.com/2017/10/30/does-the-church-still-believe-in-indulgences/#:~:text=While%20the%20practice%20of%20indulgences,Church%20still%20believes%20in%20indulgences https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-real-meaning-of-sola-scriptura/ *note, this list comes from A LOT of sources, including our friends at GotQuestions.org 1. FIRST COUNCIL OF NICAEA (325) – Affirmed the deity of Christ. 2. FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (381) – Clarified the nature of the Holy Spirit 3. COUNCIL OF EPHESUS (431) – Clarified the nature of Christ's personhood.  4. COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON (451) – Clarified the teaching concerning Christ's nature and person, including the “hypostatic union. 5. SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (553) – Confirmed the conclusions of the first four councils. 6. THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (680–681) – Clarified the nature of Christ's will. 7. SECOND COUNCIL OF NICAEA (787) – Established guidelines for the veneration of images. 8. FOURTH COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (869) – Condemned a council that had not been authorized and The Council also reaffirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea in support of icons and holy images and required the image of Christ to have veneration equal with that of the gospel book. 9. FIRST LATERAN COUNCIL (1123) – Placed limitations on the ecclesiastical rights of lay princes and made plans for a crusade to regain territory lost to Muslims. 10. SECOND LATERAN COUNCIL (1139) – Condemned the errors of Arnold of Brescia 11. THIRD LATERAN COUNCIL (1179) – Condemned the Albigenses and Waldenses and issued numerous decrees for the reformation of morals. 12. FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL (1215) – Added more condemnation of the Albigenses, condemned the Trinitarian errors of Abbot Joachim, and published other reformatory decrees. 13. FIRST COUNCIL OF LYONS (1245) – Excommunicated and deposed Emperor Frederick II and authorized a new crusade. 14. SECOND COUNCIL OF LYONS (1274) – Provided for a temporary reunion of the Greek Church with Rome and set rules for papal elections. 15. COUNCIL OF VIENNE (1311–1313) – Addressed crimes and errors imputed to the Knights Templar, the Fraticelli, the Beghards, and the Beguines. Also took on projects of a new crusade, the reformation of the clergy, and the teaching of Oriental languages in the universities. 16. COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE (1414–1418) – Ended the Great Schism by the election of Pope Martin V. 17. COUNCIL OF BASEL/FERRARA/FLORENCE (1431–1439) – Moved from city to city due to trouble. Resulted in temporary reunification with the Greek Church and made official the seven sacraments of Catholicism. 18. FIFTH LATERAN COUNCIL (1512–1517) – Authorized a new crusade against the Turks but was quickly overshadowed by the “trouble” caused by the Protestant Reformation. 19. COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545–1563) – Condemned the teachings of Luther and the Reformers and officially recognized the Apocrypha as canonical. 20. FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL (1869–1870) – Affirmed the infallibility of the Pope when speaking ex cathedra. 21. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL (1962–1965) – One of the goals of Vatican II was to provide clarity on the topic of the role of the church in relation to the world at large. //Other Episode You Might Enjoy// https://realtalkchristianpodcast.com/episodes/060-how-should-we-study-the-bible/ https://realtalkchristianpodcast.com/episodes/054-what-to-do-about-bible-translations/ https://realtalkchristianpodcast.com/episodes/052-coffee-mug-christianity/ https://realtalkchristianpodcast.com/episodes/036-whats-up-with-all-of-these-different-denominations/ // Helpful Links // https://www.youtube.com/@realtalkchristianpodcast The Christian Standard Bible: https://bit.ly/3rulKqi Lifeway Christian Resources: https://bit.ly/3qka4Wv Got Questions?: https://bit.ly/3vSMJfq Dwell Bible App: https://bit.ly/3zUYq8E Cross Formed Kids from Ryan Coatney: https://bit.ly/3h19isZ RTC Quick Links: https://linktr.ee/realtalkchristianpodcast RTC Online: www.realtalkchristianpodcast.com Twin Valley Coffee: https://www.coffeehelpingmissions.com Revive festival : Music Festival | En Gedi Music Fest | Leonidas, MI (myrevivefest.com) Toccoa Coffee:https://toccoacoffee.com RTC Merch-https://rtcpodcast.redbubble.com  

What Meister Eckhart learnt, and we can learn, from The Beguines.

What Meister Eckhart learnt, and we can learn, from The Beguines.

We left off in Alexandria in the second century and in this episode time travel a thousand years forward in tie, to the 14th century Northern Europe. At this point in time, particularly in Belgium and in Western Germany in the Rhineland, a non dual philosophy of Christianity emerges. The center player is Meister Eckhart and we explore his relationship to the woman's movement of The Beguines.Visit our pop-up shop for the existential swag you did now know you needed! The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

Although the ecological sphere has long declared the need for a shift in consciousness if we are to survive the myriad crises we've ignited, this conversation often lacks examples of what this change in consciousness might be like as a lived, embodied experience. This week, author of the cult classics The Brothers K and The River Why, David James Duncan, joins the podcast to speak about his new epic novel, Sun House—a story following the journeys of an eclectic collection of characters, each seeking Truth and meaning, who come together to form an unintentional community in rural Montana. David talks about the impetus behind the novel to impart an experiential model of contemplative inner life that might help navigate a future of social, cultural, and ecological unraveling that looms large. Wide-ranging and tender, the conversation explores how the wisdom of the great mystics—from Zen master Dōgen to the thirteenth-century Christian theologian Meister Eckhart and the Beguines—can be relevant in uncovering responses to the crises we face. Read the transcript. Photo by Chris La Tray. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the ISM Fellows Podcast, Dr. Samantha Slaubaugh offers insights into her work on Douceline of Digne as a rare paradigm of liturgical practice among the Beguines of Marseilles. Dr. Slaubaugh also discusses the way in which Douceline of Digne, through her unique practice of liturgy, is situated in her medieval community … Read More Read More

Ep. 120 (Part 2 of 2) | Many time award-winning poet Jane Hirshfield has spent her life steeped in poetry and spiritual practice. Here, we feel almost as if we've been invited into her kitchen to talk about life, love, and especially about poems and how they offer us various answers to the abiding questions: who are we, what are we, what is our relationship to each other, what must we be grateful toward? Jane describes poems as vessels of discovery and poetry as taking your understanding and putting it into a form that is holdable, retrievable, transmissible. Poems can also be keys to unlock our despair, she explains, creating a crack in the darkness, a re-entrance to the possibility of wholeness. Jane's sublime poetry is many-layered; the same poem might be about human love or peace between nations, about the end of love or the fact that love never dies. Jane shares that her lifetime of questioning (her most recent book of new and selected poetry is titled The Asking) has boiled down to one question: How can I serve?An awareness of our interconnectedness with all beings, all of life, permeates her work, and Jane is driven to provoke action on contemporary, pressing issues of biosphere, peace, and justice, and help us navigate the tightrope between hope and despair. The conversation also turns to early feminism and the poetry of women mystics that Jane put together in a beautiful anthology called Women in Praise of the Sacred, covering 43 centuries of spiritual poetry by women. When asked about her longtime Zen practice, Jane said, “I needed to become more of a human being, understand a different way of living inside this life I had been given” to become a good poet. She tells us that both poetry and Zen are paths of discovery, exploration, and awareness, and both paths insist that we attend to this world fully. This is a warm, personal, deeply illuminating, and thought provoking conversation, and Jane reads several of her poems, revealing their depth and beauty. Recorded November 30, 2023.“I don't want a model of spirituality that excludes other forms of connection. Inclusion is the only path that makes sense.”(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)Topics & Time Stamps – Part 2How can we become a magnet for creative imagination? (00:49) Artist retreats are the monastery of creativity (03:51)How Jane was drawn towards poetry, haiku, and Buddhist understanding early on (07:56)In 3-year retreat at Tassajara, writing wasn't permitted, and how poetry returned after the monastic years (12:40)Both poetry and Zen are paths that insist you attend to this world fully (14:12)Women poets throughout history and the story of Enheduanna, earliest known poet (18:07)Protofeminist movement in the Middle Ages: the Beguines (25:08)Reading of Mechthild of Magdeburg's poem, and how we carry a molecule of divine remembrance with us (26:56)Spiritual poems of male and female mystics, are they different? (30:12)Poems of the sacred rather than poems of suffering: dark nights of the soul come after moments of awakening as much as before (33:19)Spiritual poems often use the language of eros, and how inclusion of all forms of connection is the only path that makes sense (35:01) Women have found their voice…yet women have

NOTE: Though I mentioned timestamping, I've decided to forego that for now to allow me to go ahead and get this episode out without additional delay. I may well add it in retroactively at some point but for now you'll just have to survive with the free full transcript, below. https://columbuscatholic.org/chancery https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253959/cardinal-hollerich-there-s-space-to-expand-church-teaching-on-all-male-priesthood  Hello everyone, welcome back to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights and I'm going to be skipping the brought to you daily part because I've switched, at least for the time being, back to a model that basically can best be described as brought to you as I am able: something every month, probably. Which, I admit, doesn't roll off the tongue quite so well, but it's the right move. Anyways, it's good to be back talking with you again, I've been using the time away wisely, taking care of family and household stuff that needed my attention. Thank you for understanding. This is going to be something of a glossary of various roles within the Catholic Church that are gonna keep popping up, so consider this your cheat sheets to consult as needed. Oh and good news, I learned how to timestamp show notes, at least on some catchers, so see if it works for you. Let me know if it doesn't. See the show notes.  Without further ado, let's get into these church roles, starting with church roles you may recognize from the Bible but which are no longer a thing unless you're like a Mormon or something. First, APOSTLE. The most familiar use of this term is referring to one of the 12 Apostles, Jesus' closest followers: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, the other James, Judas (not *that* Judas), Simon, and Judas (yes *that* Judas). At least, that's the listing of the 12 as given in the book of Acts, my favorite reference point as this podcast talks about Church history and Church history actually happens in Acts, unlike the Gospels where it's pre-Pentecost so it's not really Church history yet, per se. And really, *that* Judas, Judas Iscariot, is replaced by Matthias for most purposes when you're talking about the apostles because since Judas betrayed Jesus he's a bit of an embarrassment to the group, which, fair enough. In the end, Apostle is the only one of these titles where I'm going to name the main holders individually in this episode, though of course through future episodes of the podcast I'll name all the Popes and Cardinals I have documentation of any kind for and we should also recognize that the term Apostle is used outside the Twelve as well at various points, including most prominently Saint Paul and even the almost certainly female Junia in his Letter to the Romans. The broader term for one of the earlier followers of Jesus is a DISCIPLE, and while this one does have some use in contemporary Catholicism, for example my parish has a slogan of "making disciples and disciple makers", the title of disciple as a specific identifier is something you're going to encounter in the Bible rather than in the day-to-day, where it's more of a general goal as a follower of Jesus. Meanwhile, an EVANGELIST is one who wrote one of the Gospels. Earlier I committed to the Apostles being the only one of these titles where I'd name all 12 of the main holders and I'm going to stick to that, but yeah, it's that simple. Note that this is actually more restrictive than being one of the writers of Scripture in general, for instance even though he wrote a good chunk of the New Testament, Saint Paul doesn't get described as an Evangelist. That isn't to say there isn't a bit of a tradition of using even this term someone analogously for anyone who spreads the message of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, for example the decidedly non-Catholic phenomenon of Televangelists get their name as a play on this word. Our last Bible-times Church role is that of PROPHET. Simply put, a prophet is someone inspired by the Holy Spirit to deliver a message, John the Baptist being the most famous New Testament example though especially if you look closely at the Book of Acts you can find other examples. There have been a number of folks who have made claims to be prophets in some form or another, generally the Church has frowned on such pronouncements. Officially, all new *public* revelation closed with the death of John the last Apostle around the year 100. However, the door to being a legitimate prophet is not completely closed, since *private* revelation is still possible, for example the various Marian apparitions like Lourdes and Fatima. What makes revelation considered "private" is not so much its actual privacy as its non-binding nature. All Catholics are obliged to accept public revelation, namely the Bible; no one is obliged to accept any private revelation like latter-day Prophets, though such individuals can gain the basic endorsement of the Church, which is what made Fatima, for example, so influential. That bit of a gray area bringing a Biblical role to the present is a good transition to the category of Church roles we'll talk about next, namely the basic roles in and structure of the Catholic Church today. As a periodic reminder, the default perspective and focus of this show is Catholic Christianity. I say that because there are plenty of Christian groups that follow models different than what I'll be describing here, though in broad terms what we'll be talking about is the dominant structure of Christianity and has been for centuries if not millennia. The fundamental concept to understand for this part–and really, to understand much of Catholicism–is APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. Apostolic succession is the notion that the Apostles were the first BISHOPS and picked folks to succeed them in their ministry as bishops. I'm not here to convince you that that's what happened, but since this show runs with Pope-colored glasses, it's what we're rolling with. In this framework, not just anyone can have authority in the Church, only those who have this apostolic succession. You can still get wrinkles, like MYSTICS that influence the bishops, but ultimately, whether a mystic has lasting influence is going to depend on whether any bishops- that is anyone who has apostolic succession- listens to her. And I say her because such mystics are typically female. And actually, I wasn't planning on covering mystics in this overview, but I guess I really should give them their own timestamp in the summary here since I've gone off on a tangent. I talked about them earlier in the context of modern day prophets. Basically, a mystic is someone who has some sort of special connection to revelation, whether God or the Blessed Virgin Mary or whoever. But anyways, back to bishops, because while stuff like mystics are fun, the majority of church admin is done in much more mundane fashion by the regular clergy like the Bishops. Catholic Bishops are always male, because in Catholicism ordination is what makes someone a bishop, and Catholic teaching holds that women cannot be ordained. Another particularity of ordination is that someone who is ordained can't get married, though put a pin in that because it's going to get more complicated when we talk about priests and especially deacons. Only bishops can carry out ordinations, and it involves physical touch so they cannot be done remotely. To minimize concerns about who has apostolic succession and who does not, for many years the standard has been that at least three bishops should participate in the ordination of a bishop, though this is not strictly speaking a requirement. With all of this apostolic succession and ordination business, the Catholic world is divided in two: the CLERGY, that is, those who are ordained, and the LAITY, that is, those who are not ordained. There's also sort of a third category but shush I'm keeping it simple and don't worry we'll get into that before we're done today. LAY, the shortened form of Laity, can also be used as an adjective in Church terminology, for instance in the phrase LAY EUCHARISTIC MINISTERS, or LAY CARDINALS, in both cases emphasizing that the individual being described is not as ordained as one might expect. Meanwhile, CLERG is not a word, pleaae don't try to make it a thing. Anyways, once ordained, bishops are typically assigned a specific geographic area called a DIOCESE. Their main base of operations will tend to be in what's called a CATHEDRAL that's generally in the most prominent city in that diocese, and the Diocese is generally named after the city, for instance my home diocese of Columbus is named after the city of Columbus in Ohio. In some ways bishops are equals, for instance all bishops can ordain successors. But in other ways they aren't, for instance Catholicism is somewhat famously centered around the Bishop of Rome, aka the POPE, who is prominent because the Diocese of Rome was where Saint Peter, the foremost disciple, settled down, never mind that by all accounts he also ran the Church in Antioch for a while. Collectively, all the Catholic Bishops in the world are called the COLLEGE OF BISHOPS, and according to the very handy and highly recommended Gcatholic.org there are well over 5000 such Catholic bishops alive today. Of course, there are also a good number of bishops who aren't Catholic, meaning they aren't in communion with the Pope, especially the Eastern Orthodox. And forgive me if I explain being in communion as like the Church version of being facebook friends. It's obviously more solemn than that, but basically yes, it's a mutual public acknowledgement that you're on good terms with someone else. Bishops who aren't in communion with Rome are still bishops- meaning they still have apostolic succession and can still create their own successors, which has lead to a fair amount of drama, historically. When I mentioned not all bishops are created equally, I wasn't just talking about the Pope. There are several different kinds of bishops to consider, so let's hit the highlights. In addition to a regular bishop who heads a diocese, there's a higher level bishop called an ARCHBISHOP who runs what's called an ARCHDIOCESE or you might see the term PROVINCE. Technically I believe a province is the combination of an Archdiocese and any regular diocese that are under its jurisdiction, which are called SUFFRAGAN diocese in that context while the Archdiocese is called the METROPOLITAN, which is also a shorthand way of referring to the archbishop in that arrangement, or you might more fully call him the METROPOLITAN ARCHBISHOP. To return to my home diocese as an example, the Metropolitan for the Diocese of Columbus is the Archbishop of Cincinnati. Not every Archbishop is a Metropolitan Archbishop, because not every Archdiocese has a suffragan diocese. You can also find cases where a person is personally made an Archbishop but is not put in charge of an Archdiocese, those cases are called "PRO HAC VICE", which is basically Latin for "for this occasion”, meaning while the person is being made an archbishop their diocese is not being made an archdiocese. There are weirder scenarios that can pop up as well, but I'm trying to focus on the highlights to keep this manageable and will point out the more unusual stuff when and if it pops up. In terms of territory, the next step above a province would typically be a REGION, which is generally just an administrative subdivision of a national bishops' Conference. Columbus is in a region with all the dioceses–it's hard to pluralize that–in Ohio and Michigan, called Region VI. This particular layer of admin is completely unremarkable and has no special titles or roles associated with it. At the top of the national level there's generally what's called a BISHOP'S CONFERENCE, an organization made up of the bishops and perhaps their equivalents across a given nation. Depending on the scale of things you might also see bishop's conferences that cover multiple countries or I think I've even seen some sub-national bishops' conferences here and there, it just depends on what makes sense given the geopolitics and the nature of the Catholic Community. Though there isn't a special churchy title for the leadership of a Bishops' Conference- they're just called President or whatever- I will tend to note when someone I'm going over holds a leadership post here since it's at the national level. Getting back to church titles rather than standard admin structure, it's worth noting that, in a nutshell, the older a diocese is the more prestige and gravitas it has. Historically, the oldest diocese in a given country had special importance and was something a bit above a regular archdiocese called a PRIMATIAL SEE held by a PRIMATE- not the monkey though sure joke away– oh and see by the way is just another word for a diocese, that's S-E-E. It's specifically referring to the bishop's "seat", which is the same concept that makes the head church of a Diocese called a Cathedral, cathedra being a Latin word for Chair. And yeah, it's a bit weird to have so much focus on what someone is sitting on but keep in mind thrones for kings kind of fill the same concept, it's basically the idea that it's the office that has its own importance that accumulates with each officeholder. Some diocese are dignified at an even higher level and are called Patriarchates, with bishops of those diocese being called Patriarchs. Historically the core group of patriarchates was Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. Others have been added through the years, notably Moscow in the East. Generally Patriarchates are more associated with Eastern Orthodoxy since the highest ranking churchmen there are the Patriarchs, though the Popes would also flaunt their Papal powers over the church generally by setting up some new Western Patriarchates as well, like Lisbon and Venice. I'll definitely be spending a lot of time talking about all the various patriarchates in the main narrative, so stay tuned. Recently a new role has been developed, and of course I mean recently in church terms so, you know, in living memory, and that's the role of what's termed a "MAJOR ARCHBISHOP", just half a hair down from a Patriarch in dignity, and of course overseeing a "MAJOR ARCHBISHOPRIC". Check out my episode on Sviatoslav Shevchuk for more on that, basically the Vatican wanted to grant the Ukranians higher honor but could not fully commit to a new Patriarchate because of pressure from Moscow, so the position was developed as a compromise. There are now a total of four Major Archbishops, all Eastern Catholics. To explain very briefly, now that I'm mentioning Eastern Catholics, the Catholic Church is actually made up of a total of 24 sui iuris- that is, "self governing" Churches, called Particular churches. The one you're probably most familiar with is the biggest, what's called the Latin Church, but the other 23 are equally important at least in theory even though in practice they often get sidelined or overlooked. A single city may have multiple bishops because of these different rites, and also because of non-Catholic bishops, for example there are currently five people claiming the role of Patriarch of Antioch, three Catholic bishops from different sui iuris particular churches in union with Rome, and two Orthodox bishops not in union with Rome. None of these Patriarchs of Antioch are based in Antioch, modern Antakya. It's complicated. Collectively members of these non-Latin Sui Iuris churches are called Eastern Catholics and In most cases these are the results of various splits and reunions throughout Church history, resulting in a variety of local traditions maintained because 1 tradition is beautiful and 2 union with the Pope is more important to the Pope then making everyone do exactly the same thing, though there have certainly been pushes for that, and I hope that somewhat tongue-in-cheek brief overview isn't too insulting but long story short the variety resulting from these different traditions could easily double the length of this episode, but given the main purpose of this was to allow Cardinal-Watchers to follow Cardinal Numbers without getting too lost I'm going to let the Latin rite examples I've given form the core and I'll explain Eastern titles- such as calling most bishops EPARCHS and most Dioceses EPARCHIES- as they appear in individual episodes. Now, believe it or not, there's still a few more bishop-tier titles to go. First, a TITULAR BISHOP is a bishop who has been assigned a non-functional diocese, which sounds like a bit of a raw deal- and to be clear, it is- but it generally allows them to focus on other stuff they need to be doing while officially giving them the status and dignity of being a bishop. There are also titular archbishops and even titular patriarchs, basically the next few terms function as adjectives. Another modifier you might see before someone's bishop title is "Auxiliary". An AUXILIARY BISHOP is a bishop who assists in the administration of a see- typically an archdiocese or a patriarchate- while being titular bishop of another see. This keeps one person as the overall pastor but allows for easing the burden when there's a lot of bishopping to be done. There's another kind of bishop called a COADJUTOR. As the co- part might suggest, a coadjutor bishop acts alongside the regular bishop. Generally speaking a coadjutorship is a short term arrangement, designed to ease the transition when the regular bishop retires, with the coadjutor having automatic succession. Unlike Auxiliary bishops, coadjutor bishops are not typically given a separate titular see reflecting this even closer association with the diocese. Normally the goal is one bishop per diocese and one diocese per bishop, coadjustorships are treated as an exception to that ideal for the sake of smooth transition. Another adjective you'll see applied to someone's title as bishop is emeritus, and this one I think is more familiar to folks. A BISHOP EMERITUS is the former bishop of a diocese. In modern practice most Bishops are required to submit their resignation to the Pope once they turn 75, so that's the typical retirement age, but early retirements due to health reasons or air quotes "health reasons" are not unheard of, and sometimes folks are left in their posts for a bit longer. When a diocese has no serving bishop, that period is called a SEDE VACANTE, or "vacant seat". Most folks hear that in connection with the Pope, though the term can be used for all diocese, not just Rome. If the vacancy is a longer one, you'll often see what's called an APOSTOLIC ADMINISTRATOR appointed for the interim, someone to keep things running who may or may not already be a bishop of another diocese, often the metropolitan. Finally, there's a broader term that includes but is not limited to bishops that I've been studiously avoiding: an ORDINARY. Most often the ordinary is a bishop, but there are some special jurisdictions outside the normal diocesan structure that are served by a non-episcopal-AKA non-bishop- ordinary. Such jurisdictions are called ORDINARIATES. And yeah, don't let the wording fool you, ordinariates headed by an ordinary are not, you know, the ordinary arrangement, those are for special circumstances. The most common type of ordinariate is a MILITARY ORDINARIATE. Given the special needs of armed forces and the families serving in them, many nations have a specific ordinariate dedicated to military families. There is also something called a PERSONAL ORDINARIATE, which in modern times is best understood as a bridge between Anglicanism and Catholicism, something Anglican leaders aren't particularly thrilled about but that didn't stop Pope Benedict XVI from setting up the structure a few years back. This is also as good a time as any to note that a CHAPLIN is like the priest-level edition of an ordinary, in the sense that they're dedicated to a specific group of people that isn't a geographic thing, and also in the sense that it's often something you'll see in a military or other institutional context, and *also* in the sense that a chaplain might not actually be a priest even though they carry out many similar functions, much like an ordinary may not actually be a bishop. Alright, next up, let's start looking at what's going on within a typical diocese, especially at Mass, that most Catholic of ceremonies. As you might have guessed, we're going to be talking a fair bit about PRIESTS today, so let's dive in there. Priests, like bishops, receive Holy Orders through ordination. They effectively function as a stand-in for the bishop, serving as his delegates in the local churches called PARISHES. They have apostolic succession only in a secondary sense- their holy orders are valid because of their bishop's valid apostolic succession, and they cannot ordain successors themselves. Unless of course they also happen to be a bishop, which, yes, Mr Offscreen Pedant, bishops are also priests, but I'm speaking specifically about priests who are not also bishops. All bishops are priests and deacons to boot, holy orders is a three-part deal that stacks up like that. Of course, not all deacons are priests, and not all priests are bishops. It's a squares and rectangles kind of thing. The primary function of a priest is to administer sacraments, especially saying Mass and hearing confessions. I actually have my sacraments series done for the Solemn High Pod, so check out the three part Popeular History episode 0.20 if you want to know more about Mass and the sacraments. If 0.23 and dare I hope 0.31 are done by the time you're listening to this you can check out those as well for more on the Mass. Like Bishops, priests are generally expected to practice clerical celibacy, especially in the Latin church but also in the East in the sense that they cannot get married after ordination. So if they want to join the ranks of the married clergy, they better already have the married part done before they do the clergy part. A priest is the most essential person when it comes to Mass, because priests are the ones who either celebrate or say Mass–either of those verbs will work, by the way, and I'm not actually aware of a difference in meaning. Anyways, this is brought home by the fact that priests can literally say Mass by themselves, with no one else present. And I don't want to go too far into theology in this org chart overview, but I really should note that ultimately, on a theological level, it's not so much the priests themselves saying Mass or hearing confessions, rather it's Christ acting through them. What about deacons? Well, first off, there are two kinds of deacons in current practice: TRANSITIONAL DEACONS and PERMANENT DEACONS. The transitional deaconate is a step towards priesthood, and typically lasts a year. It's the first rung of Holy Orders, the first ordination the future priest will receive. In the case of permanent deacons, rather than a stepping stone the diaconate is its own vocation, with the recruiting focus being on men ages 35-55 or so depending on the diocese. Even in the west married permanent deacons are normal, though still with the same caveat that I mentioned for eastern priests earlier: once you're ordained no more new marriages for you. Deacons have an assisting role at Mass and administering other rites and sacraments but historically their main role has been more in the realm of what's called works of mercy, aka helping the poor, as that was the original idea behind setting up the diaconate as outlined in the biblical Book of Acts. It was only in recent times–recent times in the scale of Catholicism of course meaning in you know, living memory, it's a big timeline–anyways it was only in recent times that the permanent diaconate was revived after a millenium of suppression. Technically, to be sure, there were some deacons in the middle ages–Pope Gregory VII gained his reputation as Deacon Hildebrand- but outside of the Papal court, where titles tend to carry on regardless, DROPDROP they were scarcely more than a step to the priesthood, DROPDROP that transitional model I mentioned earlier. Before that decline, deacons were actually generally more impactful than priests, often serving as the bishop's right hand, especially in the form of ARCHDEACONS. This model is still largely present in the Eastern Churches, especially if you recall that Arkdiyakon role I mentioned in the context of the Thomas Christians I mentioned last month. Finally, I should note that there is strong historical evidence for a female diaconate in the early Church, for example in Romans 16 Saint Paul refers to a certain Phoebe as a deaconess, and unlike in the historical argument over female priests and bishops, the Church accepts a form of female diaconate as a historical reality. However, it is argued that women deacons were not ordained, that their role was fundamentally different from that of male deacons. Whether to revive an unordained form of female diaconate is an active topic of discussion in Rome. Of course, we're well into the weeds now. Things have changed. But before we make our way back to the modern Church, let's take a quick look at how Holy Orders worked prior to the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. Before Vatican II, Holy Orders didn't start with the diaconate, the priesthood was actually the culmination of a seven-step process that began with what's called the minor orders. The lowest rung of this ladder was the PORTER, being basically the church doorman. After that, the LECTOR, in charge of some of the Bible reading at Mass, and a role which largely survived the council but was taken out of the context of a step on the path to priesthood, to the extent that even shock of shocks women can be Lectors. Next up was the ever crowd-pleasing role of EXORCIST, one trained to cast out demons, and perhaps surprisingly that's another role that's still with us, now taking the form of a special category of priests. As I understand it, to this day each Diocese has at least one exorcist, though their identities are typically kept secret because, ya know, kooks who won't stop bugging him because, I mean, real-life-exorcist. Cool. Finally, up at the top of the minor orders there was the role of ACOLYTE. Think alter server but one of the more active ones, not just a candle-holder. And yes, a role that was once higher than an exorcist is now generally occupied by a middle schooler. Right above the minor orders was the first rank that required ordination- no, not the deacon, the SUB-DEACON. Like all the other minor orders suppressed in the West, this role has been preserved in the East. Take this how you will, but the East has tended to more scrupulously preserve tradition than the Latin Church. It probably helps that they have no one with sufficient authority to come close to mucking around with tradition. I honestly don't think we'll be talking about sub-deacons much, but just know they're, well, right below a standard-issue deacon in the medieval pecking order, as you might have guessed, assisting at mass in similar but different roles. This office went away in the West with the abolition of the minor orders in Vatican II. After the sub-deacon the medieval and early modern seven stages of Holy Orders culminated with the familiar roles of Deacon- full on deacon this time- and then priest. Note that Bishop was not really considered a part of this progression in this model. Now, let's take a moment to chat through a couple other church roles largely or totally left to history while we're in the neighborhood. First, who can forget the fact that there's a whole Canterbury tale dedicated to the PARDONER. This wasn't someone who specialized in hearing confessions and absolving sins as you might expect after that episode we did on the newly elevated Cardinal Dri, the elderly Argintinian Capuchin with that focus. Instead, the focus of the Pardoner was on selling indulgences, those get-out-of-Purgatory-free cards that brought enough scandal to destroy the unity of western Christendom. And yes, I'm kind of acting like you already know about the Protestant Reformation in the same episode where I explain at a basic level what a priest is. Anyways, speaking of Protestants–or quasi-Protestants, or whatever you want to call them, perhaps just Anglicans– speaking of Anglicans, in many ways they're an even better time capsule for preserving some things lost to modern Catholicism than the East. Obviously not in all stripes of Anglicanism, as that wide tent contains a lot of innovations, but, well, on the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic end of the spectrum you can still find things like CANONS and PREBENDS. Canons with one N of course, the church kind, though of course the martial Pope Julius II was fond of two-N cannons as well. Anyways, even ruling out the military cannons I need to specify, as there are not one not two but three distinct meanings of a one-N canon in medieval Catholicism and actually in contemporary Catholicism as well, though the role of canon- by definition our focus on this episode on roles in the Catholic Church- the role is much less common than it once was. But first, the most common meaning of the term Canon in contemporary Catholicism is in the context of Canon law, because that's the term for way the Church governs itself and specific sections of the overall governing document are called canons. Similarly, church councils, that is, gatherings of church leaders, also tend to produce canons, especially the great ecumenical–that is, universal–councils of old that we'll start discussing when we get to the fourth century. So for example someone might cite the first canon of the Council of Nicea, where the Church of old ruled on the pressing question of how being castrated would or would not impact one's ability to serve as a priest. There's also something called the Canon of the Mass, and really the root word helps to understand the meaning of both this and the law slash council thing, because a canon in Latin is something like a fixed measuring stick. The fixed part of Mass is the section of prayers that are always the same, or at least that were always the same until our old friend Vatican II made other options available (again, as I understand it). Nowadays the Canon of the Mass, also called the Roman Canon, is additionally referred to as Eucharistic Prayer 1, implying the existence of Eucharistic Prayer 2, which isn't just a theoretical thing but a real life shorter form that liturgical traditionalists like myself tend to hate. There's also Eucharistic Prayers 3 and 4, which are less egregious, but still, stick with Eucharistic Prayer 1, aka the Roman Canon, if you would be so kind. The third kind of Canon is, at last, the role, and interestingly the etymology here is the same root as the others, giving the sense of something standardized or fixed in place. In this case, the standardization is because the "Canons" of a cathedral or other significant church were a group of priests who had decided to live communally and establish their spiritual and physical lives around a set of rules, you know, standardizing them. Canonizing their lives, if you will. They were basically members of a religious order, though not one centrally governed. Oh, and I suppose I should also note that the term canonization fits into this overall picture in a similar way: it's called canonization because what canonization does is standardize the cult of a particular saint across the universal church. Oh and stop saying cult like it's a bad thing, in this case that's just the word used. It's not a wink and a nod to kool-aid. Also, a canon in the sense of a cathedral canon or other role in a religious order is different from a canon*ist* or a canon lawyer, which is one who studies and explains or practices Church law, respectively. Clear as mud? Fair. Oh, and the PREBEND I mentioned, well, that's basically just a fancier kind of Cathedral canon. Let's move on though. The last historical Church role I want to talk about today is the KING. Or the EMPEROR. Or, you know, whoever the relevant feudal LORD would be. Because such secular leaders were nevertheless seen as having a critical role within the Church, with the civil government and the Church not then tending to have the separation we're used to these days. Really, nobility in general was a big deal for the church until the last century or so. Ok, so we've talked about the various forms of bishops and their territories, and about who you might see at Mass. What about those between? Well, one of the most important functions in Church organization is training up the next generation of leadership, and that training of new priests tends to take place at special institutes called SEMINARIES. You can basically think of seminaries as universities for future priests, and there's also a junior league of sorts for younger students that's basically a kind of boarding school called a MINOR SEMINARY. Those who study at seminaries are called SEMINARIANS, and those who teach there are nowadays generally titled PROFESSORS having the same basic sense as in the secular world but with Catholicism baked in. Kind of like this show verses a generic non-Popeular podcast. The head of a seminary is generally called a RECTOR, though I'm sure there's some variety in that. As you may know depending on what's common in your neck of the woods, rector can also have the same basic sense in secular institutes of higher learning as well, which makes sense when you take a look at the root word there: basically, "ruler". Etymology is our friend here, there, and everywhere. Outside of seminary education, there's also the topic of the general administrative structure of a given diocese. Obviously the bishop is on top, and as you probably already guessed the priests of the diocese typically have admin roles in addition to saying Mass. As an American Catholic, I'm mostly used to hearing the term PASTOR for a priest who's tasked with running a local church community called a PARISH, though I gather canonically the Anglican sounding term VICAR is more precise. You'll also hear the term PARISH PRIEST used in the same sense. A single parish may have more than one priest assigned to it by the diocesan powers that be. A secondary priest is called a PAROCHIAL VICAR in more  official stuff but ASSOCIATE PASTOR is the term you'll hear in common parlance, at least in American use. You might also see someone described as a CURATE, which in modern use designates a priest who assists the principal Vicar or Pastor or Rector of whatever, but historically would refer to the pastor themselves, and yes, it's complicated. There are higher levels to consider as well, both administratively and in terms of honorary titles. For example, MONSIGNOR is a special honorary title given to seasoned priests at the discretion of the Pope. It's not really a role, since it's purely a title and has no special function, but I figured I'd include it here. There are three levels within being titled a Monsignor, first a "CHAPLAIN OF HIS HOLINESS", second an "HONORARY PRELATE", and finally a "PROTONOTARY APOSTOLIC". These sorts of honorifics are currently out of favor in Rome given Pope Francis' strong preference for simple aesthetics and not seeking honor and titles, but he's pushing against a very long tradition of honors and titles in Roman culture, long enough that it goes back to the Cursus Honorum of ancient Pagan Rome, and I expect with the back-and-forth way the Papacy and the Curia operate, we haven't seen the last of ecclesiastical honorifics. After a fat Pope, the saying goes, a skinny Pope. Oh, there's even a kind of honorific for church buildings that functions in kind of the same way as making a priest a Monsignor, namely the status of BASILICA, which is basically just a way for the powers that be to say "hey check out this church it's extra nifty". Of course, not all higher titles within a Diocese are honorifics, there are functional roles as well. The overall day-to-day admin of the diocese is typically not run by the Bishop personally but by an office called the CHANCERY run by a CHANCELLOR, another term you may have heard in higher education because there's historical overlap between higher education and the admin of the Catholic Church or, you know, medieval courts in general. VICE-CHANCELLORS are also a thing, being second in command, behind the Chancellor. If you want a little more insight into what a Diocesan Chancery does, my home Diocese of Columbus has a write-up on their website that explains it better than I would so allow me to just quote them: "The Chancery includes those offices and persons who directly assist the Bishop in the pastoral and administrative governance of the Diocese of Columbus. The Chancery, on behalf of the Bishop, expedites canonical matters; collects and preserves diocesan and parish records; assists parishes and priests with civil matters; maintains files on priests and parishes; collects statistical information for the Diocese; facilitates communications with other dioceses and the Vatican; provides information on the Church or directs inquirers to appropriate sources; facilitates pre-Marriage dispensations and permissions and transmits to other dioceses pre-marriage files; and oversees diocesan offices." The rough Papal equivalent to the diocesan Chancery is the Roman CURIA. In Rome, the Church bureaucracy is sprawling. It's no secret that bureaucracies tend to grow over time when left unchecked, and historically Rome was just about the last place to look for a check on a bureaucracy. Even the ancient pre-Christian Romans exalted bureaucracy, with their skills as administrators being credited as a major unifying force for the Empire. Of course, administrative skills and bureaucracy can almost be contradictory concepts– after all, getting things done requires moving beyond committee after committee. But ultimately the purpose of the Curia is to spread the faith handed down from the Apostles throughout the world, and with that emphasis on handing down, tradition is a huge part of things. When you combine an emphasis on tradition with a massive scale- there are well over a billion Catholics in the world today- and a global scope–well, the Curia is absolutely massive and, despite repeated efforts at overhauling things, it's complicated as well. It would be deeply ironic but not inaccurate to call it Byzantine, a term for “really really complicated” drawn from another institution derived from ancient Rome, though the Byzantine empire is no more and the papacy is more globalized than ever. Pope Francis has been toying with the formula more than any other Pope in recent history, time will tell if the changes stick. One of the most apparent changes Pope Francis has made to the Curia, certainly in the context of our rundown of specific terms, is rebranding the various PONTIFICAL COUNCILS and CONGREGATIONS to DICASTERIES. The practical effect of this is minor but it's helpful to recognize these terms as referring to high level Curial departments–often but not always headed by Cardinals, indeed Pope Francis has structured things so there is no longer any official bar to Dicasteries headed by, say, a woman, though that hasn't actually happened yet. In any event, the heads of Dicasteries or Congregations or Pontifical Councils or whatever you want to call them are called PREFECTS, with the second in command being listed as SECRETARIES, and then things like UNDERSECRETARIES appearing further down the chain of command but still fairly high on the overall curial org chart. The CARDINALS I mentioned there are a special role connected to the Diocese of Rome. As a group they are called the COLLEGE OF CARDINALS, in much the same way that the bishops throughout the world collectively make up the COLLEGE OF BISHOPS. Most famously, it is the eligible Cardinals under the age of 80 who pick the next pope in a closed voting contest called a CONCLAVE during a Papal Sede Vacante, in a period of “vacant see”, you know, “empty chair”. Meetings of Cardinals more broadly speaking are called CONSISTORIES, because yeah, pretty much everything has a special term here, that's why you're listening to this episode. The office of Cardinal has historical connections to the clergy of Rome but it is not by definition an ordained role, meaning there could conceivably be women as Cardinals in the future as I discussed in my September 28th episode this year. There are three fundamental orders of Cardinals, the names of which are rooted in the origins of the college but which are no longer tied to their respective levels of Holy Orders in any particular way as all modern Cardinals are at least priests and most are bishops. Nevertheless, Cardinals are Categorized as either CARDINAL-BISHOPS, the highest level, or CARDINAL-PRIESTS, in the middle, or CARDINAL DEACONS, the lowest category, though really if you're a Cardinal even at the lowest level you're still pretty high up in the Church's pecking order. Special roles within the College of Cardinals include the PROTOPRIEST and the PROTODEACON, the longest serving of those respective orders. Historically, it was the Protodeacon's job to crown the Pope, though Popes haven't opted for crowns in decades. It's also the job of the most senior cardinal deacon participating in the Conclave to announce the new Pope through what's called the HABEMUS PAPAM, Latin for "we have a Pope". A specific name for a specific speech. Speaking of Conclaves and Papal Sede Vacantes and such, the CAMERLENGO OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH is the one who runs the show when there's no Pope around, assisted, of course, by a VICE CAMERLENGO. And to give you an idea of *just* *how* *wonky* the Curia can be, though the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church is generally a Cardinal, he should not be confused with the CAMERLENGO OF THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS, a role dedicated to administering the financial affairs of the Cardinals which has, mercifully, recently been allowed to lapse. So, yeah. There are a huge number of special roles and titles connected to the Curia. We'll be seeing them in action repeatedly as we go, but I don't want to get too hung up on them in this overview. Needless to say, Rome is a special case, full of special cases. Before we go, I do want to point out the NUNCIOS are effectively Papal Ambassadors, and the offices they head are called NUNCIATURES. A small step down the latter of diplomatic precedence there are PRO-NUNCIOS who have PRO-NUNCIATURES and who perhaps aspire to be full-on Nuncios one day–yes, oddly, in this case the "pro" prefix actually signifies as a *lower* rank. Finally, it would be just plain wrong of me to skip the fact that there is an important role called the LIBRARIAN OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and which was historically also known as the BIBLIOTHECARIUS. Don't worry, we'll be following them especially closely. Anyways, any more standard diocese, including Columbus, may not have something as deep and extensive as the Curia, but they still have their own complexities not only within but also beyond the walls of the Chancery, often being subdivided into units called DEANERIES, which are groups of parishes. These multi-parish groups are headed, as you might have guessed, by someone called a DEAN, though you might have also guessed that a more official and less intuitive name exists in canon law: a deanery can also be listed as a FORANE VICARIATE, headed by a VICAR FORANE. There are other roles that aren't geographically based but are still critical to the functioning of the diocese, such as NOTARIES, who are permitted to draw up official documents on behalf of the local Church, and CONSULTORS, who, well, are there for the bishop to consult with on specific topics where he may need their advice. Ok, we're getting there. Now, you might think you know what RELIGIOUS means, but in a Catholic context it has a narrower definition. Being *a* religious means you have taken RELIGIOUS VOWS, specifically THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Obedience, in this case, meaning obedience to a religious superior. Welcome to the world of RELIGIOUS ORDERS, which you might also know variously as RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES, INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE, SOCIETIES OF APOSTOLIC LIFE, or even CONGREGATIONS, depending on a variety of factors and generally distinguished at a deeper level than I want to get into today. A fair amount of the variety comes from the various religious orders having their own distinct rules, called, well, RULES, and particular focuses, called CHARISMS. They also traditionally have distinct uniforms, called HABITS. You can typically recognize members of different religious orders by their habits, for example white and black robes will most often be a Dominican, brown or sometimes gray will trend to signify a Franciscan of some sort, though there are a lot more religious orders than there are basic colors so brown is also the dominant color in the unrelated Carmelite order. Anyways, the most classic form of a religious order is a MONASTERY with the members of the order being known as MONKS in the case of males or NUNS in the case of females– and monasteries have always been segregated by gender though there were historically sometimes what was called DOUBLE MONASTERIES with male and female wings. Given everyone involved had taken a vow of chastity, such a separation was seen as a practical step. Now, you might be surprised to hear me mentioning nuns in the context of a monastery, rather a CONVENT, a similar institution, which in contemporary English is where you'd expect to find nuns, with monasteries being reserved for monks. But I want to give you some historical understanding as well, and historically the distinction between a convent and a monastery was not one of gender but of specific type. Monasteries tended to be more rural and therefore removed from worldly concerns but could be communities of either gender, while convents tended to be more urban and therefore a bit more integrated into secular society. But that historical sense has faded sufficiently in English that you'll get weird looks if you say there are nuns in a monastery or monks in a convent. You may be technically correct, which is indeed the best kind of correct, but just be aware that the non-gendered sense of the terms is now not as common as it once was. Either way, members of religious communities are generally called BROTHER or SISTER as the default form of address unless another title supersedes. The head of a monastery is typically called an ABBOT in the case of a male CONGREGATION or an ABBESS in the case of a female congregation- the congregation being the community itself. Second in command in the case of a larger community or perhaps in overall command of a smaller community that is itself subordinated to a mother house is a PRIOR or PRIORESS, the former for a male community and the latter for a female community. In terms of the overall building, if the person in charge is an Abbott or Abbess then it's an ABBEY, if it's run by a Prior or a Prioress it's called a PRIORY, though it's not unusual for folks to simply fall back on the simplified and gendered newer meanings of monastery and convent I described earlier. A generic term for those in charge of a religious community is a SUPERIOR, or perhaps MOTHER SUPERIOR, with the leadership of the overall global order being typically called a SUPERIOR GENERAL. There's also a middle range of governance called a PROVINCE, giving that word a similar meaning to what we saw on the Diocesan side of things. All of these communities vary in a number of ways. Some are more removed from worldly affairs, with few to no outside visiters, those communities are called CLOISTERED. These communities go back to the origins of Christian monasticism, where an individual would often feel inspired to withdraw from the world and live a life of severe ASCETICISM, that is, renouncing pleasure and embracing prayer and PENANCE-reparations for sins-  in the hope of spiritual rewards. In the common narrative, folks would come out to such HERMITS, who might be called DESERT FATHERS or DESERT MOTHERS, and seek to follow their example, forming a community. The term for the individual ascetic who vows to follow the evangelical counsels is a hermit like I mentioned or you might also call them an ANCHORITE, and that form of monasticism is EREMITIC, from same root word as "hermit". Once you're talking about living in community, that particular form of monasticism is called CENOBITIC monasticism, combining the greek words for "common" and "life". Not all monasticism is that degree of renunciation of the world, though certainly that form was most established in the early Church. But over time other orders with various special charisms- special focuses- emerged, with the rise of the MENDICANT orders- those that essentially live by begging- occurring in the 13th century, with the Franciscans and the Dominicans being classic examples. Male mendicants are called FRIARS. In time there would also be MISSIONARY orders such as the Jesuits or the Salesians, as you might guess those being dedicated to spreading Christianity to areas where Christianity was a minority. Members of missionary orders are simply called brothers or sisters, leaving the monk and nun labels to those living in more traditional communities. In a number of cases the communally living religious orders have established affiliated entities designed to allow those who live outside their actual communal life to nevertheless observe some form of their rule and wear some form of their habit. These are called THIRD ORDERS, the first and second orders being by implication the monks and the nuns in their communities. Members of third orders are also called TERTIARIES. Historically similar to third orders were things like BEGUINES and their male equivalents, BEGHARDS, though those were as much defined by their lack of official status in the Church as anything else, which makes them an awkward addition to this episode. So I'll leave it at that. Anyways, with the permission of their superior- keep in mind obedience is one of the monastic vows–the others being poverty and chastity if you need a refresher–anyway with the permission of their superior male religious are able to receive ordination and become clergy. Religious who become priests are called RELIGIOUS PRIESTS, which is fair enough as a title but does have an amusing effect in that priests who are not members of a religious order are called SECULAR PRIESTS, a term that made me laugh when I first saw it and which still makes me chuckle from time to time. They can also be called DIOCESAN PRIESTS, but what's the fun in that? Believe it or not, this overview has left a lot out. Like, I never told you about how CATHOLICOS was originally a title for a bishop whose territory was more devoted to a region than a specific city, but that it evolved to be the highest title in the Church of the East. But that's in part because while I intend to cover all 23 SUI IURIS–that is, self governing– churches that make up the overall Catholic church, nevertheless the ROMAN or LATIN CHURCH is the dominant stream of Catholic history, making up over 98% of Catholics today. In case I haven't made it clear enough yet, let me emphasize again that this stuff does get complicated and you don't need to feel bad about not knowing it all offhand. I've thought about this stuff for hours daily and I don't meet that bar, this episode required research like every other. But I hope this guide helps bring some clarity and can serve as a useful reference as you go. If I didn't explain it here, and possibly even if I did, I promise I'll explain it when it comes up as we go. Thank you for listening, God bless you all!

C'est une véritable tendance dans l'édition française : l'ésotérisme a la cote ! Sorcellerie, tarot, vies antérieures, féminin sacré… On voit fleurir des livres de développement personnel ésotériques et spiritualité en veux-tu en voilà, pour le meilleur et pour le pire. Dans cet épisode de Torchon, les très féminines Juliette et Léa décryptent cette tendance à travers leur critique du grand livre du féminin sacrée par la sorcière québécoise Josée-Anne Sarazin-Cote. Au programme, elle y parle de chasse aux sorcières, de matriarcat ancestral, de tarot et lithothérapie, d'huiles essentiels et cercles de femmes, de méditation et de… l'arrêt de la pilule contraceptive ? Un grimoire un peu fourre-tout, en mode appropriation culturelle des chakras indiens jusqu'au palo santo incas, qui vous donnera envie de danser pieds nus pendant une nuit de pleine lune. Mais un livre qui décrit la pensée analytique et le sens critique comme des attributs masculins peut-il être bien reçue par des critiques littéraires femmes ? Est-ce que, derrière ces rituels plutôt inoffensifs, ils ne se cacheraient pas des idéologies vaguement toxiques ? Ou peut-être que notre critique (un peu) sévère est liée à un déséquilibre de notre féminin sacrée... A vous de nous le dire !  Autres livres cités :  Je crois donc je suis : Le grand bazar des croyances contemporaines de Thierry Jobard (Rue de L'échiquier - 2023)  La Nuit des Beguines de Aline Kiner (Liana Lévy - 2017)  Désirer à tout prix de Tal Madesta (Binge Audio - 2022) 

In our third season of Secular Christ with Sean J. McGrath we go searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The series will go live in early 2024.

Amie is joined by guest co-host Yanna Slack. Yanna's experience with spinsterhood started in childhood when she was surrounded by multiple single women who lived fulfilled lives full of peace and freedom. Today, she tells us about the Beguines, an independent spiritual order that gave women the freedom to remain single, and the invaluable service they provided to their communities. This is part one of two. Join us next week when we discuss how single women can live independent lives in sickness and in health.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thespinsterlife.substack.com

Ep:106 Author Barbara Wilson, recipient of the Golden Crown Literary Society 2020 Trailblazer Award discusses with Brad what it means to be a trailblazer, the spinster sleuth and having series characters grow older, and diverse types of lesbian love. In addition, Barbara describes the Beguines who were women living in communities of up to 60 or 70 mostly supporting themselves and spent time in religious contemplation. Queer Writers of Crimes is rated by Buzzfeed as one of the 20 Best Queer Podcasts to Tune in to While Going About Your Daily Queer Life.Podcast Website:   www.queerwritersofcrime.comSign up for the show's Queer Writers of Crime newsletter.Check out Queer Writers of Crime Guest's blog.Help Support This Podcast   buymeacoffee.com/queerwriters   Leave a Review https://lovethepodcast.com/queerwritersofcrimeDisclosure: To cover the cost of producing Queer Writers of Crime, some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, Brad will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.Love Dies Twice by Barbara Wilson https://amzn.to/37OM8FvNot the Real Jupiter by Barbara Wilson  https://amzn.to/3Jw6IscBarbara Wilson's Website:  www.barbarawilsonmysteries.comBarbara Wilson is the author of eight previous mysteries, including the recent Cassandra Reilly mystery, Not the Real Jupiter, praised by Foreword as “a fascinating mystery novel that probes women's stories and exposes niche publishing corners in delightful ways.” Her mystery, Gaudí Afternoon, was made into a movie starring Judy Davis and Marcia Gay Hardin. She is a winner of two Lambda Literary awards and the British Crime Writers' award for best thriller set in Europe. As Barbara Sjoholm, she is the author of memoir, travelogues, and nonfiction, and an award-winning translator of Norwegian and Danish. She was co-founder of Seal Press in Seattle. For her contributions to lesbian literature, she received the 2020 Golden Crown Literary Society Trailblazer Award. Brad's Website: bradshreve.comSupport Requeered Tales  re-publishing award-winning, post-Stonewall gay and lesbian fiction — with a focus on mystery, literary and horror/sci-fi genres.requeeredtales.com

Mark Vernon, psychotherapist and writer, joins me to talk about The Divine Comedy, the Beguines, and bobbit worms.Want to help Cassettes grow? Become a patron at patreon.com/cassettespodcast and get full-length episodes with double the content, 48 hours early.Follow Cassettes on...Instagram: @cassettespodcastTwitter: @cassettes_podSpecial thanks to Chris Maier, who did the music. Find him here.GUEST LINKSMark's book (Amazon): 'Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey' Mark's Aeon articlesMark's websiteMark's Twitter: @platospodcastsTHINGS WE MENTIONEDIain McGilchristThe Divine Comedy, Dante AlighieriVirgilCatoGiovanni BoccaccioJulian of NorwichConfessions (Augustine)Rainer Maria RilkeBeguinesThe Mirror of Simple Souls, Marguerite PoreteCatherine of GenoaMaya (ignorance)SamsaraUpanishadsCarl RogersBobbit wormMeister EckhartThomas AquinasIris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of GoodPaul's analogy, "For the body is not one member, but many."Privatio boni / Absence of good (argument)★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The story of Christina Von Stommeln, the rise of the Beguines and the Bollandists 

Our focus this week is a building that has been used continuously for centuries, first for the religious Beguines, then for poor orphaned children and now by the Maastricht University College! Yes, this week we're talking about the Nieuwenhof or 'New Court', tune in to find out more. As always, if you have something you have always wanted to know about Maastricht or wanted to ask a local, please contact us through social media or our website and we will do our best to answer your questions in future episodes! For some more information and great archival images, check out the youtube video for this episode here and the webpage here. You can find us at: Website: meetmaastricht.eu Instagram: @meet_maastricht Facebook: Meet Maastricht YouTube: Meet Maastricht To use this content or for further business inquiries please contact Meet Maastricht via our website. (c) Meet Maastricht 2020

Beguines, Boston Marriage, and Bed Death: Historic Archetypes of Asexual Lesbianism The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 16 with Heather Rose Jones This show takes a tour through a variety of social models in European history that recognized committed romantic partnerships between women that did not focus on sexual desire. In this episode we talk about: Emotional partnerships between women dedicated to religious chastity The rise of Neo-Platonic friendship as a model for women's relationships The divergence between models of erotic and platonic female partnerships The rise of the Romantic Friendship over the 17th to 19th centuries and how economic changes made it an achievable ideal The origin of the term Boston Marriage The concept of “political lesbianism” The myth of “lesbian bed death” and how it can speak to some couples This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here: Monastic communities Romantic friendship Boston marriage A transcript of this podcast is available here. Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/ Twitter: @LesbianMotif Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon Links to Heather Online Website: http://alpennia.com Email: Heather Rose Jones Twitter: @heatherosejones Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Often, people think of the women of medieval Europe as either wives or nuns: women whose lives and property were under the control of someone else. But what tends to be forgotten is that for some women there was a third option: to become a beguine. This week, Danièle speaks with Dr. Tanya Stabler Miller about who the beguines were, and what medieval society thought of them.

  Dando continuidade ao tema "As Mulheres na Filosofia", neste episódio, Helenice Vieira Piovezani, aborda o tema das Beguines, o extraordinário surgimento deste grupo de mulheres na idade média, sua cultura, hábitos, filosofia em meio à todo o cenário complexo daquela época. Participantes: Helenice Vieira Piovezani e Danilo Gomes Trilha Sonora: Mozart - Pequena Música Noturna n.º 3  

This week we learn about a military woman from the American Revolution and a French author who wrote The Mirror of Simple Souls in the 13th century. SAMPSON https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/womansoldier.html https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/deborah-sampson https://www.britannica.com/biography/Deborah-Sampson http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2010/04/deborah-sampson-gannett.html PORETE https://www-jstor-org.proxy.brynmawr.edu/stable/j.ctv1qv1tx.8 http://www.uncg.edu/~rebarton/margporete.htm https://www.britannica.com/topic/Beguines#ref209863

Tasting Notes: Decentralized organizing, feminist resistance, the Eucharist, Penguins, hospitality, urbanization and civil resistance. Reading Notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beguines_and_Beghards; https://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/margin/beguine1.htm; http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~eknuth/xpxx/beguines.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/travel/13journeys.html

The Medieval Beguines With Julie Hopkins by WCCM

SISTERS OF THE VALLEY. The Weed Nuns! Made famous by a viral video featuring the actress Aubrey Plaza smoking out with them, the Sisters Of The Valley represent so much more than getting baked. Sister Kate talks about the Central California sisterhood's commitment to service, sacrifice, and justice; their vows; the Beguines of the Middle Ages; the "me too" movement (her take may be different than expected); and more. Follow No-Prize From God on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Follow Ryan J. Downey on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.  Check out other PopCurse network podcasts: PopCurse, No Prize From God, and Hoosier Illusion.

Peter, Bernard, and Marianne respond to the Nashville Statement, discuss the challenge college students face in thinking for themselves, consider whether politics and religion should be discussed at the dinner table, and have a conversation about how the Beguines, Beghards, and other communal movements have inspired the Bruderhof (part of a continuing discussion of the document "Foundations of our Faith and Calling," the Bruderhof's public account of its faith and practice). Here are some of the links and references from this episode: -Nashville Statement - https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement -'Responding to the Nashville Statement' by J. Heinrich Arnold - http://www.bruderhof.com/en/voices-blog/world/responding-to-the-nashville-statement -'Some Thoughts and Advice for Our Students and All Students' - https://jmp.princeton.edu/announcements/some-thoughts-and-advice-our-students-and-all-students -'Ivy League Scholars Urge Students: 'Think for Yourself'' by Conor Friedersdorf - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/ivy-league-scholars-urge-students-think-for-yourself/538317/ -'Religion and Politics at the Dinner Table' by Christopher W. Love - http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/08/19790/ -Foundations of our Faith and Calling - http://www.bruderhof.com/foundations -'Activist Mystics' by Michael Martin - https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/activist-mystics 'God's Revolution' by Eberhard Arnold - https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/gods-revolution Rate us and leave us a comment on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Check out the Bruderhof's website at www.bruderhof.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/thebruderhof Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheBruderhof Instagram: www.instagram.com/bruderhofcommunities Email: contact@bruderhof.com

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast  Episode 13d - Beguines, Boston Marriage, and Bed Death: Historic Archetypes of Asexual Lesbianism  This show takes a tour through a variety of social models in European history that recognized committed romantic partnerships between women that did not focus on sexual desire.  In this episode we talk about  Emotional partnerships between women dedicated to religious chastity  The rise of Neo-Platonic friendship as a model for women’s relationships  The divergence between models of erotic and platonic female partnerships  The rise of the Romantic Friendship over the 17th to 19th centuries and how economic changes made it an achievable ideal  The origin of the term Boston Marriage  The concept of “political lesbianism”  The myth of “lesbian bed death” and how it can speak to some couples    More info  The Lesbian Historic Motif Project lives here  You can follow the blog on my website or subscribe to the RSS feed  This topic is drawn from a wide variety of sources covered in the Lesbian Historic Motif Project. The following tags will provide further reading on the central themes:  http://alpennia.com/lhmp/lhmp-misc/monastic-communities  http://alpennia.com/lhmp/lhmp-misc/romantic-friendship  http://alpennia.com/lhmp/lhmp-misc/boston-marriage  If you have questions or comments about the LHMP or these podcasts, send them to: contact@alpennia.com

Series title: Retreat Day With the Mystics: The Medieval Beguines Title of talk: The Medieval Beguines Speaker: Rev Julie Hopkins Date: Saturday 30 May 2015 Venue: The Meditatio Centre

Series title: Retreat Day With the Mystics: The Medieval Beguines Title of talk: The Medieval Beguines Speaker: Rev Julie Hopkins Date: Saturday 30 May 2015 Venue: The Meditatio Centre

Series title: Retreat Day With the Mystics: The Medieval Beguines Title of talk: The Medieval Beguines Speaker: Rev Julie Hopkins Date: Saturday 30 May 2015 Venue: The Meditatio Centre

Series title: Retreat Day With the Mystics: The Medieval Beguines Title of talk: The Medieval Beguines Speaker: Rev Julie Hopkins Date: Saturday 30 May 2015 Venue: The Meditatio Centre

Scholar, author and foremother, Carol Christ joins us tonight to discuss The Goddess and the Joy of Life in Ancient Crete.  We'll delve into new research on matriarchies, the difference from patriarchy, define "love is free" in matriarchal societies and chat about Crete being a "gift giving" society.   We'll talk about ancient rituals on Crete, redefine patriarchal myths and discuss the "immanental turn" in feminist theologies - and more..... Crossing the threshold into the second half of the show, returning is Matthew Fox, author of over 30 books including the Hidden Spirituality of Men, Christian Mystics and the most recently, Meister Eckhart.  Matthew, a preeminent scholar and popularizer of Western mysticism, became an Episcopal priest after being excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI for such ideas as earth based spirituality and the Sacred Feminine.  Matthew will discuss Meister Echhart (1260-1329) A Mystic Warrior for Our Times whose thinking/preaching was inalignment with the Beguines and the feminist and poet, Adrienne Rich.

At the top of the hour Sr. Greta Ronningen of the Community of Divine Love will talk about the Spirituality of the Beguines, a 13th century Women's Movement.  With this being Women's History Month, let us improve the dearth of women's history out there be shedding light on this group of women living love both in mystical union and in the world, risking death to speak and write their experiences.  Discover how they can inspire us today. Crossing the threshold into the second half of the show Gus diZerega is back with us discussing his newest book, Faultlines: The Culture War & the Return of the Divine Feminine, an indepth study of the crisis in American society and government from a Pagan perspective and how the return of the Divine Feminine offers answers to our many problems.

This is the 6th episode in our podcast mini-series The Long Road to Reform.Much of the reform energy in the European Church of the Late Middle Ages was among the poor. Being poor meant being illiterate. The poor and illiterate don't, as a rule, write books about their hopes and dreams.  So it's often from sources hostile to the reforming movements of this era we learn of them. That hostility colors the picture of them much of history since has regarded them by.Wycliffe's ideas lived on, not so much among scholars or nobles who initially endorsed them, as among the poverty-committed Lollards who went from village to village, carrying his reforms like torches, continually setting new places ablaze with reforming zeal. The Lollards preached a simple Gospel that contradicted a great deal of what commoners heard from local priests.In Bohemia, the ideas of Jan Hus, at first so popular among the gentry, ended up being embodied by an Apocalyptic sect called the Taborites, made up largely of the illiterate poor.Another movement took place in the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance that rarely seems mention. We've already talked about how some women were drawn to the monastic life and lived in sequestered communities affiliated with a men's compound. There were orders for women in both the Franciscans and Dominicans. But in the late Middle Ages, the number of women seeking inclusion in these orders swelled dramatically. So many applied, the orders had to limit their intake of new sisters. Those rejected didn't just shrug their shoulders and go home; back to the default of being a wife and mother. Many of them decided—if the established orders wouldn't take them, they'd form their own communities. Though not sanctioned by the Church, they devoted themselves to corporate lives of prayer, devotion, and poverty. Called beguines, [beg-geenz] their communities were usually large houses they converted into beguinages. Just what the word ‘beguine' means is unclear; most likely a less than complimentary label assigned these women by critics. Because they lived outside the church sanction, they were suspected of being aberrant at best and probably downright heretical, if tested.The Low Countries had many lay-Beguine orders from the 13th thru 16th Cs. While they lived in semi-monastic communities, they didn't take formal religious vows. They promised not to marry, but only so long as they remained a Beguine, something they could step out of at any time. In a practical sense, the Beguines were an attempt to re-connect with the simplicity of the Gospel as it altered one's relationship with God and others. So Beguines focused on personal devotion to God and the care of one's fellow man. Their charitable works were well-known across Northern Europe.Though the Church in many places passed rules banning these unofficial monastic communities, their popularity grew and soon men formed their own version. Such men where called “beg-hards” a word which eventually morphs into today's “beggar.”Another popular movement first appeared in 1260; the flagellants. They got off to a slow start, but by the 14th C, their numbers swelled.While the personal discipline of flagellants took many forms, the primary method, the one yielding their name, was to whip themselves with the flagellum. Self-flagellation as penance for sin wasn't new. It was a practice common to many monastic houses. Now it was a popular craze. Thousands of people from all levels of society lashed themselves till bloody, convinced by current events and the fiery preaching of Apocalyptic Announcers the end was near; that God was about to destroy the world for its failure to repent.But don't think this was all just a bunch of emotionally-worked up illiterates who'd been stoked into some kind of mass hysteria. No: Flagellants followed a specific rite of self-flagellation and other forms of personal mortification. The movement held to a rigid discipline. While the specific details altered over time and place, typically, those who wished to join the Flagellants did so for 33½ days. During that time they owed total obedience to their spiritual overseers.Twice a day, Flagellants marched two by two while singing hymns to the local church. After praying to Mary, they went, still singing, to the public square. They formed a circle and knelt in prayer with bared backs. Then, as they prayed or sang, they commenced the lashes until their backs poured blood. Occasionally, one of their leaders would preach to them on the sufferings of Christ. Then they'd rise, cover their bleeding back and again, withdraw in an ordered procession. Besides these two daily public self-flagellations, they were committed to a private third.As I said, they did this for 33½ days. But for ever after, they were supposed to renew the scourging annually on Good Friday.At first, Church officials saw little danger in the movement. But flagellants soon began to refer to what they were doing as penance and a “second baptism;” a term the Early Church had used for martyrdom. This talk of self-induced penance concerned church officials because it threatened their hegemony. The Flagellants were accused of seeking to usurp the “power of the keys,” given only to St. Peter and his successors, the officially sanctioned church hierarchy who alone could prescribe proper penance.In several countries, Flagellants were persecuted and eventually, the practice of public flagellation was abandoned. Despite this, the movement continued for generations. You can still find lingering echoes of the flagellants in the American Southwest.There were individual instances of attempts at reform that took place all over Europe in the Late Middle Ages. I'll give just one of those many tales. It centers on a man named Hans Böhm [Boohm] and the village of Nicklashausen, in Wurzburg, Germany.During the Lenten Season of 1476, Hans, a young shepherd and street entertainer, claimed to have a vision of the Virgin Mary calling him to preach a message of radical reform. He burned the drum that was the means of his entertaining income in one of those Bonfires of the Vanities that had becomes popular across Europe.Times were bad in the region of Wurzburg. Many crops had failed, yet the bishop oppressed the poor with ever higher taxes.At first, Böhm preached on the need for repentance and a return to classic, Christian virtue. But being moved by the poverty of so many of the pilgrims that flocked to hear him, his message took on a more strident note. He began calling out the contrast between the commands of the Gospel and the greed and corruption of a corpulent clergy. As his popularity grew, he announced a day was coming when all would be equal, and all would work for a living; including those indolent, rich fat-cats who at that time were living of the labor of the good, honest, hard-working folk of Wurzburg.He urged his nearly 50,000 followers to act in advance of that great day by refusing to pay taxes and tithes. He set a date when all would march together to claim their rights.On the eve of the appointed day, the bishop's soldiers seized him and dispersed his followers. Böhm was tried and convicted of being a heretic and burned.That didn't dissuade his followers who continued gathering at Nicklashausen. The bishop put the entire village under an interdict. Still they came. The archbishop of Mainz [Minez]  ordered the Nicklashausen Church destroyed. So, now with no leader and no headquarters, Böhm's movement dissolved. Many scholars believe they fueled the Anabaptist movement of the 16th C.This was just one of many similar movements in the late Middle Ages where calls for justice merged with the cry for reform in the church. These movements were often put down by force of arms, which only served to further alienate commoners against the nobility and clergy. It was only a matter of time until enough of the clergy would themselves recognize the need to reform a Church grown too cozy with secular power.Another factor fueling the call for Reform was the intellectual quagmire Scholasticism fell into in the Late Middle Ages. After reaching its zenith in Thomas Aquinas, scholastic theology morphed into the proverbial serpent that eats its own tail.Scholasticism began as an attempt to provide a reasonable base for the Christian Faith.John Duns Scotus used the tools developed BY Scholasticism to introduce a divide between faith and reason. William of Occam turned that divide in a great divorce and introduced a bifurcation between theology and philosophy that exists in the minds of many moderns today.Scholastic theologians began to ponder such complex, and pointless, issues as à 1) Can God make a rock so big even He can't lift it? 2) How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? 3) Does God do good, because it is inherently and intrinsically good, or is it good because God does it?While these questions may cause us to pause and say, “Huh, interesting,” to the hundreds of thousands of commoners who were concerned with having enough bread for tonight's dinner, that the Church which was supposed to guardian their souls, pre-occupation with such things seemed a terrible waste of time and resources. While clergy were concerned with angels and pin heads; the peasantry began to think the pin-heads were the clergy! They assumed there was a vast divide between religion and daily life. And THAT – was a totally new idea; one fostered by the excesses of a Scholasticism run-amok.This is not to say all priests were died-in-the-wool Scholastics of the Scotus or Occam variety. Many of the clergy reacted against the complexities of late-Middle Age Scholasticism by calling for a return to the simplicity of the Gospel. The best-known book voicing this reaction is the classic, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a'Kempis. The book asks, and I paraphrase à  What good is it if you're able to discuss the Trinity with great profundity, but lack humility, and thereby offend the Trinity? For high sounding words do not make one holy and just. Only a life of virtue is acceptable to God. Were you to memorize the entire Bible and all the sayings of the philosophers, what good would this be without the love of God and His grace? Vanity of vanities. All is vanity, except loving God and serving Him.Now, much could be said at this point, as we trace the Road to Reform, which is the theme of this series within CS, about the Renaissance. And the fact is much HAS BEEN SAID about it. So I'm not going to. I certainly have nothing to add to what far more learned and erudite teachers have written and said on the subject. I suspect that not a few of our CS subscribers know a whole lot MORE about his subject than I.So let me sum it up by offering this . . .While we call it the Renaissance, Rebirth; it would be wrong to assume the Middle Ages were left behind, dropped like a cast-off doll. Yes, the people of Renaissance Europe knew their societies were going through a monumental shift and that new ideas were afoot. But the Renaissance was built on a foundation provided by the Middle Ages, it was not a clean break from it.As the Turks took over the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire folded, many scholars moved West, bringing their manuscript-treasures with them. These manuscripts were in Greek, a language that by the 13th C had been nearly lost in Europe. These Eastern scholars revived it and presided over a reinvestment of study in the ancient classics of the Greco-Roman world. Those works fueled even more study as scholars realized the brilliance of writers like Cicero and Aristotle. This literary awakening began in Italy then spread beyond the Alps.This interest in antiquity was also seen in art. Sculptors, architects, and painters sought inspiration in pagan sources rather the Christian themes that had dominated their craft for hundreds of years. And though they imbibed, then emulated the styles of the Classical Era, they didn't wholly abandoned the Gothic. Renaissance art is in many ways a fusion of Gothic and Classical as those who've been to Florence and Rome know.This interest in a return to the Classical Era coincided with Gutenberg's invention of the movable-type printing press in 1439. Printing had long been done by inked woodcuts pressed on paper. Gutenberg's invention had a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, but it took a while – for a reason not often mentioned.It turns out that most early printing was difficult to read because it was in either Latin or Greek rather than the vernacular. And the typography of the day imitated, get this à handwritten script. So printed books looked LIKE they'd been hand-written rather than printed! Why was that? Because only the wealthy could afford books prior to the printing press. So it was the wealthy who bought books. The printing press was originally conceived of as a way to make expensive books more cheaply for rich people. Only later did printers work out the economics and realize they could make a lot more money by standardizing their type and printing lot of books at cheaper prices.Gutenberg didn't even publicize his invention. His original aim was to produce a large numbers of books he could sell as expensive manuscripts. So, rather than simplifying the printed page, he made it as elaborate as any traditional hand-written manuscript. Take a look at a Gutenberg Bible if you get a chance – and you'll see this laid out before you.Eventually though, printers realized how their presses could be used to mass produce books, and deep learning was made available for people who never thought it possible. Put in those books dangerous new ideas about reform, and who knows what might happen?We'll conclude our series The Road to Reform next episode as we take a look at the Popes of the Renaissance and see why so many in Europe were so, so ready for Reform.

happy 2023! we're back with part 4 of our series on heresies against the medieval church. this time we talk about Free Spirits, Beguines, and Templars before moving onto the Antipopes, the Avignon Papacy, and the Black Death breaking everyone's brains, as you might expect.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy