Benedict XIV

A really exhilarating day yesterday, in Bodley, with the Omnia Opera of that great Pontiff (I am going through in detail his teaching on Concelebration).

What makes him most like his successor of today is his erudition and the freedom it gives him. He took immense pains to protect 'uniate' Easterners against latinization; a threat which came not from aggressive Western missionaries but from the 'uniates' themselves, who wanted the flexibility that comes with the Roman Rite (e.g. to say more than one Mass on one altar in one day). He resists attacks upon the zeon and upon filioque-free versions of the Creed. Because of his immense doctrinal weight, he can see beyond rules and easy assumptions to what really matters. He understands Byzantine spirituality because he has read Orthodox theology.

A real protoB16.