Castrate

It is true that the Duke University rape case says something about the current cultural elites. In particular, about their costant desire and fantasy of being part of the civil right battles of the previous generation. This is probably for many people a way to escape from the grim reality of being philosophical nihilists, by creating an imaginary moral high-ground for themselves. Clearly, such a position is so detached from reality that it can easily become extremely violent.

Return to Paradise

Dante's Paradiso, the last book of the Divine Comedy, expresses the sublime heights of human desire like no other poem. What a shame so few read it. A new translation may help change that.

Road to Antioch

This must be a real trend, of which many of us have met examples. And it is indeed significant of the unresolved contradictions of US Protestantism.

Meeting people

John Allen has been filing stories from the Rimini Meeting, here and here. Read more about the Hegazy case.

Fractured

One could argue that, historically, the major factor that motivated the existence of Belgium as a bi-national state was shared Catholicism. Apparently, the ideology of the multicultural welfare state will not do it...

Time for change

Victor Davis Hanson on school reform. On the same topic, here is another proposal.

Well said

Another classic Spengler column:

(he) does not love Reason; he merely hates Christianity.

Open heaven

Sandro Magister tells the story of the 800 martyrs of Otranto.

Contingencies

This piece by Prof. Kenneth Miller at the time of the Intelligent Design controversy two years ago was very much on target.

As did the apostles

The Economist has a good obituary of Cardinal Lustiger.

Escape from fatherhood

Arthur Miller's secret son.

Kerouac at 50

The poignant chronicle of human restlessness, On the Road, reaches the half century mark.

The Wounds of the Twentieth Century

Alexander Solzhenitsyn on the crimes of history in an interview with Der Spiegel: "We should clearly understand that only the voluntary and conscientious acceptance by a people of its guilt can ensure the healing of a nation. Unremitting reproaches from outside, on the other hand, are counterproductive." On Russia and the West: "...one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally."

What the Celebrities are not Talking About

It is not as fashionable as global warming, but more urgent: Christians in Iraq have become an endangered species. "I realized that 36 of my congregation in that past week had been kidnapped. None of them have been returned."

Presenting the Past

Can a person be at once fully modern and fully faithful to his tradition? Noah Feldman asks this question in this piece about his Orthodox Jewish background. Pope Benedict answers in his letter to bishops about the older form of the Mass: "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful."