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In Light of the World , Benedict “speaks extensively on issues related to Israel and the Jewish world, confirming his unwavering personal commitment to both,” writes a Jerusalem Post writer, surveying his statements about Jewish issues in the book.

The New Criterion describes the NEH vs America , and offers Joseph Epstein’s analysis of Saul Bellow .

A rare opening of the Vatican library to see rare works that otherwise no one but scholars will ever see.

Southern Baptist theologian Russell Moore, a Mississippian, asks whether a southerner should display a picture of Robert E. Lee .

Speaking of Southern Baptists, the fall issue of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s journal asks how can we be sure the Bible is inerrant ? (It’s a large file.)

A Catholic college student tells about going to a school that is CINO (Catholic In Name Only).

Matthew Hanley looks at the hysterical reaction to the pope’s remark on condoms in light of the failure of the mainstream health establishment . “Benedict maintains that “not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.” Dr. Fauci and the Public Health Establishment dare not say, even for health reasons, that some behaviors should be avoided entirely. For all practical purposes, theirs is a variation of Ivan Karamazov’s famous formulation: without God — and with faith in the strictly technical fix — all things are permitted.”

Cheryl Weinstein argues that ” America’s path to gay marriage started not with gay couples wanting to marry, but with heterosexuals who wanted new rules of engagement for themselves.”

Anne Barbeau Gardiner reviews the newest biography of G. K. Chesterton , which she calls “a milestone in Chesterton studies.” (I think this link is alive just for today.)

Anti-Christian leaders in India call Christianity “cultural AIDS ” and evangelization “religious terrorism.” Christians “enhance monoculture by destroying our belief system,” said one anti-Christian leader. “They did it in Europe in the first millennium. [In the] second millennium they destroyed the belief system of Africa. Third millennium, the Pope himself came and declared that I will convert Asia and India. It means they want to destroy [the] pluralistic belief system of India.”

A scholar offers a n interactive dialect map of America , letting users click on an area to hear how the people there talk.

A biographer describes the successful struggle of a Ponca Indian leader to prove to the federal government (which had stolen his people’s land and brutalized in the process) that his people were persons .

A mother otter teaches her pup to swim .

Thanks to Gregory Laughlin, James Altena, and the New Oxford Review for links.


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