Death threats issued to Pope Benedict XVI, Muslims burning the Pope in effigy, promises to conquer Rome and slit the throats of Christians, at least seven churches in the region of Palestine torched, a nun murdered in front of a children’s hospital in Somalia, claims of Benedict participating in . . . . Continue Reading »
OK, this announcement probably won’t end up in your "News You Can Use" file, but Richard Wolin has recently reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education that Michel Foucault died a humanist! (Who knew?) Perhaps I am only dating myself by attaching any significance to such news. So . . . . Continue Reading »
In a speech at the University of Regensburg concerning the relation of faith and reason, Benedict XVI quotes from an obscure fourteenth-century dialogue by Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new," the emperor says to his Persian . . . . Continue Reading »
The passage quoted by Pope Benedict XVI in his speech at the University of Regensburg that caused an uproar in the Muslim world was written by Manuel II Palaeologus, Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425. The "empire" over which he presided consisted of the city of Constantinople, a tiny . . . . Continue Reading »
Herewith a potpourri of reflections on the Regensburg lecture by Pope Benedict and reactions to it, intermixed with a bit of my own commentary. As many commentators, Muslim and other, do not know because they manifestly have not read the lecture, it was not chiefly about Islam. It was a considered . . . . Continue Reading »
No, not that Ronald Dworkin, the legal philosopher at New York University. This Ronald Dworkin is a medical doctor and political philosopher who has written an informative and provocative book, Artificial Happiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class . He and I discussed his book at an event at . . . . Continue Reading »
Heather Mac Donald’s defense of “skeptical” (i.e., atheist) conservatives against the Religious Right has by now been widely disseminated. It first appeared in The American Conservative and drew a response , on this blog and in The National Review , from Michael Novak who (very . . . . Continue Reading »
On August 24, Bob Herbert of the New York Times addressed the debilitating popular culture embraced by many black Americans, and especially by young blacks. He now returns to the subject, prompted by the appearance of black "felon" magazines that exult in the self-denigration of blacks as . . . . Continue Reading »
I don’t agree at all with Gary Francione , the Rutgers University law professor who seeks to abolish all human use of animals, no matter how humane and beneficial to us¯including seeing-eye dogs. But I do respect him because of his integrity in advocacy¯he doesn’t pretend to be . . . . Continue Reading »
I recently posted on this page concerning Fr. Alberto Bonandi’s article in Teologia , reported on by Sandro Magister. Bonandi argues that Catholics, married in the Church but subsequently divorced and remarried civilly, may be readmitted to Holy Communion, even while they continue adulterous . . . . Continue Reading »
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