thoughts in and out of season
I’ve started reading Jonathan Kwitny’s Man of the Century, which seems a competent account of the Pope’s life by a very industrious New York journalist well-known as an investigative reporter. The author’s basic outlook is that of a mainstream New York journalist—my guess is that he’s a secular Jew—but he admires the Pope and … More ...
Other ways to make the point I made in my most recent entry:
It should be obvious that in the modern world there’s no such thing as a pluralistic society. After all, life today is marked by pervasiveness, complexity and comprehensiveness of social cooperation, and those things require common habits, understandings and beliefs. Further, modern modes of production, exchange and regulation depend on standardization. The present day is … More ...
The managerial welfare state rolls on, extending its responsibilities into more and more of social life. Tony Blair wants to add attitudes and informal personal connections to what’s administered, and to treat criminal law as simply an aspect of social management: TB’s vision for Britain.
Blair’s program follows coherently from the widely accepted basic … More ...
The obvious reason to become a Catholic is that you accept the claim of the Church to be a divine institution meant for all men, yourself included. A lot goes into that claim—what the world is like, how the Church fits into it, Church doctrine, ritual, organization, history, and what not else. One can discuss … More ...
Another slice of life in higher education and in Canada: University of Toronto president under fire for remark. Read it—I have no idea where to begin.
More evidence that “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” isn’t doing so good: Kindly take that cigar outside Mr Brunel, do you think you’re some sort of hero?, on the unfortunate BBC poll to identify the 100 greatest Britons, and Constructing a value map, an account of how geography is … More ...
I have no piercing insights on the Lord’s Prayer, but I should try to get my thoughts a bit more straight on the subject, so here are some reflections. (I’ll use the Latin version because it’s more Popish and so more in line with the blog’s theme.)
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
It’s “our” … More ...
The second paragraph in a Times story today about the Catholic bishops’ deliberations on the threatened war with Iraq was innocently ironic:
… More ...This is the kind of global concern that used to preoccupy the bishops before this year, when the church was overwhelmed by the scandal over some bishops’ failure to discipline priests who had
It must be nice to be a black bigwig in South Africa and be able to pass off your personal demand for tons of money as something decreed by social justice: Rarity of Black-Run Businesses Worries South Africa’s Leaders. Somehow the personal interests of those making the demands (which are not the same as … More ...