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Speaking of the accusations regarding the conduct of Pius XII during the Second World War, here’s an interesting link on a recent academic conference in which James Carroll and others participated.

I had a talk yesterday with a friend about James Carroll’s book The Sword of Constantine. I hadn’t read it. The recent anti-Catholic books by Carroll, Cornwell, Goldhagen, Wills and so on strike me as mostly hate literature. They may be important in a sense, because they’re part of a movement, but individually they … More ...

Current wisdom suggests that if right-wingers like marriage so much it’s really stupid of them to object to “gay marriage.” After all, shouldn’t long-term commitments be encouraged by respect, ceremony, and the web of custom and observance that has gathered around marriage? Isn’t that sort of thing the essence of social conservatism?

No doubt it … More ...

Vatican II has certainly worked out badly, although the documents are much more limited than what they led to. What happened was natural. An ecumenical council is an extreme measure, so if there’s no fundamental dispute to resolve, why have one?

The wisdom of an assembly is always hard-won. So if a council is … More ...

The reason classical liberalism looks better than contemporary liberalism is that it existed within a system of unspoken presumptions that kept freedom, tolerance and so on from becoming the operative final standards for the political system. The liberal standard of justice, equal freedom, had not yet forbidden public recognition of substantive goods like virtue and … More ...

The Europeans are terribly upset that an “extreme rightist” got 17% of the vote. They’ve had a lot of upsets lately. A couple of days ago it was the massacres they claimed (on very little evidence) had taken place at Jenin.

Paranoids find the world alarming but so do people who try to maintain a … More ...

I’ve been reading Plutarch lately, in the Dryden translation. 10 years ago he bored me, now I think he’s wonderful.

He’s a cultivated and broadminded moralist who knows men and affairs. Already that sounds dull, I’m afraid. I don’t think people read him much today although Harry Truman liked him.

Why care about copyright anyway? It’s a dry topic, but in a world of mass media and computers it’s an absolutely fundamental issue.

Should it exist at all? Is property theft in this case, because there’s something wrong with the notion that you can own an idea? Should it only last for 5 years? Would … More ...

A “professional liturgist” is somewhere between a “professional writer of love letters” and a “professional composer of sacred scripture.” There’s no such thing, and if someone claims to be one it demonstrates he has no idea what he’s talking about.

I went to a Latin mass here in Brooklyn today, so far as I know the only one celebrated in the borough. I liked it very much, and will continue to attend.

One reason is that the traditional mass is not specially about the priest or the congregation, it’s about God, the saints, the church … More ...