Welcome to Monday, April 21, 2025: the beginning of the “work” week, when many people are “working at home” but really playing with their cat and eating snacks. Pope Francis died this morning; see below. Both Easter and Passover ended yesterday, but today is National Big Word Day, and I will proffer one that I learned from Hitchens: “RATIOCINATION”. Here are the meanings from the Oxford English Dictionary:
It’s also National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day (they’re better sans chocolate), National Egg Salad Sandwich Day (I have about two a week), Tuna Rights Day, National Tea Day (in the UK) and National Chickpea Day. Here’s a nice video about how they grow chickpeas commercially, with a nice, easy recipe shown at the end:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 21 Wikipedia page.
Because I have some BIG WRITING to do today, and I prepare most of the morning posts the evening before, Hili will be VERY short tomorrow morning. Bear with me; I do my best.
Da Nooz:
*Obituaries first, and today we have a big one: Pope Francis has died (aka “returned to his Father’s house”). From the NYT (click to read):
An excerpt:
Pope Francis has died, the Vatican announced on Monday, ending a groundbreaking pontificate that sought, however haltingly, to reshape the Roman Catholic Church into a more inclusive institution.
Standing somberly behind a microphone at the Vatican, Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced the pope’s death. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father,” he said. An American of Irish origin, Cardinal Farrell becomes the Vatican’s de facto administrator after the death of a pope.
Mourners, some in tears, quickly went to St. Peter’s Square in Rome, as tributes poured in from global leaders offering condolences to the world’s Catholics and praising the pontiff’s commitment to the poor and marginalized.
The death of Francis sets off deliberations and machinations to choose a successor.
The absence of Francis, a humble champion of the poor, creates a vacuum in the leadership of more than one billion Catholics. It also leaves the church’s cardinals with a critical decision: whether to choose a new pope who will follow his welcoming, global approach or to restore the more doctrinaire path of his predecessors.
Francis believed that the church’s future depended on going to the margins to embrace the faithful in the modern world rather than offering a cloister away from it. The coming days will determine how deep his support truly runs.
Here’s what else to know:
Health struggles: Just a day before his death, Pope Francis blessed the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Easter Mass — one of several public appearances over the past week. But his weak, raspy voice was reminder of his frailty less than a month after being discharged from a lengthy hospital stay for life-threatening pneumonia.
I don’t know much about him, as I don’t pay much attention to the Vatican, but, as Popes go, he seemed like a pretty good one. Now comes the election and the black smoke.
*About a month ago I wrote about an incident in which IDF soldiers appeared to have fired on Gazan ambulances and killed Red Crescent medics. And I believe I said that the IDF would surely investigate the incident and punish soldiers if they had screwed up and shot civilians. That in fact, appears to be what happened.
The IDF on Sunday announced that it is firing a deputy commander of Sayeret Golani, a major, and censuring Brigade 14 Commander Col. “T” for their conduct in a March 23 incident in which the military killed 14 International Red Crescent medics and seriously wounded another.
In addition, the IDF spokesperson acknowledged that some of the initial reports that the army put out about the incident, in terms of whether the medic vehicles had their headlights on or not and other issues, were incorrect since some of the information initially provided by the soldiers in the field had been false.
Once the IDF Fact Finding Mechanism Unit led by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yoav Har-Even probed the issue, it found that some of the initial information provided had been erroneous. Har-Even strove to correct it in an April 5 interim report.
The final operational probe by Har-Even separated the episode involving Division 143, led by controversial commander Brig.-Gen. Barak Hiram, into four incidents: 1) an incident where one ambulance was wrongly identified as a threat and fired upon; 2) a second incident in which multiple ambulances were wrongly identified as a threat and fired upon; 3) an incident in which the IDF forces knew that a vehicle was a United Nations vehicle and knowingly fired upon it anyway – allegedly to try to encourage it to leave a dangerous area, which was against the rules of engagement; and 4) errors made in the handling of the bodies and the ambulances.
Globally, the incident has been viewed as one of the worst of the war because of the number of Red Crescent medics killed, the apparent inconsistencies in the IDF’s initial narrative, and the mishandling of the bodies after the killing.
The third incident, involving the UN vehicle, was viewed by Har-Even and his probe as the most serious since the IDF troops blatantly violated the rules of engagement, even if their intent had been to cause the UN car to flee the area and not to strike and harm those inside the vehicle.
. . . . The brigade commander is being censured for overall collective responsibility for not properly installing within forces under his command the proper values and skills to handle the situation – even though he was not in the field during the incident. He is also being censured for incorrect handling of the bodies and ambulances after the incident.
ADDITIONALLY, ACCORDING to the IDF, criminal charges could still be levied against some of those involved, an issue to be decided by IDF Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, but Har-Even was opposed to criminal charges in light of the broader context.
Moreover, the probe noted that in the broader context, Hamas frequently uses ambulances and hospitals to shield its forces, such that the IDF cannot entirely refrain from firing on such vehicles if it suspects that there are terrorists involved.
The probe did not suggest that the soldiers had a reasonable answer for firing on the UN vehicle, even if their intent was not to kill, as the rules of
So yes, the IDF screwed up and killed civilians. A commander was fired and there may be criminal charges to come. The death of civilians is always reprehensible, and all I can say is that at least the IDF investigates and punishes its soldiers who screwed up. And yes, this is war, and remember that IDF killed three hostages by mistake. I won’t excuse this, though, by saying that Hamas behaves worse and does not discipline its militants for killing Jewish civilians. The civilians had families, and a mistake means tragedy and tears. War is messy and there will be mistakes, but if soldiers make mistakes that are egregious and result in the death of civilians, the IDF at least will discipline and even try its soldiers. There’s a shorter article in the NYT here.
*From the news section of the WSJ: “Border crossings grind to a halt as Trump’s policies take hold.”
. . . . During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to shut the U.S. border to illegal immigration after surreptitious crossings reached record levels under the Biden administration.
As the issue featured prominently in the campaign, migrant encounters tallied by U.S. authorities fell precipitously in the months leading to the election. Since taking office, Trump has delivered on his pledge as encounters have since fallen further to their lowest levels since the 1960s.
. . .For the moment, tighter controls by the U.S. and Mexico, along with Trump’s moves to shut down legal immigration pathways has brought migrant crossings to all but a standstill. The administration’s targeted and dramatic expulsion of migrants to the prison in El Salvador has also created a powerful deterrent.
Though Trump is struggling to deliver on another campaign promise—mass deportations—the border is an early political victory. According to a Wall Street Journal poll in March, 53% of voters approve of Trump’s handling of border security, while 43% disapprove.
. . .Illegal border crossings declined significantly in the final year of the Biden administration, from a period of record highs that at one point saw 250,000 Border Patrol arrests in a single month. That number dropped to around 48,000 in December, the last full month of former President Joe Biden’s term, and to just over 7,000 in March.
Border-security experts say that crossings often fall with changes of policy or administration, but also frequently rise as migrants and human smugglers adjust. Still, experts say the current reversal at the border is startling.
The administration has credited the drop in crossings to its decision to send thousands of active duty troops to the border as a deterrent and its move to shut down a program known as CBP One, which migrants used to make appointments to ask for asylum. As a result, tens of thousands of migrants who were awaiting a turn are now stranded in Mexico. Many are now heading back to their communities.
Here’s a graph from the WSJ of border crossing encounters; I have no idea how many of these were legal entries, but probably few of them given the precipitous drop.
U.S. immigration officials and analysts now expect illegal migration dynamics to be similar to those seen in the 1980s and 1990s, when most Mexican and Guatemalan job seekers would sneak into the U.S. and try to evade detection, instead of surrendering to U.S. authorities and requesting asylum as Venezuelans and migrants from other countries have done in recent years.
Mass arrivals of asylum seekers required a heavy logistical effort of U.S. authorities because of shelter and legal-processing standards, while undocumented job seekers caught crossing the border are usually subject to immediate deportation.
But we all know about the dubious things the Trump administration is doing to remove immigrants, something that even the Supreme Court has (temporarily) opposed. At any rate, anybody who is apprehended as an undocumented immigrant should have a rigorous legal hearing to decide on deportation.
*The Free Press, besides moving rightward and replacing Nellie Bowles (at least last week) is getting increasingly religious, pushing articles that emphasize the revival of religion. They even, as Bari Weiss notes below, float the “Little People’s Argument”: religion is a form of social glue, and who cares whether its claims are true. I’m getting very close to canceling my subscription. Here are two articles just from today:
Founder Bari Weiss introduces a Ross Douthat interview, “Why it’s logical to believe in God” with her claim that she emphasizes religion partly because “I am of the view that something profound has gotten lost in our society as we have lost traditional religion. Remember that Douthat thinks that Christianity is the “right” religion, something he doesn’t argue out with Weiss, but he also believes in souls, miracles, and Satan. I can’t imagine an atheist being given the chance to have such a discussion at the FP. Why won’t Bari invite on, say, Richard Dawkins? A bit of the interview (there’s really nothing new here that I haven’t discussed vis-à-vis Douthat before. He may be, as Weiss says, “brilliant”, but he’s also prey to the delusions of Christianity.
BW: You’ve published a book; you’ve made an argument on every podcast saying, “We need to believe.” What’s at stake if we don’t believe in a higher power? If we don’t follow the advice of the wise Ross Douthat, what happens?
RD: I’ll just go big on that one. One answer is, there are stakes for every human soul. Whether you believe in an eternal hell or not, the collective religious wisdom of mankind is that souls can get lost. And they’re more likely to get lost if they aren’t in some relationship with God. The more I lose the argument, the more souls potentially get lost—that’s step one.
Step two is civilizational. The book of Genesis begins with an admonition: Fill the Earth, and subdue it. We’ve done that. We have reached an interesting point in history from a religious point of view. And there’s a really open question—where do we go next? Do we collapse? Do we go to the stars? Do we become transhuman? Do we merge with the machines and so on? So, it’s a high-stakes moment. And if God exists and he has intentions for us, it’s really important at a high-stakes moment to take those intentions into account.
I think of people like Musk and Altman. The contest for their literal souls is really important to the whole future of the human race. If God exists, it’s a big moment. You want belief to win out over the alternatives.
*Faith is elsewhere at the Free Press, too, with Rod Dreher banging on about God in the “Things Worth Remembering” piece called “One Easter Night in Europe“, which tells us that “God is everywhere, no farther from us in a Walmart than He is in Vienna’s Stephansdom.” All I know is that I occasionally go to Walmart and I haven’t yet seen God there. Dreher wandered into the cathedral at Chartres when young, a fantastic place, which gets him going about a description of the same place by the great travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor
Leigh Fermor didn’t have a pious bone in his body. But he followed the assembly into the cathedral—and there, on that night of nights, glimpsed an enchanted cosmos. Recalling the scene, he writes with such precision and intensity that you feel immersed in a waking dream. You don’t have to be a believer to be enchanted by the spell he casts.
“Light filled the great building, new constellations of wicks floated in all the chapels, the Paschal Candle was alight in the choir and unwinking stars tipped the candles that stood as tall as lances along the high altar,” he goes on, like an incantation, building an entire world of splendor and transcendence through the accumulation of details. “The Archbishop, white and gold now, and utterly transformed from his scarlet manifestation as Cardinal, was enthroned under an emblazoned canopy.”
You might be thinking: What does this rococo elegance have to do with a poor Nazarene prophet who lived simply, exalted the poor, and died a criminal’s death on a cross? The answer can be found in the words Jesus spoke to Judas after the treasonous disciple chastised Mary for using precious oil to anoint the Lord’s feet. Why not sell that oil and give the money to the poor? Judas asked. Jesus replied: “Leave her alone. She has kept this perfume in preparation for the day of my burial. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”
The point is not that one should neglect the poor. It is sacred ceremony that gives suffering people hope. For the late medieval peasants of Chartres, their cathedral was perhaps the only place they could experience the delights of color and spiritual grandeur, and be reminded that no matter how poor, the Kingdom of God was theirs too.
Note that he goes from a description of an enchanting religious ceremony directly to the truth of Jesus’s divinity and of the Bible, and glosses over Jesus’s self-aggrandizing use of ointment. It was the stained-glass windows of Chartres that turned Dreher into a believer. Is that rational? (My bolding in second paragraph below.)
Yet even here in unbelieving Europe, whose great cathedrals are more like museums and tourist attractions, green shoots arise. All of Catholic France buzzed this past Ash Wednesday with news that for the first time in decades, churches all over the country were full. This week, organizers of the traditionalist Catholic three-day walking pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres had to temporarily suspend registrations, because the online system was overwhelmed. And the sanctifying beauty of old churches and old liturgies endures into the present, despite the best efforts of modern churchmen to bin them.
I know: I saw it myself, and am a Christian today because of what I experienced as a teenager in France. Yes, the Christian faith entails both virtue and rational thinking, but back then, you could not have converted me by appealing to either. My cynical young soul sought wonder, and found it first at Chartres—a place that calls to all wanderers who know in their bones that true religion is not prose, but poetry.
And there’s a touting of religion (in the Free Press’s bold) at the bottom of the article:
Here at The Free Press, we’re fascinated by America’s religious revival. If you are too, don’t miss Peter Savodnik’s essay on how intellectuals are finding God, and Madeleine Kearns’ report on Hallow, the Silicon Valley–born app that’s bringing lapsed Catholics back to the faith. You also might like to catch up with our live debate on whether the West needs religion.
And if you enjoyed this essay, read Rod’s last piece for The Free Press, “On Mary and the Mob,” and check out his most recent book, Living in Wonder.
*Andrew Doyle, of all people (the alter ego of Titania McGrath) has a piece in the Washington Post called, “Criticize your children’s school? IOn Britain, that could land you in jail.” (Subtitle: “Britain’s clampdown on free speech is astonishing. And disturbing.”). The archived link is here.
. . . . consider the following. A recent report by the Times newspaper in Britain found that police are making at least 12,000 arrests per year — more than 30 every day — under “hate speech” laws that are codified in Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act of 1988 and Section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003. The latter specifically relates to online speech, and it prohibits not only messages of “an indecent, obscene or menacing character” but also words intended to cause “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.”
Depending on one’s sensibilities, the description could apply to virtually any post on social media. In January, six police officers were dispatched to arrest two parents in Hertfordshire, north of London, for criticizing, in emails and a WhatsApp group, the administration of their daughter’s school.
At the moment, there is no data available specifying how many of these arrests are due specifically to offensive social media posts, but examples are plentiful and profoundly troubling. The problem seems to lie in the wording of the legislation. In both acts, the threshold is set at language that is deemed to be “grossly offensive,” a hopelessly subjective term.
In addition, estimates suggest that British police, in the five years following the 2014 introduction of guidelines regarding “non-crime hate incidents,” recorded more than a quarter of a million such incidents. The government’s website defines a noncrime hate incident as “an act that is motivated by prejudice or hostility towards a person’s identity but does not amount to a criminal offence.” This is reminiscent of the government’s plans to force tech companies to ban “legal but harmful” speech on their platforms, shelved only this month apparently out of concern that such demands might undermine trade negotiations with the Trump administration.
No evidence of hate is required for noncrime hate incidents to be recorded against a person’s name; the offense is determined solely by the perception of the “victim” (a term used as standard police parlance in place of the more accurate word “complainant,” and one that implies the bypassing of due process). As one Home Office report makes clear: “The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception.” In short, this means that anyone with a grudge can contact the police and allege that a noncrime involving hatred of a protected characteristic has been committed, and involvement in a noncrime hate incident will be automatically logged against the name of the accused.
Quite apart from the ethical implications of the police keeping lists of citizens for wrongthink, these records can show up on enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service background checks, which are compulsory for those applying for jobs that involve working with children or other vulnerable people, such as in teaching or health care. This means there can be material consequences for those who have been recorded as noncriminal offenders by the police.
As Doyle shows later, the situations is even worse in Scotland. I’m glad I don’t live in the UK as I’d be up in arms about all this stuff constantly. They should just adopt America’s First Amendment and its construals by the courts.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Malgorzata adds, “If you wonder, Hili just re-read Demons by Dostoyevsky.”
Hili: Dostoyevsky was right.A: About what?Hili: Progressives are suspicious characters.
Hili: Dostojewski miał rację.Ja: W jakiej sprawie?Hili: Postępowcy to podejrzane towarzystwo.
*******************
An optical illusion from Jesus of the Day. Try it!
From Things with Faces, a happy patio:
From Wholesome Memes:
Masih is still quiet, so here’s a funny tweet by J. K. Rowling:
So vulnerable. So oppressed. So determined to break the law by continuing to invade women’s spaces. And being cheered on by Maggie Chapman MSP of the Scottish Greens, who is one of our most enthusiastic anti-women legislators.
Mind you, the worst crime here is that skirt. https://t.co/5uVjZvyBhf
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 20, 2025
From Malcolm; is it kosher for cats to help d*gs?
Cat retrieves a stuck frisbee for dog friends..🐈🐾🐶🥏💪😍 pic.twitter.com/OWpX4CgG6X
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) April 13, 2025
Three from my feed. Look at that dexterity!
Cat retrieves a stuck frisbee for dog friends..🐈🐾🐶🥏💪😍 pic.twitter.com/OWpX4CgG6X
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) April 13, 2025
I want this job!
Who wants this job? pic.twitter.com/mNn7FgjhL8
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) April 19, 2025
I knew who was gonna win this one!
Everyone recognizes a psycho when they see one pic.twitter.com/DpkR9zBCMr
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 20, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
A French Jewish boy, age eight, was likely gassed to death with his parents (separated, of course) upon arriving at Auschwitz.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-21T10:15:19.167Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, his own post with DUCKLINGS!
First swallow of the year (unpictured) and first ducklings of the year, at RHS Bridgewater.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T12:51:58.045Z
Train cats! This is what the Internet is for:
My name is Angus and I photoshop my cat in to photos of trains.
Re: The Pope.
If you knew more you may not have liked him because in his final speech yesterday he said “I am concerned about the growing climate of anti-Semitism that is spreading throughout the world. At the same time, my thoughts go to the people (…) of Gaza, where the terrible conflict continues to generate death and destruction and to cause a dramatic and IGNOBLE HUMANITARIAN situation”
I’d like to remember him with two quotes, though:
1. “Better to live as an atheist than go to church and then hate others”
2. “There are no free workers without a union”
Finally, after much back and forth JD Vance was able to visit him yesterday, and said “I’m glad you feel better”, which means that JD brings bad luck. And the Pope, in the traditional gift exchange, maybe trolled him by giving him (for his children) Easter chocolate eggs that are worth 10$ and are illegal in the US https://fee.org/articles/why-these-popular-chocolate-easter-eggs-are-banned-in-the-us-despite-being-legal-almost-everywhere-else/
The chocolate eggs referred to are Kinder Surprise. I see from the link that an estimated 10 children worldwide have had their death connected to Kinder Surprise since it was launched in 1974. In other news, the number of firearms deaths among children in 2021 alone (Pew Research) in the USA was 2590. Interesting legal priorities.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does. -Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (21 Apr 1818-1885)
Nonsense. (But thanks again for the food for thought every day!)
As briefly discussed several days ago in the wake of a similar posting regarding conscience, conscience can lead people to do the most despicable and morally reprehensible things imaginable.
Perhaps it depends on how you define conscience.
Maybe you would like my alternative choice for today’s quote:
Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason. -Henry Fielding, author (21 Apr 1707-1754)
Yes, indeed, it surely also depends on how one might define it.
But unless one defines it as some kind of infallible guiding light coming from some divine, omnibenevolent source (which itself would be quite nearly ludicrous to my mind, though others would probably favour it), surely it would be pretty difficult to argue that it never makes a mistake.
I’m not sure I’m all that excited about the alternative. (But thank you for it!) It seems to me that those who will hear reason (and those who will not) are spread right across the economic spectrum, even if, perhaps, not entirely evenly. Sorry! 🙂
In “Huckleberry Finn,” Huck’s conscience bothers him because he is helping the slave Jim escape. He finally decides to help his friend and says that a conscience has no sense.
My rather cynical take on the meaning of this saying is that conscience can not conceive the possibility that it just might be mistaken. I don’t know the author’s intent, but a professional humorist could be just as cynical.
Good to see the IDF policing its own. This is a terrible tragedy, but worse when it becomes a criminal cover up. Good to see a full investigation. Israel must press on, but the IDF has shown, and is showing, that it tries to fight the good fight.
You must be joking. The organization the perpetrators are members of is in charge of investigating the case. That’s like the police investigating police officers – I’m sure it’s all very objective. And this is not a “terrible tragedy”, it’s an atrocity and a war crime. Plain and simple. And of course it’s a cover-up – it’s been one from the start. It just made headlines because the IDF was sloppy in its execution – missing a smartphone on one of the dead in their haste to cover their crime. And now that they’ve been found out, they dished out really tough punishments: One deputy commander “fired” (I’m pretty sure he’s not going to stock shelves at Walmart anytime soon) and another one “censured” (awww, the poor sod got a “naughty boy” remark in his file). Now that’s what I call punishment for needlessly and callously killing a bunch of paramedics! That’ll show them to behave next time!
“[…] but the IDF has shown, and is showing, that it tries to fight the good fight.”
That’s the crux, isn’t it? Israel and the IDF are supposed to be the good guys, showing caution and restraint in their action. And yet they show that they don’t care and that they can get away with anything.
As I said, criminal charges may follow and have followed in some IDF cases. But you are silent when Hamas murders its own people and gets away with it, or commits all manner of war crimes. Yes, the crux is that the IDF are better than Hamas, because they do police their own, while nobody would expect Hamas to punish its own for killing any Israelis. Yes by all moral lights the IDF is far, far better than the murderers, kidnappers, and terrorists of Hamas.
Your comment is rude and could have been made with civility, but you clearly did not read the posting rules on the left sidebar.I am guessing you are a huge fan of Hamas and would not call them out for killing ANY Israeli, civilian, medic, or not.
It has been said that Francis packed the College of Cardinals with like-minded people. It will be interesting to see if they elect another Red Pope or a conservative one.
When I saw the news video of the Pope’s briefest-of-all-time Easter blessing from the balcony, I thought “CON-CLAVE”, TTTO the obvious song. But I am surprised his demise happened so soon thereafter.
And in yet another proof of the efficacy of prayer, god has answered the pleas of hundreds of millions of the faithful and has finally knocked off his pope, presumably in the hopes, surely to be dashed, that there will be no need for another one.
That this occurred only hours after Vance’s enthusiastically anticipated visit, and on Easter monday to boot, even if raucously hilarious, is probably to be seen as pure coincidence, though the ways of the lord are inscrutable, as we all know.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing The Onion’s reporting on this, and I can only hope they aren’t too squeamish about it.
One notable highlight I can note from his papacy was that in reaction to the Charlie Hebdo killings back in 2015, Francis equated criticizing or ridiculing religious belief to his doctor insulting his mother that should “deserve getting a punch.”
So in other words, the dead journalists “had it coming” and he issued no condemnation towards the Islamic terrorists who murdered them. Quite a black mark when people try to paint him as one of the “good popes.”
Mr. Deity summed up his feelings quite well at the time in this video:
Thanks for the reminder. He also said that the violence was an aberration, which I think was intended to mean that it’s not to be normalized, but which I took to mean, on the whole, that it’s ok to kill people who criticize religion if you only do it once in a while.
Thinking about this in the context of the other WEIT post about the antisemitic tent at the University of Chicago, I have to wonder what the pope would think would be a proper response to the outright hatred expressed for Jews in this case? Would it be OK for UChicago Hillel to kill a bunch of SJP members?
Amen brother. Maybe it relates to all the grief that Benedict got when he criticised something Islamic, and his subsequent cringeworthy non-apology:
Elton John fans applaud!
Bari Weiss says, “I am of the view that something profound has gotten lost in our society as we have lost traditional religion.” That could be true (I think it is partly true), but it’s not an argument for returning to religion. This seems like surprisingly lazy reasoning from Weiss and Douthat. There are other secular solutions to creating “something profound”.
I’m no more a Catholic than Spinoza, but I am a lifelong Conservationist. One of Pope Francis’s ex cathedra acts caught my particular attention: his second encyclical, titled Laudato si’ (https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html). It is as blunt an injunction to impose collective restraint on the otherwise-“free” market as I could ask from a guy with nominal authority over 1.4 billion people. Here’s what the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudato_si‘) says about the encyclical:
In it, the Pope criticizes consumerism and irresponsible economic development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world to take “swift and unified global action”.[2]
His point is decisively made in the full text. In this case, it’s too bad the pope’s authority is only nominal. OTOH, whatever progress toward decarbonizing the global economy has been made to date, may owe something to Jorge M. Bergoglio’s influence. At worst, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I love the wording of the 2nd paragraph of that encyclical. It works for me.
Yes, the document is eloquent in English, and presumably in Italian, German, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese and Arabic, alongside the original Latin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudato_si%27). One assumes the Pope has good writers and translators working for him! The poetic wording works for me too, no matter who actually wrote it. Effectual or not, it’s just the kind of deep cultural wisdom one wishes to hear from a “spiritual” leader of 1.4 billion polyglot people. If only…
I was thinking that the soaring sense of wonder and joy could be found in a museum or art gallery as well as in a cathedral — and then remembered that they’re putting helpful little notes next to many of these great works of man:
“The source of the pigment in the paint used in this 17th century masterpiece was harvested by slaves — and the artist did nothing to prevent this, but instead took eager part in colonialist oppression. Please bear this in mind if you still choose to gaze.”
Last year my university disappeared a large, beautiful portrait that had hung in one of the busiest corridors on the campus. The painting incorporated Maori facial tattoos into its motif. In its place at eye level is a tiny card that reads “something something cultural appropriation blah blah.” The large empty wall space above is I guess some kind of reminder of the costs of colonization.
I’ll correct your typo: “reminder of the costs of enthusiastic stupidity”.
This is the sort of overreaction that helped elect Trump.
I think I would have interpreted the bloody hands as saying to the administration addressed as “you have blood on your hands”.
Sorry, this was supposed to go in the “Students for Justice …” thread.
Religion is a business and needs money to pay for its activities. The loss of millions of paying parishioners has most denominations hurting. This has led to the push for taxpayer dollars and other ways to increase income. The school voucher scam is one visible to the public but behind the scenes, big money is pushing for religion in various ways. And when big money gets behind a PR campaign, we start to see the media create stories about it. It’s a mutually reinforcing effort that benefits the bottom line of all involved.
As a former school board member and village council member, I can say that if I had served in England that I could have had quite a few members of the community jailed! 🙂
(not that I would have, just noting that people do like to complain about their local school and government)
The pantheon is every bit as impressive a building as Chartres, so presumably if Dreher had walked into it as a teenager he would have become a devotee of the Roman gods instead. Just kidding. Even as a teenager Dreher was probably the sort of American right-winger who finds Christianity congenial. He gets to drone on about helping the poor while supporting policies that make the poor even poorer. Anyway, to hell with The Free Press.
Touting the awe-inspiring magnificence of cathedrals such as Chartres as evidence for some sort of god has things completely backward. Such magnificence represents a cynical use of emotional advertising by religious leaders to hide the utter lack of evidence behind their superstitious nonsense.
FWIW, the impressive Pantheon had all its god statues removed long before Mr. Dreher’s time, so maybe he would have become instead a devotee of holes.
Irreverent satirist Andy Borowitz:
Trump Urges Vatican to Select New Pope from Cast of “Fox & Friends”
“You want to have a pope who’s good on TV,” Trump said. “The ‘Fox & Friends’ people are the best TV people in the business.”
Trump seemed to disqualify co-host Ainsley Earhardt, commenting, “I don’t know if you can have a girl pope. No knock on Ainsley, but I don’t think people are ready for that.”
Alternatively, he added, “Maybe go with Doocy–he looks like he’s never had sex.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-urges-vatican-to-select-new
A cynical person might look at the border situation as a case in which the last administration shortcut the system to allow anyone who wanted to come into the country whereas this administration is shortcutting the system to get anyone they don’t want out of the country. Catch and release is not a proper immigration inflow process, and I can’t understand the justification for the wartime powers act to get rid of people today (though I have no problem getting rid of people we don’t want here out of the country for almost any reason).
Re a noncrime hate incident being “an act that is motivated by prejudice or hostility towards a person’s identity but does not amount to a criminal offence”, is stupidity a “protected characteristic” yet? And I thought Mania was mostly fiction. I’ll say it loud and say it proud: That is stupid beyond credibility. Come get me, copper….
Re “green shoots” of religious belief arising, I can agree with that, if said green shoots include Belladonna / Deadly Nightshade, Death Camas (Toxicoscordion venenosum, i.e. “toxic poison”), Poison Ivy, etc. Green ≠ clean.
“Due process” for illegal aliens used to be quite simple and quick:
“Are you a US citizen?”
“No.”
Are you here on a visa?
“No.”
“Then prepare for deportation.”