No original sin

A good piece by Roger Scruton. What he neglects to say is that modern optimism is not just a psychological attitude, but also the outcome of certain philosophical and theological presuppositions.

Secure of one's identity

David Brooks has an interesting perspective on the new Pope.

Guiding light

Ten years ago Sandro Magister wrote an interesting profile of then-Cardinal Bergoglio.

Secularism inside us

Two interesting interviews by John Allen with Cardinal George and Cardinal Wuerl. Both of them, in spite of being very different personalities, seem to think that the greatest challenge for the next Pope will be how to face a pervasive, media-driven secularist mentality.

Monopoly

A very informative article on the healt care system in the US.

All about love...

An article on our friend Prof. David Schindler.

Give it a couple of centuries

Does Philip Jenkins really think that Europe could have been re-evangelized in 7 years?

Meet the Lumineers

How to become successful musicians by moving to Denver, where people talk to you. An example that the heart is still alive and people really are waiting for something.

Escaping into worse oppression

A nice comparison of "Downton Abbey" vs. "Girls." In fact, depicting the past as 'oppressive' is the essential device that our permissive society uses in order to justify its own nihilism.

Look at me! I am not irrelevant or dead!

Brendan O'Neill is always fun to read.

Fifty years later

Peter Hitchens makes a good point: the whole gay-marriage controversy reflects the fact that civil marriage has become perfectly meaningless.

Not cynical at all

Michael Gerson on the lastest HHS draft rule.

What "public" means

Michelle Rhee on paying attention to reality over abstractions.

Stay in your catacombs

Peter Berger on the secularist attempts to prevent people from expressing their religion in public.

Missing the point

Thomas Friedman is very excited about online education. He should reflect that bringing a student to the point where he can learn from an online course takes almost as much work as bringing him to the point where he can learn by reading the book by himself. How many students in rural Egyptian villages are ready to take circuit theory courses from MIT?