Last night at Catholic University I attended the Murnion Lecture sponsored by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative; this year it was given by Jill Kerr Conway, a personal description of the efforts of a small mission church in western Massachusetts to stay alive. It was a lovely portrait of a “common ground initiative” on the grass-roots level.

There were about 100 people in attendance, but I don’t think there were more than five of them under the age of 50, and the great majority seemed to be over 60. A couple of years ago I gave a talk for “The Upper Room,” a small reform-group in Westchester Co., NY, somewhat like Voice of the Faithful in aim. There too the vast majority were people well over fifty. I’ve given lots of talks over the last ten years on the Second Vatican Council. Almost always the audiences are of similar ages, as were almost all of the members of various groups that publicly protested the Vatican’s discipling of a French bishop some years ago.

I would like to know the age-distribution of the members of the Voice of the Faithful as well as of the subscribers to “Commonweal” and “America,” and, for that matter, of the “National Catholic Reporter.” In recent years “Commonweal” has made a notable effort to attract young readers. I wonder how successful it has been.

In any case, is there a significant generation-gap here?

Apropos of the iPope, please say hello to the JesusPhone (HT: BoingBoing):

The appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court started a sidebar debate about five Catholics on the Court and how that commonality would affect their decisions. Given the end-of-term decisions, that now seems a moot point.

Via McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — More than half of Americans say they wouldn’t consider
voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton for president if she becomes the
Democratic nominee, according to a new national poll made available to
McClatchy Newspapers and NBC News. The poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research found that 52 percent of Americans wouldn’t consider voting for Clinton, D-N.Y.

Former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, was second in the
can’t-stand-’em category, with 46 percent saying they wouldn’t consider
voting for him. Clinton has long been considered a politically
polarizing figure who’d be a tough sell to some voters, especially many
men, but also Clinton-haters of both genders. Thursday’s survey
provides a snapshot of the challenges she faces, according to Larry
Harris, a Mason-Dixon principal.

Meanwhile, via Politico:

Boston – A New Hampshire presidential poll by WHDH-TV and Suffolk
University shows that local Democrats prefer Al Gore to any of the
current contenders.  Hillary Clinton has a solid lead over the rest of the current
Democratic field. The poll, released this afternoon, shows 37 percent
of likely Democratic voters backing Clinton or leaning towards her.
Barack Obama was at 19 percent, with both John Edwards and Bill
Richardson at 9 percent.  Al Gore, however, could enter the race as the leader.  When his name
is added, Clinton loses more than a quarter of her support, while Gore
is backed by 32 percent.

A few weeks back, dotCommonweal contributor Paul Lauritzen generously offered to helm an experiment in podcasting for the site. His first effort is an interview with Fr. Donald Cozzens, author of Freeing Celibacy. The interview focuses on the sexual-abuse scandals–including due process for accused priests–and other happy subjects. You can listen to the 25-minute podcast below, or download it right here. If you want to subscribe to the podcast–and I know you do–drop the following URL into iTunes: http://commonweal.podbean.com/feed/

Since this subject popped up in the iPope thread (God knows why), here’s a place for dotCom readers to discuss–with exemplary civility–the looming motu propio. From Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, JUN 28, 2007 (VIS) – Given below is the text of a communique released today by the Holy See Press Office concerning Benedict XVI’s forthcoming “Motu Proprio” on the use of the Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962.

“Yesterday afternoon in the Vatican, a meeting was held under the presidency of the Cardinal Secretary of State in which the content and spirit of the Holy Father’s forthcoming ‘Motu Proprio’ on the use of the Missal promulgated by John XXIII in 1962 was explained to representatives from various episcopal conferences. The Holy Father also arrived to greet those present, spending nearly an hour in deep conversation with them.

“The publication of the document – which will be accompanied by an extensive personal letter from the Holy Father to individual bishops – is expected within a few days, once the document itself has been sent to all the bishops with an indication of when it will come into effect.”

Roma locuta. This should settle the matter for faithful Catholics. Though I have to agree with Jean that I can’t take being as trendy as all those AppleHeads, like B16. I actually feel kind of retro with a PC, as if I am banging away on a Remington. Or using the Old Rite.

A study recently conducted by Commonweal showed that Catholics were more likely than Protestants to buy an iPhone when it goes on sale this Friday.  Well, actually I made that up, but it seems to me that  there is no reason that Commonweal shouldn’t get in on the iPhone hype.  In fact, I want to offer my services here.  If Commonweal will buy an iPhone for me,  I’ll get in line and document the whole experience, including preparing an exclusive review of the iPhone, for this blogsite.

Zenit reports (http://www.zenit.org/article-19984?l=english) that Pope Benedict XVI has gone back to the old rule that a two-thirds majority is always required for the election of a pope. Pope John Paul II had permitted a simple majority vote after 33 or 34 ballots had not resulted in a two-thirds majority for any candidate. There had been some complaints that this novelty would enable a group or groups of cardinals to stall until that point was reached and then to have their candidate elected. Benedict’s return to the old practice would permit a ballot between two candidates, but the two-thirds majority will be required. In this case neither candidate could vote, which resembles the old rule that a two-thirds plus one vote was required, so that no candidate would be elected as the result of his own vote for himself.

The two-thirds vote at least approaches consensus, not a bad thing when considering a ministry of universal communion.

And now I see the NY Times has an article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/world/europe/27pope.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

No, this is not dotCommonweal’s first invocation of Paris Hilton. I’m referring instead to one of those other “what-were-they-thinking” stories last week, this one from MSNBC. (HT to “Get Religion”) Investigative reporter Bill Dedman tracked down campaign contributions made by journalists to candidates over the past several years. At first I thought they must all be TV types, as they are the only journos with enough disposable income to write a check to a political campaign. But then I perused the list, and it wasn’t pretty, at least to my mind. I have enough Puritan DNA left to bleed into my journalistic ethics that I register as an independent. So contributing to a politician wouldn’t even occur to me, and I still don’t think it should occur to any journalist. And if it did, they should be barred from writing for the news pages, at least.

On the other hand, Dedman contacted many of the journalists for an explanation of their decision. Many did not respond, others said they regretted the decision on reflection. Interestingly, the longest exchange is with Margot Patterson of the National Catholic Reporter. I’m not sure why Dedman included a Catholic publication and, for that matter, why there weren’t others from other sectarian publications. But Patterson was not backing down: She said her position was more honest than the “hypocrisy” of reporters who take positions but don’t back them up with donations.

Hmmm…I’ll stick with Caesar’s wife on this one, and keep my critics guessing.

Here’s a very interesting Reuters article on health care in Cuba. I don’t fully understand how the headline (“Health Care in Cuba More Complicated Than on Sicko”) jibes with the text of the article, since about the worst things the author can say about Cuban health care are that (1) the waits are a little longer than they were 6 years ago; (2) people have to bring their own towels to the hospital; (3) there are some shortages of basic medicines; and (4) there is political oppression in Cuba, which, while certainly true and clearly relevant to an evaluation of the Cuban government as a whole, does not seem to have much to do with its health care system per se. One fact in the story that really blew my mind was the following:

The average life expectancy of a child born in Cuba is 77.2
years, compared with 77.9 years in the United States, according
to the WHO. The number of children dying before their fifth birthday is
seven per 1,000 live births in Cuba and eight per 1,000 in the
United States. Yet the United States spends more than 26 times as much on
health, $6,096 per person a year, compared with only $229 in
Cuba, the WHO figures show.

UPDATE:  I changed the original post to note the medicine shortages, which do strike me as a more substantive problem than the others the author of the article mentions.

Interesting story from tomorrow’s NY Times.  Here’s the nut graf:

[C]hurch leaders say they are frustrated by prominent Catholic politicians
like Mr. Giuliani who argue that while they are personally opposed to abortion,
they do not want to impose their beliefs on others.

We’ve been discussing the op-ed by Commonweal contributor Melinda Henneberger in the New York Times, but I didn’t see a link to it among the posts. So here is a link, and here is an excerpt to whet your appetite:

The standard response from Democratic leaders has been that anyone
lost to them over this issue is not coming back — and that regrettable
as that might be, there is nothing to be done. But that is not what I
heard from these voters.

Many of them, Catholic women in
particular, are liberal, deep-in-their-heart Democrats who support
social spending, who opposed the war from the start and who cross their
arms over their chests reflexively when they say the word “Republican.”
Some could fairly be described as desperate to find a way home. And if
the party they’d prefer doesn’t send a car for them, with a really
polite driver, it will have only itself to blame.

What would it
take to win them back? Respect, for starters — and not only on the
night of the candidate forum on faith. As it turns out, you cannot call
people extremists and expect them to vote for you. But real respect
would require an understanding that what supporters of abortion rights
genuinely see as a hard-earned freedom, opponents genuinely see as a
self-inflicted wound and — though I can feel some of you tensing as you
read this — a human rights issue comparable to slavery.

There was a brief period in the wake of the 2004 elections when it looked like the Democrats were beginning to recognize that their collective extremism with respect to abortion was hurting them with voters.  Lately, however, they seem to be comfortable riding the wave of public revulsion over the incompetence of the Bush Administration, with the hope that this will carry them to victory in 2008. 

MSNBC ran an interesting piece the other day on two conferences this past week, one by Democrats for Life, the other by the liberal Campaign for America’s Future.  Comments by one attendee at the latter conference–who was asked what she thought of the group Democrats for Life–suggests that for many Democrats, abortion remains the litmus test of party orthodoxy:

“I’ve never heard of this group. I’d have to
look at why they consider themselves Democrats,” said Mimi Stewart, a
Democratic state legislator from Albuquerque, N.M., when asked about
Democrats for Life.

Stewart,
in town to attend the Take Back America event, said, “Women’s
reproductive health is a huge issue for me. I really don’t feel the
government should be telling women what to do. I believe that in my
gut. I would be more interested in a coalition with a pro-choice
Republican than I would be with an anti-choice Democrat.”

(HT: Peggy Steinfels for the Henneberger op-ed; Open Book for the MSNBC article)

From the AP:

HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) — Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention
Saturday that some right-wing U.S. evangelical leaders have exploited
and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.  “Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped
being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive
us apart,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute
speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

“Faith got hijacked, partly because of the
so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what
divides us,” the Illinois senator said.  “At every opportunity, they’ve told evangelical
Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their
church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious
Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school
prayer and intelligent design,” he said, according to an advance copy
of his speech.

“There was even a time when the Christian
Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax
cuts for the rich,” Obama said. “I don’t know what Bible they’re
reading, but it doesn’t jibe with my version.”

At the request of Robert Reid and the permission of William Collier: some comments on Henneberger’s op-ed piece

Posted by
William Collier

on June 22, 2007, 2:59 pm

I’m not trying to hijack this thread about Juan Cole’s prescription for Hillary on Iraq, but Peggy did mention the Melinda Henneberger NYT’s op-ed piece, too. The op-ed is titled “Why Pro-Choice Is a Bad Choice for Democrats.”

In gathering info for her new book (“If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians to Hear”), Ms. Henneberger states that she traveled to 20 states, over an 18-month period, listening to a wide cross-section of women comment on the issues they care about for the 2008 presidential election. According to Ms. Henneberger, “first-time defectors” in the 2004 election, i.e., Democratic women who voted Republican, did so most often not because they were “soccer moms” who saw Bush as better able than Kerry to deliver on fighting terrorism, but because they were turned off by the Democratic Party’s unwillingness to tolerate a diversity of views on the issue of abortion.

In Ms. Henneberger’s own words:

“Many of them, Catholic women in particular, are liberal, deep-in-their-heart Democrats who support social spending, who opposed the war from the start and who cross their arms over their chests reflexively when they say the word ‘Republican.’ Some could fairly be described as desperate to find a way home. And if the party they’d prefer doesn’t send a car for them, with a really polite driver, it will have only itself to blame.

What would it take to win them back? Respect, for starters — and not only on the night of the candidate forum on faith. As it turns out, you cannot call people extremists and expect them to vote for you. But real respect would require an understanding that what supporters of abortion rights genuinely see as a hard-earned freedom, opponents genuinely see as a self-inflicted wound and — though I can feel some of you tensing as you read this — a human rights issue comparable to slavery.

Again and again, these voters said Democrats are too unwilling to tolerate dissent on abortion. It is a point of orthodoxy no more open to debate within the party than the ordination of women is in Rome.”

She also makes good points about the Democratic Party hierarchy’s overreaction to the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortions.

IMO the op-ed provides sage practical advice for the Democratic presidential hopefuls on the abortion issue. Ms. Henneberger warns that the abortion issue “has been very, very good to the Republican Party” and that if the Democratic candidates hope to reconnect with the first-time defectors, they will have to moderate their pro-choice statements and construct a bigger tent on the abortion issue.

If you haven’t followed the scandal of the role of the American Psychological Association in sanctioning torture, you might want to read the letter sent recently by Physicians for Human Rights to Sharon Brehm, the President of the APA.  It can be found here.  Members of the APA opposed to the role of the APA in facilitating torture have also written to Brehm.  Their letter can be found here.

This from Juan Cole on Hillary Clinton’s effort to explain Iraq.

• If I were advising Senator Clinton on what to say about Iraq, this would be it: “Our troops have fought courageously and with great skill against the totalitarian, genocidal Saddam Hussein regime and its security forces. They did their job, but the Bush administration did not do its. Bush failed to secure a United Nations Security Council resolution for the war, depriving the war effort of key international support and casting the administration as an outlaw regime in the eyes of much of the world. There was no planning for the aftermath of the war. Stupid decisions were taken to dissolve the Iraqi army, to fire thousands of experienced bureaucrats and teachers, to marginalize the Sunni Arab community, and to deliver Iraq into the hands of expatriate carpetbaggers, some of them overly friendly with the ayatollahs in Tehran. Neither the US military nor the Iraqis bear the primary blame for the subsequent catastrophe. It is on the shoulders of the Bush administration. The administration has so spoiled the situation that there is no longer any hope of a military solution. Any solution to this festering crisis must be political and diplomatic. The US military is essentially being ordered to support some sides in a multi-pronged civil war against others, but without any real hope of having being able to triumph decisively in these low-intensity guerrilla wars. That is why I favor getting our troops out of Iraq and insisting that regional powers, NATO and the UN now come in to bring about a political resolution, even as the world ensures that a nonsectarian Iraqi military is trained, equipped and deployed for the protection of all Iraqis.” http://www.juancole.com/   (From his post on Thursday, June 21)

That sounds about right.

Also catch Melinda Henneberger’s advice to the Dems on abortion on today’s (June 22), NYTime’s op-ed page.

For over twenty years I have been writing the “Religion Book Notes” for Commonweal so it may seem a bit intrusive to recommend a book on this site but I have just finished Terry Eagleton’s “The Meaning of Life” (Oxford University Press). The title may seem like a sketch for Monty Python but Eagleton not only thinks that one can talk about such lofty matters but does so in the face of both the modernists who lament the loss of meaning and the postmodenists who resist anything that smacks of metanarrative. Eagleton is one of the best literary critics writing today and his command of contemporary philosophy, literary criticism, and popular culture is not only impressive but lightly worn. I will not reveal what he thinks the meaning of life is but I will say that he thinks it may be found in something asserted in the New Testament. It is a little book both in its pocket size and brevity (187 pages). It is an accessible read and, as he says wittily, it is the only book on this topic that does not recount the story of Bertrand Russell and the taxicab driver. If you get that allusion, this is your kind of book.

On June 7, John Carr, the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Department of Social Development and World Peace, testified
before the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works regarding
the Catholic “bishops’ position on climate change.”  Although the
testimony does not break much new ground over the 2001 bishops’
statement on the issue, it does have some interesting bits, including a
statement that, although it still hedges a little bit, comes closer
than the 2001 document (or at least my hazy memory of that document) to
a straightforward acknowledgment that climate change is happening. 
Here are a few highlights:

The bishops accept the growing
consensus on climate change represented by the International Panel on
Climate Change, but also recognize continuing debate and some
uncertainties about the speed and severity of climate change.  However,
it is not wise or useful to either minimize or exaggerate the
uncertainties and challenges we face.

…Prudence requires wise
action to address problems that will most likely only grow in magnitude
and consequences.  Prudence is not simply about avoiding impulsive
action, picking the predictable course or avoiding risks, but it can
also require taking bold action weighing available policy alternative
and moral goods and taking considered and decisive stops before the
problems grow worse.

We believe solidarity also requires that
the United States lead the way in addressing this issue and in
addressing the disproportionate burdens of poorer countries and
vulnerable people.

Those who contributed least to climate change
will be affected the most; those who face the greatest threats will
likely bear the greatest burdens and have the least capacity to cope or
escape.  We should come together to focus more on protecting the poor
than on protecting ourselves and promoting narrow agendas.

As a follow-up to the previous post and responses on “Hitchens, wrong, wrong, wrong,” Stanley Fish’s blog on “Atheism and Evidence” may be of interest.  In discussing Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, Fish writes:

“This is a remarkable sequence. A very strong assertion is made – we will “undoubtedly discover lawful connections between our states of consciousness [and] our modes of conduct” – but no evidence is offered in support of it; and indeed the absence of evidence becomes a reason for confidence in its eventual emergence. This sounds an awfully lot like faith of the kind Harris and his colleagues deride – expectations based only on a first premise (itself asserted rather than proven), which, if true, demands them, and which, if false, makes nonsense of them.”

For the entire post, click here.  (This may require a NYTimes subscription)

Commonweal contributor Andrew Bacevich in Monday’s L.A. Times:

In fact, the great lesson of Iraq (further affirmed in Afghanistan) is that the umma
— the Arabic name for the entire Muslim community — is all but
impervious to change imposed from the outside. If anything, our
ham-handed efforts to inculcate freedom and democracy, even if
well-intentioned, have played into the hands of violent Islamic
radicals. The Bush administration’s strategy has exacerbated the
problem it was designed to solve, while squandering American lives,
treasure, moral standing and political influence to little avail.

Given
the mess in which we currently find ourselves, increasing the number of
men and women under arms makes about as much sense as drinking bourbon
to treat depression. In the short term, the antidote might make you
feel better, but at a cost of masking the underlying problem and
allowing it to fester.

Read the rest right here. (H/T Daily Dish.)

Today is the feast day of St. Romuald (950-1027), the founder of the Camaldolese Benedictine Order.  The Camaldolese–like the Carthusians–combine eremetic and cenobitic elements into their rule of life, living together as a community of hermits.

If you are ever in Northern California, consider a visit to the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur.  The hermitage is nestled in the hills above the ocean and is a wonderful place for a silent contemplative retreat.  The brothers are still in the proces of rebuilding after some storm damage a few years ago and are also trying to expand their facilities.  You can read more about that here, and perhaps consider whether you wish to assist them in this venture.

In memory of St. Romuald, I leave you with his “brief rule:”

Sit in your cell as in paradise.
Put the whole world behind you and forget it.
Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish,
The path you must follow is in the Psalms — never leave it.

If you have just come to the monastery,
and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want,
take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart
and to understand them with your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up;
hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God’s presence,
and stand there with the attitude of one who stands
before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting,
content with the grace of God,
like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing
but what his mother brings him.

Hot off the presses, here’s the Vatican’s newly released discussion of the “moral aspects of driving.”  Here are it’s Ten Commandments for drivers:

My question for the discussion thread:  On these principles, is driving an SUV a sin?  (See, in this regard, Commandments I, II, V, IX, and X)

Seymour Hersch’s infuriating piece on General Taguba and his hamstrung investigation of the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

If there was a redeeming aspect to the affair, it was in the
thoroughness and the passion of the Army’s initial investigation. The
inquiry had begun in January, and was led by General Taguba, who was
stationed in Kuwait at the time. Taguba filed his report in March. In
it he found:

Numerous
incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were
inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.

Taguba was met at the
door of the conference room by an old friend, Lieutenant General Bantz
J. Craddock, who was Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant. Craddock’s
daughter had been a babysitter for Taguba’s two children when the
officers served together years earlier at Fort Stewart, Georgia. But
that afternoon, Taguba recalled, “Craddock just said, very coldly,
‘Wait here.’ ” In a series of interviews early this year, the first he
has given, Taguba told me that he understood when he began the inquiry
that it could damage his career; early on, a senior general in Iraq had
pointed out to him that the abused detainees were “only Iraqis.” Even
so, he was not prepared for the greeting he received when he was
finally ushered in.

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the
Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was
attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the
Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter
Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other
officials. Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later,
said, sadly, “I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to
know. I was ignorant of the setting.”

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib.
“Could you tell us what happened?” Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked,
“Is it abuse or torture?” At that point, Taguba recalled, “I described
a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an
interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, ‘That’s not abuse.
That’s torture.’ There was quiet.”

Rumsfeld was particularly concerned about how the classified report had
become public. “General,” he asked, “who do you think leaked the
report?”

(snip)

I learned from Taguba that the first wave of materials included
descriptions of the sexual humiliation of a father with his son, who
were both detainees. Several of these images, including one of an Iraqi
woman detainee baring her breasts, have since surfaced; others have
not. (Taguba’s report noted that photographs and videos were being held
by the C.I.D. because of ongoing criminal investigations and their
“extremely sensitive nature.”) Taguba said that he saw “a video of a
male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.” The
video was not made public in any of the subsequent court proceedings,
nor has there been any public government mention of it. Such images
would have added an even more inflammatory element to the outcry over
Abu Ghraib. “It’s bad enough that there were photographs of Arab men
wearing women’s panties,” Taguba said.

Read the rest ASAP. For Andrew Sullivan’s take, go here.

Update: What would Taguba have found if his investigation hadn’t been handcuffed? Read Spencer Ackerman on the separate, harsher interrogation tactics permitted for Special Ops Forces. More from Dan Froomkin here (thanks again to Andrew for staying on this). Short of it: Bush knew, and did nothing.

Andrew Sullivan posted this over the weekend–The Simpsons on heaven…

Anyone interested in things French should read the excellent articles by Peggy Steinfels and Steven Englund in the last couple issues of Commonweal. Also of interest is Arthur Goldhammer’s new blog on French politics and culture. Goldhammer is a distinguished translator based in Cambridge, MA. See, for example, this recent post on Christine Boutin: a French anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-prisoners’ rights, pro-annual minimum income politician in Sarkozy’s cabinet. He also notesthat Sarkozy won 77% of practicing Catholics in the recent French elections, while Segolene Royal won at least 85% of practicing Muslims.  Boutin, he speculates, precisely because of her religious beliefs (she is a practicing Catholic, as, apparently, is Sarkozy) may serve as an important bridge between Sarkozy and French Muslims.

Can anyone point me to the official statements of Amnesty and Cardinal Martino discussed in Paul Lauritzen’s post below? Not that I don’t trust media accounts!

Today’s New York Times (yes, Cathy, there is life [and death] after “The Sopranos“) has a lament by Michael Goldfarb on the demise by suicide of his alma mater, Antioch College.

Here’s the mournful ending:

I grieve for the place with all the sadness, anger and
self-reproach you feel when a loved one dies unnecessarily. I grieve
for Antioch the way I grieve for the hope of 1968 washed away in a tide
of self-inflated rhetoric, self-righteousness and self-indulgence.

The
ideals of social justice and economic fairness we embraced then are
still right and deeply American. The discipline to turn those ideals
into realities was what Antioch, its community and the generation it
led was lacking. I fear it still is.

And the screen goes black.

Click here for the Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy report on Cardinal Martino’s call for Catholics not to support Amnesty International.  The AP story can be found here.

Once again, abortion apparently trumps everything.