Reformer & Racialist

Recently, a friend sent a color postcard from Poland, showing Pope Benedict XVI waving to a crowd and proclaiming: “The church looks upon the past with serenity, and does not fear for the future.” There was something wrong with the picture. The audience of well-wishers stood beneath a cloudy sky in Rome, but the quotation was in fact taken from a message the pope offered Polish bishops on a visit to Czestochowa in 2006. And perhaps there’s something wrong with the...

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