On August 26 Raimon Panikkar died at age 91, in a village near Barcelona, the city in which he was raised. There have been obituaries in both the religious and the secular press. I read a fairly extensive one in The National Catholic Reporter of October 1.Panikkar was a key figure in the development of­­ […]

The Supreme Court this week heard a case which raises the issue of possible limits to the freedom of speech in the sharpest possible way. I had not been aware of this case until I first read about it last week in the October 1 issue of The Washington Post (a newspaper I don’t normally […]

Wellesley is one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Greater Boston area, exhibiting a mixture of upper-class lifestyles and progressive politics typical of such communities. It is best known as the location of Wellesley College, which for years has been a beacon of radical feminism and other ideological orthodoxies. On September 22 The Boston Globe […]

On September 22 The New York Times reported in some detail on the visit to Britain by Pope Benedict XVI.  The high point of the visit was Benedict praying side by side at Westminster Abbey with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was indeed an expression of ecumenical amity. Less amicable was Benedict’s proclamation, […]

On September 12, 58% of voters in a referendum approved changes in the constitution of Turkey which significantly reduced the power of the military—the staunchest supporter of the secularism which had from the beginning characterized the republic established  by Kemal Ataturk in 1923.  The outcome of the referendum is another victory for the AKP, the […]

In 2004 Thomas Frank, a liberal journalist and writer, published a book entitled What’s the Matter with Kansas? He was trying to explain why some people, notably in Kansas, voted Republican in obvious defiance of reason and morality. In this exercise, of course, he reflected the worldview of a cultural elite confident of its superior […]

Pluralism (and not secularization, as many still think) is the big modern challenge to religion. This does not mean that modern people cannot be religious. It does mean that faith is harder to achieve.

First Things is a journal published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York, founded by the late Catholic theologian Richard John Neuhaus and now edited by Joseph Bottum. At the end of every issue there is a section headed “While we’re at it”, containing various tidbits, some quite amusing, from the […]

After finishing the last post on Islamophobia in Europe an unexpected association occurred to me—I thought of an earlier post in which I discussed problems with democracy in Israel. In both cases there is a tension between democratic principles and the desire to preserve an ethnic culture. Of course there are significant differences between the […]

If there is such a thing as Islamophobia, this summer would seem to be the season for it. In the United States the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero under the auspices of what is the most tolerant and peaceful version of Islam, has been escalated into widespread anti-Muslim hysteria by a few […]