Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

After the Revolution France developed a militant secularism, la laïcité, which insisted that the state was lay, that is clerics and religion had no role in any state activity or public life. In part this was a reaction to integrisme, the strain of Catholic thought that insisted that the state must be Catholic and that [...]

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Although Father Richard Neuhaus of First Things does not like my book (he does not like my tone), he and I agree in our dislike of clericalism and our strong suspicion that it was a major cause of the abuse. In commenting on a survey of Catholic attitudes Neuhaus writes in the February First Things:
As [...]

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            President Bush wondered and why the Allies did not bomb the Nazi extermination camps. Der Spiegel discusses this in an article Why the Allies Did Not Bomb Auschwitz.
The allies of course knew the Nazis were anti-Semitic, but first heard of the plans for the Holocaust in August 1942, In November 1942 a Polish officer, [...]

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The majority of Austrians (63%) fear the consequences of the low birth rate in their country, according to Kath.net.                                                                                                        But the age distribution means that those who could do something about it are least likely to.  Among older Austrians 74% fear what will happen.  But among the under-thirty generation, only 44% fear the consequences. 
Consequently, the number [...]

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I think this is for real, unless Sascha Baron Cohen has a new persona.   TAZ interviewed two Kok-Boru players in Kyrgyzstan. The sport was, for reasons that will become clear, outlawed when the country was part of the Soviet Union. My translation:   
TAZ: Herr Taigashkaeb, what goes on in Kok-Boru?

Ruslan Taigashkaeb: Two teams with four players [...]

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  I was a scout leader in my son’s troop for many years. Adolescent boys can be difficult, but sometimes their courage and self-sacrifice go to the heart. 
At one scout camp I was at, a boy with a minor eye problem was patiently learning how to shoot a rifle. I overheard him explaining to the [...]

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Msgr. Bernard prince is being tried in Canada on numerous charges of child molestation. The Ottawa Citizen is covering the trial.
 
Msgr. Prince, who is Polish, was a close friend of John Paul II
 and was highly placed in the Vatican and in the Canadian Church:
 
His career included posts at the Vatican as the secretary general of [...]

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  Cardinal Hummes has asked the bishops of the world to form groups to pray for the victims of sexual abuse; According to Reuters 
A top Vatican official has proposed creating prayer groups to pray for victims of sexual abuse by priests, in an effort to help heal wounds from recent abuse scandals that have rocked the [...]

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 Philip Jenkins, in his books The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South and The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity,  has argued that the future of Christianity is in the Third World. For the people of that world, the Bible is not an ancient book to be demythologized and [...]

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Throughout the history of the world, the weak have been exploited by the strong. One version of this bad human habit is sex tourism. Pedophiles from the First World go to the Third World to buy sex with children cheaply and safely. Thailand is a major destination.
Some countries have acted, According to Pédophilie: les lois [...]

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