Of Trump & Berlusconi, and Also the Liturgy

Two very different items from the web you may find of interest:

1) Those who enjoyed David B. Hart’s  A Person You Flee at Parties , his analysis of the Devil and Donald Trump, may find of interest an article by an Italian economist, Luigi Zingales, comparing Trump and Berlusconi. He writes in Dodging the Trump Bullet :

Trump and Berlusconi are remarkably alike. They are both billionaire businessmen who claim that the government should be run like a business. They are both gifted salesmen, able to appeal to the emotions of their fellow citizens. They are both obsessed with their looks, with their hair (or what remains of it), and with sexy women. Their gross manners make them popular, perhaps because people think that if  these guys could become billionaires, anyone could.

Most important is that both Trump and Berlusconi made their initial fortunes in real estate, an industry where connections and corruption often matter as much as, or more than, talent and hard work. Indeed, while both pretend to stand for free markets, what they really believe in is what most of us would label crony capitalism.

2) On a much higher level, the former Anglican minister John Hunwicke — recieved into the Catholic Church during Holy Week — has resumed his weblog Fr. Hunwicke’s Liturgical Notes , popular among people interested not only in liturgy, carefully considered with a scholarly and a pastoral eye, but other subjects as well.

The last few entries include an interesting discussion of Benedict’s understanding of the legality of the old Mass when the new one was introduced and a short but rather moving sermon on the Immaculate Conception, as well as a close reading of the latest instruction on the Tridentine or “Extraordinary Form” Mass which suggests a more evangelistic intent than the translation conveys. Not everyone’s sort of thing, of course, but wonderful stuff if it is.