Ryan Sayre Patrico

From the Times of London : The British Catholic Church could face a slew of U.S.-style compensation claims over child abuse after a former City lawyer today won the right to claim £5 million damages. Patrick Raggett, 50, claims he ruined his life because of years of “insidious” abuse . . . . Continue Reading »

Having also spent a year Germany as a DAAD scholar, Russell Arben Fox’s reflections on his experience over at Front Porch Republic really resonate with me: Fifteen years ago, when my wife and I got married, we had a lot of inchoate ideas and aspirations, many of which were relatively humble, . . . . Continue Reading »

From Mary Ann Glendon’s address to Benedict XVI during the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences yesterday at the Vatican: Over the years, no matter what aspect of economics, law, sociology or political sciences claimed our attention, there has been one central theme, . . . . Continue Reading »

At the Guardian , Bobbie Johnson unveils the secret technology behind Google’s bold plan to scan the world’s books: For all the discussion and debate about Google’s controversial (and potentially anti-competitive ) plan to digitize millions of books, little has been known about . . . . Continue Reading »

At the National Post , Robert Fulford reviews Roger Scruton’s new book, Beauty : So what’s wrong with kitsch, exactly? It’s garish, tasteless and sentimental, of course. Garden gnomes and conventions of Elvis impersonators may be its most outlandish examples, but you can find . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things board member Hadley Arkes writing at The Catholic Thing : In our own time, “tolerance” and “multiculturalism” begin by receding from the casting of judgments. The New Tolerance disclaims any monopoly on truth, moral or religious, and in fact it disclaims any ground . . . . Continue Reading »

Twitter has officially jumped the shark : The leader of Ireland’s four million Roman Catholics has urged social network users to start sending daily prayers by text, Twitter or e-mail. “Make someone the gift of a prayer through text, twitter or e-mail every day,” Cardinal Sean Brady . . . . Continue Reading »

Laura Miller reviews Winifred Gallagher’s latest book on—Wait, what was it on again? Oh, yeah.—our culture’s inability to concentrate and what we can do about it: You don’t have to agree that “we” are getting stupider, or that today’s youth are going to . . . . Continue Reading »

In the Canadian magazine Macleans , Mark Steyn reminds us that some slopes really are slippery : What’s my line on legalized polygamy? Oh, I pretty much said it all back in 2004, in a column for Ezra Levant’s Western Standard. Headline: “It’s Closer Than They Think.” Well, . . . . Continue Reading »

In a new article in the Boston Globe , Nathan Schneider examines a growing trend in the social sciences—the study of irreligion: Religion can be good for more than the soul, a growing number of studies seem to say. Over the past decade, academic research on religiosity has exploded, and with . . . . Continue Reading »