Ayn Rand and the Episcopal New Sixty

Joe Carter’s  column today explores the unsettling extent to which Ayn Rand, the ill-chosen hero of some conservatives and libertarians, finds a twin in Anton LaVey, the founder of modern satanism :

Perhaps most are unaware of the connection, though LaVey wasn’t shy about admitting his debt to his inspiration. “I give people Ayn Rand with trappings,” he once told the  Washington Post . On another occasion he acknowledged that his brand of Satanism was “just Ayn Rand’s philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” Indeed, the influence is so apparent that LaVey has been accused of plagiarizing part of his “Nine Satanic Statements” from the John Galt speech in Rand’s  Atlas Shrugged .

George Weigel’s column profiles Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the 40-year-old episcopal leader of the Greek Catholic Church in the Ukraine :

Major-Archbishop Shevchuk is 40, and if he becomes a cardinal shortly after his predecessor, Cardinal Lubomir Husar, turns 80 in 2013, Shevchuk will be the youngest member of the College of Cardinals in over a century.

. . .

Since his enthronement, Major-Archbishop Shevchuk has reached out to the Orthodox communities in Ukraine as well as to the leadership of Russian Orthodoxy, making clear his interests in genuine dialogue, real problem-solving, and joint work to repair the vast human damage done to Ukraine by 70-plus years of communism.