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Indignity at the Bottom of the Lake

“To live with dignity, to die with dignity” is the motto of the Zurich-based assistant suicide clinic, Dignitas. But apparently not to rest with dignity. Divers have found, according to the British Daily Mail , “scores of urns containing human ashes” at the bottom of Lake Zurich . . . . Continue Reading »

How to Think About Immigration

With a stroke of a pen, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the country’s strictest state law governing illegal immigration—and revived the national debate over immigration. Peter Meilaender examines the issue in our latest On the Square feature, ” Defending the Innocent: Arizona and . . . . Continue Reading »

A Parish for Mad Men?

Every Sunday at 6 P.M., the Church of the Ascension, a Catholic parish on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, offers a Mass at which, according to the church website, “a jazz trio plays original compositions, arrangements of traditional hymns and music by composers such as Billy Strayhorn and . . . . Continue Reading »

Molesters for Hundreds of Years

I spoke, in the new issue of the Weekly Standard , about the effect of the atmosphere created by all the reporting on clerical abuse: The best sign of such hysterical moments may be the difficulty of anything sane or sensible being heard in them. As Newsweek noted on April 8, the surveys and . . . . Continue Reading »

Were the Church Fathers Pacifists?

If you ask noted pacifist John Howard Yoder , the answer is unequivocally “yes.”  Writes Yoder: The answer of the pre-Constantinian church was negative; the Christian as an agent of God for reconciliation has other things to do than to be in police service . . . . Christians saw . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s the Parents Who Need Pacifying

“Remember that a baby that has a dummy [pacifier] is like a tiger that has tasted blood,” warned an English health pamphlet from of about 100 years ago. Perversions were thought likely to follow, explains Nicholas Day in an article titled (an editor’s dream)  Babies Suck . . . . . Continue Reading »

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