Three On the Square posts for you today! I hope you have an extra-long lunch break ( and don’t forget about Helen Rittelmeyer ).
First, we’ve got George Weigel’s continued meditations on Poland :
John Paul II had a keen insight into the way in which the two totalitarianisms of the 20th century had shredded the moral and spiritual fabric of humanity. The Gulag and the Nazi death camps, the Ukrainian terror famine, the genocide of the Chinese cultural revolution, the Cambodian genocideall of this, and more, had left 21st-century humanity with a terrible burden of guilt. And to whom could those terrible crimes be confessed: those sins that had made an abattoir out of a century imagined, at its outset, to be one of unlimited human progress? How could the guilt piled up by so many crimes be expiated?
Then, read Filip Mazurczak’s interview with Gary Krupp about Pope Pius XII (here’s a sample question):
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the inner circle of Winston Churchill were informed of the destruction of European Jewry by Jan Karski of the Polish underground, yet were dismissive of his pleas. Why is there so much talk of the silent pope but not the silent president or the silent prime minister?
And, last but definitely not least, Senator Mike Lee’s speech to AEI yesterday :
Government at all levelsbut especially in Washington, not coincidentally now home to six of Americas ten wealthiest countiesis in effect redistributing opportunity from the poor and middle class . . . to government itself and its clients and cronies.
And that’s it! What are you still reading this post for? There’s so much more to read. Endless, endless things to read.
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.