On the Square Today

Elizabeth Scalia on utilitarian calculations and publicly funded healthcare :

Here, within the neat columns of taxes, fines and policies received versus benefits paid out, hide the little demons of our spiritual destruction; they encourage the appointing of some flawed and imperfect humans to gauge the worthiness of other flawed and imperfect humans and then relentlessly advise for or against a life based on ever more relativistic (but called “practical”) lines. Giving public voice to their relentless prompting, pundits who recently declared that “60 is the new 40” will suddenly be opining that 71 is too old for a heart. 75 will be considered too old for a new knee—news that will stun active, fully engaged and vital people like my 80 year-old father-in-law.

Also today, William Doino Jr. considers whether the Catholic Church has gone soft on communism :

The Church’s controversial response has been to adopt a diplomatic, rather than confrontational, stance, and to look toward a post-Communist future—even though Communism remains very much alive on the island. The debate came to a boil recently when Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, frustrated by a standoff with dissidents occupying one of his church’s, asked the authorities to remove them (after winning assurance the group would not be prosecuted). The Vatican has also announced that the pontiff has no plans to meet with dissidents or their relatives during his trip (perhaps fearing it would do no good and/or lead to even more reprisals).