On the Square Today

William Doino Jr. on civil rights hero Roi Ottley and the pope :

He was among the most celebrated writers of his time, a world traveler, pioneer of civil rights, and an acquaintance of Ernest Hemingway, but when he died, Roi Ottley was virtually forgotten—and forgotten, too, was his remarkable encounter with Pope Pius XII.

Also today, Robert Royal on the problems with (some) Catholic social thought :

It’s worthwhile for Americans to hear European voices like Cardinal Marx, of course. But it is also important that Europeans who come here are challenged, as well–particularly by our American cautiousness about the tendencies of states, institutions, and power structures in general. But as the audience tried to egg him on at Georgetown, it was clear that Marx had no concrete proposals, at least none that he wanted to state publicly, other than unspecified “action.”