Mike Garside didn’t know what he was getting into. Easing his BMW off the busy main road connecting the boom towns of Reading and Newbury in southeast England, he felt he might be wasting the weekend. He could be spending the time at work or with his family. But here he was, on his way … Read more
Finally, a leader has spoken about the real, essential differences in the struggle between the West and Islam, as it emanates from a contest within Islam itself over the most important things. With startling — indeed alarming — clarity, Pope Benedict XVI told his audience in Regensburg, Germany, in a 2006 lecture, that not only … Read more
Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song. Joseph de Maistre We live in an age of confusion. It might even be said that we major not only in intellectual confusions but in affective confusions as well. Many do not know how to gauge their emotions; they cannot distinguish between valid and invalid … Read more
“The Holy Father should not be coming to the Holy Land without visiting Gaza.” The bitterness in his voice was obvious as the professor at Bethlehem University talked to me about Pope Benedict XVI’s visit next month. I found that his attitude is the rule, rather than the exception, among Palestinian Christians in the Holy … Read more
A few days ago, Osama bin Laden released a message threatening Benedict XVI for leading a “new Crusade” against Islam. Whether he meant to or not, the Holy Father issued a ringing answer to the architect of 9/11 by receiving into the Church Europe’s most vocal Muslim critic of bin Laden and Islamic terrorism. Magdi … Read more