Religion

Here’s a terrific meditation by English writer Niall Gooch, who has been thinking about the Benedict Option, and the way Britain’s surfeit of old churches can be part of it. Excerpts:

A reader writes:

Ideology, in the hands of true-believers, tends to reject facts in favor of some grander “truth,” an especially dangerous tendency when mixed with religious conviction and certainty, as Lawrence Davidson explains. By Lawrence Davidson Ideologies are pre-set forms of thinking that shape people’s worldviews and, supposedly, help to order and simplify reality. While this supposition is…

Pope Francis has told Iranian President Rouhani that Biblical prophesies regarding the ‘end times’ are now being fulfilled, and that the world is in irreversible turmoil and will be ‘unrecognisable’ this time next year. Responding to President Rouhani’s claim that the Mahdi is coming, Pope Francis confirmed that indeed he is, but that his name is Christ. The pope issued a call to action for Christians, Muslims and Jews to unite and prepare for the arrival.

Der Spiegel is disturbed because the right-of-center Polish government is making the country “anti-Western.” Excerpts: