I'm about as un-Catholic as they come. I grew up in Massachusetts, where the Roman clergy formed a reactionary vanguard scorned by my family and friends. The magical beliefs at the core of Christian dogma strike me as risible, and I've been known to bedevil Catholic friends by making sport of them. Not much fun in that these days, so palpable is the pain and frustration among Catholic laity over Pope Benedict XVI's Nixonian defense of the sex abuse cover-up scandal enveloping his papacy and the church. No one can take pleasure in their present grief.  Like other non-Catholics I suspect,...

20 April, 2010

On January 1, a new law in Ireland bans publication or uttering of material grossly abusive or insulting to matters held sacred by any religion and thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion. The law carries a 25,000 Euro fine and permits some defenses. The website blasphemy.ie declares it "both silly and dangerous." It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are...

03 January, 2010