News stories of the coming resignation of Pope Benedict XVI refer to his past calling as a theologian. Attached below is a chronicle by a scholar who, early in his academic career, felt the fangs of “God’s Rottweiler.” In 1972 the then-Father Josef Ratzinger, a professor of theology at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, attempted - and almost ( Read more... )

When it comes to the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to picket funerals of GIs killed in combat, even those who agree with it make it clear they don’t share the tiny group’s stated belief: that the deaths are a punishment from God. In a country which we have been told, over and over, was founded on the “ ( Read more... )