archives

Last week I published a lengthy, and remarkably candid, interview with Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore about a set of directives he’s issued for the Legionaries of Christ and their lay movement, Regnum Christi. Specifically, O’Brien demanded an accounting of all personnel and activities in his archdiocese from both groups, and he barred Legionaries and Regnum Christi members from one-on-one spiritual counseling with anyone under 18.

In our interview, O’Brien had some tough things to say, including his fear that the problems he sees in both groups are so “endemic” as to be essentially beyond correction. O’Brien said he hopes he’s wrong, but revealed that he had walked up to the brink of expelling the Legionaries and Regnum Christi from the archdiocese altogether, only to pull back after three Vatican cardinals asked him to give them another chance.

Vincent Buglosi’s angry book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, has three themes: 1) laying out the case for a murder indictment, 2) showing Bush’s incompetence in dealing with terrorists and 3) a call for a restored America. Since Bush fabricated a case to go with Iraq, he is guilty of murdering some 4,000 American military people. Iraq was not a threat to the United States or anyone else. Saddam Hussein never had any connection with Al Qaeda. In fact, they hated each other. Saddam had his palaces, wives and luxurious living in secular government. Osama Bin Laden, a fundamentalist aesthetic, considered Hussein as an apostate. There was a 1995 meeting in Sudan with Bin Laden and an Iraqi intelligence officer to look for mutual goals but nothing came of this meeting. On October 15, 2001, Colin Powell stated that Iraq was no threat: “Iraq is Iraq, a wasted society for 10 years.”

When I look at books on philosophy nowadays, I just shake my head. Does anybody, other than the authors and specialists, have any idea of what they are talking about? Would it make any difference in our lives? Is there anything worthwhile to hear?

I offer this hope to philosophers to examine the institutions, customs and personalities of our society to report their underlying premises, goals, flaws and results. Sometimes outsiders to a culture see traits that escape those who are in it. The fish is hardly aware that he is in water. Alexis de Toqueville’s observations about American life became a classic. Alan Riding’s Distant Neighbors about Mexico’s history, culture, economics and politics may do the same for Mexico.