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Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

By Peter Laarman

…rine Band playing some of the same “airs” it played for Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Compared to royal coronations, American inaugurations are remarkably simple affairs. But our ceremonies retain their own majesty and are capable of projecting a strong sense that something sacred is happening. Our inaugurations have always reflected a mashup of civil religion—invocations of our secular sacred texts, appeals to mystic chords of national memory—and bit…

Politics in a Fallen World: Lying, Fact-Checkers, and the Future of Civilization

By Michael Schulson

…r greed, deception, and capitalist success…and he’s running for president. For historians, the picture you are painting is determined by where you put the frame. Since I put the frame at 1800, I’m okay. But if I put it at 2016, I might be hanging myself. * * * Also on The Cubit: Donald Trump has turned Islam into the new communism…

The Intellectual Source Code For National Conservatism Can Be Found at This Niche Catholic Publication

By Peter Schwartz

…unding the National Conservative movement is not without precedent. Between 1800 and 1950, Europe endured what amounted to a second Catholic Counter-Reformation. In the latter portion of the 19th century, predominantly Catholic countries in Europe—which of course European nations have largely been since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia—experienced an upsurge of royalist and irredentist passions to which the Catholic Church often attached itself (for e…

Oh Say, Can You See?: 9/11 Flag Displays and the Flag’s Symbolic Power

By Spencer Dew

…is to convey the enormity of the loss of life, to make otherwise abstract numbers visible. In the Oak Brook commemoration, each flag has attached to it a brief biography of the person killed, with color-coded ribbons differentiating civilians and flight crews from first responders. Orlando, Florida, on the logic that far more were injured in both visible and “invisible” ways, has opted to erect 250,000 flags. It is not death that is primary here,…

With the Pope at Ground Zero

By Anthea Butler

…resent, including Tim Rogér of Rochester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board American Airlines Flight 11. Mr. Roger said he hoped the pope would say prayers for the place, for the people, and for his daughter Jean. Praying at a unlighted candle next to the prie-dieu Pope Benedict XVI used on his visit, the Pope offered those prayers silently while looking at the south pool of the memorial. The 9/11 site has become not just…

The Man in the Red Dress: My Unlikely Friendship with Cardinal Francis George

By Cathleen Falsani

…man secure in his mortality, I thought as I craned my neck to look for the flight attendant refilling wine glasses. I recalled that unflinching newspaper when I learned Cardinal George had died last week after a lengthy battle with cancer, a disease he’d beaten twice before in the years since I left Chicago and the newspaper job that often put me in his company—whether I’d been invited or not. Cardinal George (or “Frannie G,” as some of us media c…

The Pope’s Gay Priests

By William J. Dohar

…this pope. Just how much dancing is required became apparent after the in-flight chat with journalists and Francis’ now-famous statement: “if a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has goodwill, well who am I to judge them?” When it comes to making trouble in the dioceses, Francis is practicing what he preaches. Many bishops in this country went into containment mode, issuing statements to their local churches about what the pope had said and es…

The Bleeding Heart of Muslim Europe

By Haroon Moghul

…as Yugoslav, and most recently almost destroyed. And today? As I board the flight to Sarajevo, I’m not sure if I should expect a post-Soviet wasteland, an eerily quiet former war zone, or something else. The flight, though, is reassuringly undistinguished. There are lots of Bosnians, white and Western enough to pass for everyday Americans, though the occasional hijabs might throw you off. There are a few Americans, who seem to be intrepid backpack…

Norwegian Catholic Church May Stop Civil Marriages; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…und and spiritual for me.” France: Gay Flight Attendants Seek Opt Out From Flights to Iran Earlier this month, gay flights attendants for Air France sought the ability to opt out of working flights on a new route to Tehran; female flight attendants were previously given that option after some objected to the requirement that they wear a head scarf when deplaning in Iran. Malaysia: Top Cop Says LGBT People Cannot Be Police A top law enforcement off…

The Lesser and the Greater Pilgrimage

By Amina Wadud

…icion that I would be more like myself and not so overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. I had stuck with this plan—umrah any time of the year, the further from the three sacred months the better, and then hajj some other year—until my recent stay in Indonesia. I met an Indonesian fashion designer who had one of those life-altering experiences about 15 years ago, after flaunting around in Milan, Italy, where she studied fashion. From that moment on, sh…