Unread laws

The posture and policies of the Obama presidency, using temporary majorities and legislative trickery to shove through massive unread bills

Sputnik

The Soviets stunned America by launching the utterly useless satellite called "Sputnik."
(We could have launched a satellite much earlier, but we wanted the Soviets to go first so they would establish the right to launch satellites over other nations.)

Monsignors

At a confirmation he once said, in his booming voice, “Now children, the bishop has been asking you questions. Do have any questions for the bishop?” Always dangerous. One lad piped up, “What’s a Monsignor?” The priest at the place was a Monsignor. Without missing a beat the old bishop said “Why, sonny, a Monsignor is the Cross that hangs around the bishop’s neck!”

Bishops out of line

John Paul II: "You are priests, not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems."

Church of England

Newman could write (in a note in the French edition of his Apologia pro Vita Sua, explaining Anglicanism) that: “This remarkable Church has always been in the closest dependence on the civil power and has always gloried in this.” Newman went on to explain that “it has ever regarded the papal power with fear, with resentment and with aversion, and it has never won the heart of the people”. It has, said Newman “either had no opinions, or has constantly changed them… The great principle of the Anglican Church [is] its confidence in the protection of the civil power and its docility in serving it, which its enemies call its Erastianism.”

The Mass of Trent

The Tridentine Mass is a majestic and sacred experience -- for priest and parishioner alike. Its impact is often profound. It can shake even hardened progressives out of our post-Vatican II liturgical torpor.

Cost of government

Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.