• English is a clanking Germanic language that’s borrowed so many Romance words that Italian is one of those languages that, if you just stare at it long and hard enough, magically turns into English (albeit English with funny spelling). Like one of those optical-illusion picture things.
• I like ‘The Simpsons’ too but agree on L’Osservatore Romano trying to weigh in on pop culture: it’s an old person trying to be hip and cool. And there is nothing more excruciatingly, exquisitely embarrassing...
• Nuns: the ones who have failed to keep up with the times seem to be doing just fine, thanks.
• What’s creepy about Massachusetts.
• The Catholic religion is a set of beliefs. The thing you have to do to be a Catholic is to believe those beliefs. It’s not an ethnicity. It’s not a nationality. It’s really that simple. Counterpoint: Bad Catholics are not Modernists.

Labels: history, television, the Catholic faith