From Katolik Shinja
Remembering Thomas Merton (Fr Mary Louis, OCSO)
Who died in a freak accident 36 years ago yesterday. I place him with the sound Catholic writers on the cutting edge in the category I describe here, not with ‘the end of the world’ in the 1960s despite some unsound types’ co-optation of him. (Among his only possessions when he died were his rosary and his Cistercian breviary in Latin.) The Seven-Storey Mountain is a great book containing much of the first school’s thought that I’d recommend to anyone.

Eastern Orthodoxy and the death penalty
Dispelling the black legend believed by the ‘pravoslavophobic’ West. Like the Pope I’m a 99.9% disbeliever in it but I maintain the view of traditional moral theology that some crimes forfeit your right to live — your choice. The court can have mercy on you and spare your life but doesn’t have to. People who deserve it include Ira Einhorn (when I found out what happened to Holly Maddux I literally couldn’t eat the next day), whoever survives from the group that actually staged 9/11 (however understandable their motive — that doesn’t excuse murdering around 3,000 civilians) and those who executed Margaret Hassan.