Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican speaks: Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican said the Lebanese conflict had no victor, but it served to focus world attention on the threat of global Islamic terrorism. At the same time, the aftermath of the fighting offers an opportunity for the West — and the Catholic Church — to support…

CT reviews two new books (one by Notre Dame’s Mark Noll) on Christians, morality and the Civil War. Historians have a formidable task when they try to explain why something happened. The task becomes even harder when they ask why something did not happen. Undaunted, Mark Noll and Harry Stout take this more difficult tack…

Over at The Corner, there has been an ongoing discussion of Heather McDonald’s piece in the American Conservative. McDonald is a contributing editor at City Journal and writes frequently about immigration issues. Her AC piece was on the plight of the atheist in the conservative movement: It is often said, in defense of religion, that…

Via the blogger Kansas City Catholic, a useful follow-the-money piece from the KC(Mo) diocesan paper on who’s funding the push for state funding of embryonic stem cell research in that state. The so-called "coalition" that is seeking a state constitutional amendment to protect human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research is being financed almost exclusively from…

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