This article, written by Michael I. Niman, originally appeared at ArtVoice, on 12/20/12

Recently, a friend in a small Mayan village where I once lived in southern Belize, invited me to attend the wedding of his daughter, who was marrying a boy from a neighboring village.

We’ve known the bride and her family since she was a small child, but regrettably we could not break away from our stateside commitments to attend. This was a traditional Maya wedding, joining Kekchi and Mopan Maya families from two different villages and Maya ethnicities together. And I’m sure it was a great celebration, with music, dancing, roast pork, chicken caldo, and all the trimmings of a grand Mayan feast.

The reason I bring this up is because people don’t have festivals like this, making lifelong bonds and celebrating the future, a week before the world is supposed to end. The Maya that I know clearly were not expecting the world to end this week.

In fact, nobody that I know in Belize, in the Maya heartland, surrounded by Mayan ruins and speckled with traditional Mayan villages, expected the world to end. What those familiar with their history did expect on the solstice was an end to the 13th baktun, a 144,000-day period comprised of 20 k’atuns, each having lasted 7,200 days. The 13th baktun, of course, is followed by the 14th, in much the same way that it followed the 12th baktun. Since this only happens every 400 years or so, this is somewhat of a big deal, like the onset of the Christian calendar’s third millennium in 2000, which honestly, really wasn’t much of a big deal at all.

None of this is really a big deal to most Maya, who, like most everyone else on earth, pretty much use the Christian calendar for their day-to-day scheduling needs. The move from the 13th to 14th baktun, however, is a big deal to a bunch of white New Agers who, despite not knowing a tzolk’in from a haab’ cycle, are quick to embrace ersatz constructions of native cultures. This is especially true when the myths they construct might promise destruction.

So, while Maya are aware of their calendar, and this historic change, they’re not freaked out about it. If anything, this is a cause for celebration, like New Year’s Eve, when we make resolutions for the new year. This is not the end of the world.

Of course, this wasn’t the first end-of-the-world prediction. They come pretty regularly. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, predicted the world would end it 1914. And when it didn’t, they changed their prediction to 1918, then 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, and, most recently, 1994. In 1999 televangelist Jerry Falwell warned that the Antichrist is living among us (as a Jewish male), and hence the end times are near. Harold Camping, who until last year was president of a Christian radio network broadcasting to more than 150 American towns and cities, used his radio network to warn that the world would end in 1994, later warning of a September 29, 2011 destruction, and, when that also didn’t work out, an October demise. Pope Leo X allegedly wrote in 1514 that the world would end in 2014. The Weekly World News has it all going kaput in 2016.

The problem with all these wacky doomsday predictions, aside from being baseless, is that they all predict an abrupt end. Truth be told, the end is coming. It’s just not coming all at once. It’s more like we’re swimming in a vat of water as it slowly rises to a boil. The flame under that pot was lit a long time ago, some say with the advent of agriculture and, later, civilization. Others more conservatively argue it was the industrial revolution and the carbon economy that set the wheels in motion.

However it got lit, the flame was turned up once again earlier this month, with the effective collapse of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar. The consistently record-breaking catastrophic weather we’ve been experiencing globally for the past decade has resulted from a global temperature increase of less than one degree Fahrenheit since 1980. Barring any significant action, the scientific consensus has global temperature rising approximately another six degrees before the end of the century. A four-degree rise would cause enough environmental chaos to collapse human civilization. The US National Intelligence Council lists climate change as a major threat to national security. But unlike your usual end-of-the-world scenario, this one won’t come, bang, all in one day, or even a week, month, or decade. It’s been happening at an accelerating pace for hundreds of years. We’ve known about it with certainty, conservatively, for about 30 years. But aside from branding environmentally destructive habits and products as “green,” because other habits and products are worse, we’ve pretty much done nothing.

During the previous month, we’ve all heard about the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, which isn’t actually ending. Except for a handful of cranks, we also knew the world wasn’t going to end on December 21. But the media still covered the story. And they covered it well. The Nexis/Lexis database shows that during the past 30 days the US newspapers and “news wires,” which are the sources for much of what is broadcast and distributed online, ran twice as many stories mentioning the Mayan calendar as they did mentioning the UN Climate Change Conference. This fact alone is terrifying on many levels.

Climate doom isn’t a certainty—that is, we still have a very small window of opportunity to take some very drastic and radical action to avert the worst effects of global warming, and prepare for what’s already heading our way. This is a tale of two doomsdays. One is nonsense, but it entertains us. The other is real, and unless we change the way we live, it will destroy us—or, more accurately, it will allow us to destroy ourselves. And that’s why we’d rather talk about the end of the 13th baktun.

Dr. Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism and media studies at SUNY Buffalo State. His previous columns are at artvoice.com, archived at www.mediastudy.com, and available globally through syndication.

Last month’s headlines certainly looked exciting: “Italian church to be stripped of tax exemption,” “Catholic church to lose historic property tax exemption in Italy.” Wow! If such a heavily Catholic country like Italy can start making God experts pay property taxes like everyone else, then why can’t even less-Catholic countries – like this one – do the same thing?

Unfortunately, it turns out that the headline writers were doing their job: sensationalizing a story to make suckers like me take the time to read it, misleading without being technically inaccurate. The Italian church is not losing its entire tax exemption, just part of it – a part that largely doesn’t exist here, or in most other jurisdictions. Still, progress is progress, and it’s worth understanding exactly what is going on in Italy.

A church, operating as a church, was and will remain exempt from all Italian property taxes, even though it benefits from all the police, fire, transportation, environmental protection, dispute resolution, and other services that property taxes pay for. So will a convent, a monastery, a seminary, or any other location owned by a church. Everyone else, religious or otherwise, pays a little more so that the church can avoid paying its proportionate share.

In Italy, this bad situation is even worse, because since the days of Mussolini the Catholic Church has had far more money than it knows what to do with. So it has used some of that money to buy up vast chunks of Italian real estate, and use it for strictly commercial purposes. By one estimate, the church owns some 50,000 buildings in Italy, more than half of them of a commercial nature. Fifteen percent of Italy’s tourist lodgings are church owned.

That’s what the current controversy is about. If the church owns a hotel, for example, it pays no property tax. Meanwhile, the hotel across the street, owned by ordinary Italians trying to make a living, pays property tax not only for itself, but a little more to cover what the church isn’t paying.

To be fair, that’s an overstatement. Italian law provides that a 100% commercial-use property would be subject to property tax even if owned by a church. The issue involved mixed-use property, with some religious elements and some commercial elements, which under Italian law is entirely exempt from property tax.

So if you take that 100% commercial-use hotel and stick a little chapel in the corner, then voila! It’s now mixed-use, and entirely tax exempt. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what you’ll find in most church-owned property in Italy.

Competing business owners have complained about this for a long time, and when no one in the Italian government paid attention they took their case to Europe. The EU has been putting the squeeze on Italy for a while now, and the current prime minister – a no-nonsense economist trying to pull the government back from the brink of a bankruptcy that would surely trigger a world depression – is probably grateful that he can use EU pressure as his excuse for ending this tax scam. By some estimates, curtailing the mixed-use exemption will net the Italian government as much as two billion euros a year.
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(Washington, DC – Oct. 21, 2012) – Humanists and atheists are mourning the death of humanist Dr. Paul Kurtz, former editor of the American Humanist Association’s Humanist magazine and founder of the Council for Secular Humanism, who died on Oct. 21, 2012 at the age of 86. His death means the loss of one of secular humanism’s most prominent advocates.

“Paul Kurtz worked tirelessly for decades to see secular humanism become accepted as an alternative philosophy to traditional religion,” said Roy Speckhardt, the executive director of the American Humanist Association. “The attention and guidance he gave to the humanist movement had an unmistakable global impact.”

Paul Kurtz served on the American Humanist Association Board of Directors from 1968-1981 and as editor of Humanist magazine from 1967-1978 before establishing the Council for Secular Humanism.

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It’s too hard to list all the appropriate adjectives and accolades that could proceed Gore Vidal’s name. Gore Vidal died tonight and the enlightened world mourns. But what a life he lived!

Please read the American Humanist Association’s obituary for Mr. Vidal, who was AHA’s honorary president since 2009. I had the honor of interviewing him, together with AHA president David Niose, at Vidal’s home in the Hollywood Hills in August 2009. That was almost exactly three years ago, and Gore, 83, was a lion even then. We should all hope to have such fire (and carry the humanist torch) at that age.

I had my first experience with godless comfort when a woman at my job lost her father. I found her in the break room crying uncontrollably, the pain seeping from every inch of her. Embracing her, I encouraged her to express her feelings–her confusion, her anger, her sorrow. I held her in silence as she sobbed for several minutes.

If it had been an earlier time, I would have prayed for her. I would have “rebuked the devil” and begged God for his grace and mercy, for his protection over the soul of my co-worker’s father. I would’ve prayed that she find peace and comfort in her bereavement, letting her know she would surely see her father again.

But I couldn’t do any of that. Having admitted to myself a few weeks earlier that I was an atheist and humanist, I would have been lying if I’d told her I’d pray.

We’re all going to lose loved ones and witness others’ losses, no matter our beliefs. Last week’s devastating movie-theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., reminded us of that discomforting fact. But sadly, we live in a society in which some believe these terrible things not only happen for a good reason but can be soothed with divine intervention. I can’t recall the amount of prayers that flooded my Facebook wall. Supplications to God were everywhere–on blogs, on major news sites, on television. Some even suggested that although God didn’t stop the massacre because he was upset with our demands for a secular nation, he can surely comfort the bereaved and injured. Makes perfect sense.

What, however, do the now 19 percent of us who have no religious affiliation say to grieving human beings when we don’t believe a prayer will work? Insisting our thoughts are with someone is considerate, but there’s no real emotion in that. We’re not really thinking in tragedies–we’re feeling. We feel outraged. We feel violated. We feel sad. And we know a few nods toward the sky won’t change any of that.

I believe the simplest way for humanists to express sincere sympathy, remorse, or grief is to act. That’s what I did when my co-worker was grieving: After I listened to her, I bought her a beautiful white vase of flowers. Was that going to bring her father back? No. Was she going to jump for joy? Of course not. But the small gift was my way of showing her I cared.

A prayer might be psychologically soothing, but it won’t help. Neither will the radio-like waves of positive thoughts we hope to transmit to grieving minds and hearts. All we can do for the people of Aurora and for those around us is to act. We can express our human feelings first, then help where we can. If we’re able, we can send money for medical expenses or funeral costs. We can sit with those near us who are in pain. Even if it’s through technology, we can be there for each other, human to human. When we’re at our lowest, that connection is all we can be certain is real.

The man upstairs likes sending mixed messages.

George Zimmerman, the man charged with the Feb. 26 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, insisted during a television interview with Sean Hannity that the shooting was “all God’s plan.”

Martin’s father Tracy replied, “We must worship a different God. There is no way that my God wanted George Zimmerman to murder my teenage son.”

Oh dear. Let me start by saying that I can understand why Martin is perplexed. One would hope that a god who’s supposed to be loving and merciful would not plan for an unarmed teenager to be killed while walking home with Skittles and iced tea.

But, just to play devil’s–or God’s?–advocate, perhaps Zimmerman makes sense. Maybe his god really did want him to shoot Trayvon. Maybe he was praying for an answer during that rainy night in Sanford, Florida, and that’s the answer “God” gave him.

My big, obvious problem with this debate is that, well, who can really know what God wants? To get really technical, I could point to the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22: 1-19), which may indicate that God likes the killing of teenage sons. But of course, modern-day Christians would insist I’d taken that passage out of context. All that, however, is beside the point.

Knowing what God wants has been an issue for millennia, and maybe if He could send better signals, his followers wouldn’t be split into approximately 38,000 different denominations. Maybe he wouldn’t forbid and order killing simultaneously. If God’s desires were clear to everyone, perhaps Trayvon Martin would still be alive.

Or, maybe a horrible thing happened that night as the result of human, not divine, will. Maybe there was no grand plan to kill nor save young Trayvon. Maybe what “god” wants is only what we want at the moment. Maybe it’s just an unfortunate fact of the universe that bad things happen, and maybe none of those things are part of a greater plan.

And maybe there’s no man upstairs, either.

Although I’m a happy humanist, I must admit that there are certain things I miss about church. I miss gathering with friends and family, swaying to the band, and feeling inspired. I also miss going out to eat afterwards, but I can do that anytime.

So, I’m delighted to hear that the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers is offering “alternatives to church” programs during summer training at U.S. military academies. Nonbelievers and skeptics in the armed forces will now have a place to ask questions, connect with like-minded people, and reduce stress in their lives.

But of course, not everyone’s pleased, including former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt. When asked about the campaign, he said:

I think it’s sad how atheists are using a government forum and resources to openly recruit Christian cadets into atheism or secular humanism. What should Christian parents think, when their 18-year-old son or daughter is promised donuts, but gets a lecture about ‘letting go of God’ and proselytizing into rejecting their parents’ faith? Atheists define themselves by what they are against (God), not by any good they stand for. But the Bible says ‘the fool says in his heart, there is no God.’

I’m not going to get into the Bible-as-evidence part. We all know how that goes. What irritates me more is the idea that military humanists and atheists are trying to “recruit” new members. Freethinking requires no baptism process, no special prayer to confess, and no strict set of guidelines to follow. If a cadet attends the meeting and realizes he or she isn’t interested in giving up God, no one will condemn said cadet to hell.

Chaplain James Klingenschmitt has a point that atheists “define themselves by what they are against” (though I wouldn’t call a lack of belief being “against” something), but he doesn’t seem to realize that many atheists take their nonbelief a step further–into humanism. Humanists do define themselves by the “good they stand for.” Atheism says nothing about a person’s morals. Humanism does. And it seems to me that the MAAF is just trying to provide a place for humanists to congregate, a place that provides social interaction akin to the church but free of the supernatural stuff. No harm there.

In the meantime, I’m still looking for such a place in my civilian life.  I’d have no problem waking up on Sunday to hear a good (secular) message, interact with friends, and eat afterwards. Best of all, I won’t have to pray for forgiveness if I decide to sleep in instead.

For many African Americans, to deny the Christian doctrine is to reject one’s heritage. Some consider not only leaving the church but professing unbelief in its core principles heresy of the highest order. Our ancestors, believers argue, endured years of slavery only because of their faith in God. If it weren’t for the church, they say, the Civil Rights movement never would have happened.

But the skeptics, lifelong nonbelievers, and recent deconverts at the African Americans for Humanism meetup in Washington, D.C., on June 23 weren’t afraid to think otherwise. Fred Edwords’ article, “The Hidden Hues of Humanism,” published in the March/April 2012 Humanist magazine informed a frank, sometimes serious, often funny discussion about the reasons blacks adhere to stifling religiosity and fear rational philosophies.

A BBC reporter working on a radio show about black nonbelievers had to ensure that everyone was comfortable with the possibility of being “outed” as an atheist. That’s how serious the issue of nonbelief is for African Americans: You could lose your “black” card if you’re cavalier about rejecting Grandma’s God.

Why is it so difficult to get blacks on board with humanism? As Edwords noted, some humanist principles appear out of tune with the black experience: “Self-sufficiency and ultimate human agency,” he wrote, “may be perceived as demoralizing if not dangerously radical.” The group agreed. When you believe you’re not strong enough to fight your own battles, that you owe praise and gratitude to someone else for the work you do, it’s difficult to take responsibility for yourself–especially when you’re economically disadvantaged. The economic disparity between blacks and whites provides little reason to forgo the promise of heavenly wealth.

Ernest Parker of AAH brought up another roadblock to humanism for blacks: the assumption that one must worship something. Who or what do you worship if not God? If you profess to humanism, must you worship imperfect humans? Of course not, but some people don’t see it that way. Many blacks are taught from childhood to worship, to lift their hands in submission to God and his son. Long after slavery’s end, that serving-the-master mentality prevails. Where do you direct that energy if not to the Almighty above?

The church also gives African Americans something humanists still have not been able to: a place to go. Day care, potlucks, job training—the black church has provided these services for decades, and if lower-income blacks decide to eschew their faith for reason, they’d be giving up a powerful community resource. They’d also be leaving a formidable social network, as one newly atheist attendee felt isolated from her mostly Christian friends.

Despite the overt materialism and scandal in some megachurches—many of which exploit their lower-income members—believers continue to flock to this “safe” space, giving their last and joining hands with others in hopes of receiving God’s best. Unless humanists can provide the same sense of hope and solidarity, the church and all its dogma will remain attractive.

Certainly, humanism has a long way to go in terms of attracting black adherents. In a city booming with churches large and small, those in attendance at the meeting couldn’t fill one pew. The church has the resources and the power to discourage independent thought and encourage God-dependency in the black community.

But while the black humanist voice is relatively small, it won’t be silenced. Thanks to growing groups such as African Americans for Humanism and other local and national organizations, black nonbelievers are emerging from the depths of isolation and exposing the ills of blind faith. They’re showing the world that, yes, you can be proud of your African heritage and be a humanist. Each dent these groups make in the boulder of black religiosity is a step toward reason, equality, and dignity for all.

Turkey was in the news last month, for putting on trial the two surviving generals who helped lead a successful coup against a popularly-elected government in 1980. Terrible thing, isn’t it, for unelected generals to undermine democracy like that? Or is there more to the story than meets the eye?

The story begins at the dawn of the twentieth century, when Turkish army officers, then the most well-educated, forward-looking people in the Ottoman Empire, overthrew centuries of rule by Muslim sultans. There isn’t space to talk about that in detail here, but you can sneak a peek at a chapter from my forthcoming book to get the full story. Ultimately the military, led by the extraordinary Kemal Mustafa Atatürk, established a secular republic, in a revolution more sweeping (and less bloody) than anything that occurred in America, France, Russia, or China. Not without intense resistance, though, from the Muslim God experts displaced from power, who forced Atatürk to put down a number of armed revolts. When his successor allowed free elections in 1950, a party dominated by imams took power, and promptly began whittling away at the provisions of Atatürk’s secular constitution for their own benefit.

God expert power in Turkey waxed and waned over the next two decades. A tectonic shift occurred in 1973, though, as a result of the stunning success of the Arab oil embargo (which in turn had resulted from Muslim fury over American military support for Israeli God experts). Suddenly, Saudi Arabia had more money than it knew what to do with. While some of it went to race horses and yachts, much of it was plowed into propaganda to increase Muslim political influence around the world. The campaign kicked off with a 1976 conference in Pakistan, under the auspices of the Saudi-funded “Muslim World League,” attended by representatives of Turkey’s religious political party. The goals the conference decided upon were straightforward:

1. The constitutional frameworks of the Islamic countries should be restructured according to Islamic principles and the Arabic language should be spread among the people.

2. Civil laws should be replaced by the Sharia.

3. Women should obey Islamic restrictions.

4. Necessary economic and political steps should be taken to establish modern Islamic states based on the Sharia.

5. At every level of educational training, Islam should be taught as a mandatory subject.

6. The five principles of Islam should be memorized by all primary school students.

7. Secondary school students must learn the entire Koran.

8. In order to promote these goals, Islamic educational institutions must be established in each country.

9. In order to recreate Islamic unity, all Muslim states should first recognize and accept their Islamic attributes and then establish a confederation under the guidance of a commonly elected Caliph.

Saudi oil money began pouring into Turkey. If the shining example of Atatürk’s achievement could be smashed, humanist reformers in other Muslim-majority countries would be marginalized. Some of the money went to capitalize Islamist entrepreneurs; some went directly to Turkey’s religious political party; some went to illegal groups associated with that party, sporting colorful names like the Rapid Freedom Fighters of Islamic Revolution, the Global Brotherhood Front Suicide Squad of Sharia, the Fighters of the Universal Islamic War of Liberation, and the Sharia Liberation Army of the World.

One predictable result of this cash influx was that the religious party grew in electoral strength, becoming a partner in a series of unstable coalition governments. Another predictable result was that political violence soared, especially because the Soviet Union was simultaneously funding its own underground groups. Thousands of political assassinations occurred in Turkey from 1975 to 1980, including parliament members, professors, journalists, and even a former prime minister. By 1980, the assassination pace reached over 20 per day. The combination of the lunacy of Sharia finance and the loss of personal security laid waste to the Turkish economy, which began to experience triple-digit inflation.

Meanwhile, the Muslim World League initiative was having stunning success in other countries. Pakistan turned to radical Islam in early 1979, when General Zia ul-Haq seized power in a coup and imposed Sharia law, which remains in place today. A few months later came the Ayatollah Khomeini’s theocratic revolution in Turkey’s neighbor Iran, which also remains in place today.

Turkey’s military leaders, who saw themselves as the custodians of Atatürk’s revolution, were gravely concerned. In December 1979, they wrote a letter to the president, warning bluntly that:

Our nation no longer has the patience for people who sing the communist international instead of our national anthem; who invite the sharia; who want to bring all sorts of fascism by replacing the democratic regime; and who want anarchy, destruction, and separatism by misusing freedoms that are provided by our Constitution.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came in September, 1980, at a mass rally to protest Israel’s announcement that Jerusalem would become its capital. Backers of the religious party openly called for the destruction of the secular Turkish state, shouting slogans such as “Sharia will come, brutality will end,” “Sovereignty belongs to Allah,” “The Constitution is the Koran,” “Secularism is atheism,” “Government with Allah’s rules,” “We are ready for jihad,” and “Sharia or death.” The Islamists refused to sing the national anthem, instead declaring “We want the call of prayer, we do not sing this anthem.” A few days later, a military junta led by Gen. Kenan Evren took away democracy by seizing control of the state from its duly elected officials.

The Affront to Democracy

Winston Churchill smugly observed in 1947 that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Maybe so. The point to be made, though, is that “democracy” covers a pretty broad spectrum of possibilities, some of which are not really any better than other forms of government.

Suppose the people voted, and those responsible for counting the ballots simply lied about the results. Would that be a good form of government? Of course not; it would be fraud. One step further: suppose there were two otherwise evenly matched candidates, and one candidate prevails by spreading false information that his opponent was a serial child molester. Anything admirable about that? Again, no. Now go one step further: picture the same two evenly matched candidates, and one of them succeeds in using revered God experts to spread the message that God is on his side, and against the other guy. If you want to get in good with God, you’d better vote the right way. Is that a lot different from the first two cases? It’s still fraud, isn’t it? And it happens all the time, not only in the Muslim-majority world but right here in the United States. Which presidential candidate is it who boasts that “We do what we do because God is with us”? (Hint: he kicked off his re-election campaign yesterday.)

Atatürk understood this. He tried, twice, to have free elections in Turkey with a robust but loyal opposition. He abandoned both efforts when he saw that opposition being hijacked by God experts intent on having one election to get back into power, and then staying there permanently to carry out God’s will. Instead, he installed rules in Turkey’s constitution that in their current form state that “No one shall be allowed to exploit or abuse religion or religious feelings, or things held sacred by religion, in any manner whatsoever, for the purpose of personal or political influence, or for even partially basing the fundamental social, economic, political and legal order of the state on religious tenets.” That’s a sound rule that eliminates a huge impediment to real democracy – but only if it’s enforced.

Turkey’s military and judicial authorities in 1980 and at other times have used their muscle to enforce this rule. Unfortunately, though, Evren was no Atatürk. Once in power, he discovered that he rather liked Saudi money, so long as he could channel it into what he thought would be a “moderate” Islam that he could control. He was ruthless in cracking down on the communist element of Turkey’s instability (which helped him attract American money as well), but he oversaw a massive program of mosque construction and reintroduction of Islam into public education that would have enraged Atatürk.

Now Evren is discovering that he didn’t use Islam; Islam used him. Levels of religiosity in Turkey grew rapidly in the 90s, and the successor to the religious party Evren broke up in 1980 won a sweeping “democratic” victory in 2002. Leading secular generals were forced out of office last year. Dozens of other humanist journalists and politicians have been clapped into prison. Evren himself, now 94 years old, is being subjected to a show trial from his hospital bed so the Islamists can prove to Turkey’s humanists that “No matter how long it takes, we’ll get you someday.”

If Evren had shown a little more Atatürk steel in dealing with Turkey’s God experts in the years after 1980, do you think he’d be on trial today?

Luis Granados

The most meaningful stop on the Pope’s recent Latin American swing was not Cuba, as the press would have it, but Guanajuato, Mexico, the symbolic heart of Catholic violence in the Americas. His presence there honored the Cristeros, who slaughtered 50,000 Mexicans early in the 20^th century in order to promote the rule of “Christ the King” – a struggle the pope evidently intends to renew.

For hundreds of years after the Spanish conquest of Hernán Cortés, Mexico was ruled by a coterie of priests and soldiers, who sucked as much wealth as they could out of the land for the benefit of the other priests and soldiers who ruled mother Spain. That ended when independence arrived in 1821. The new republican government systematically began returning the land and wealth the church had expropriated to the Mexican people, and regulating the exorbitant fees the church charged the peasants for services like baptism and burial. Naturally, the church opposed all this, and collaborated joyously in the brief restoration of foreign monarchy under the Emperor Maximilian in 1862. But the Mexican people, most of whom seem to be only nominally Catholic, quickly reinstalled a secular government under Benito Juarez, one of the most outstanding leaders any nation ever had. Read the rest of this entry &raquo