Finland explicitly says “violations against human rights and religious freedom cannot be tolerated anywhere;” just days later, a politician is put on trial for expressing her religious convictions. Nina Shea captured the irony with biting concision: “Finland acts like a pyromaniac at home and like a fireman for Pakistan when it comes to freedoms of religion and speech.”

We must know how to trust great literature, which invites the deployment of intense and demanding feelings. The elevation of the soul of the youth suffers in the absence of great literary works; they remain constricted in an elementary vision of the world, of feelings, of relationships between people.

Ahead of planned demonstrations against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and oppressive restriction measures set to take place over the weekend in France and Austria, US Embassies in Paris and Vienna have issued demonstration alerts, calling on US citizens to avoid the vicinities of the protests.

The numbers of Nigeria’s dead and displaced on account of recent violence vary widely, but in October of last year, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN International) was reporting anywhere between 3,000 and 36,000 people had been murdered.

What strikes one is Karl von Habsburg’s willingness to say things which—while entirely true—would not be said by any current politician. Moreover, it hints at a vision entirely in keeping with that of his Habsburg predecessors, yet once again altered to fit the vastly changed circumstances in which we now find ourselves.