I Wanted That Kid Dead by Russell Saltzman on First Things magazine’s online First Thoughts. “That kid spawned an instinct rising in me with such strength I was shocked. I wanted him dead, right now, then and there, in that courtroom.”

God, Reason, and Our Civilizational Crisis by Samuel Gregg on the Mercatornet website. “A society’s capacity to embrace full-bodied conceptions of reason depends heavily upon the dominant understanding of the Divine prevailing in that community. In that regard, modern Western civilization may be more at risk of cultural decline than many presently realize.”

It’s Not Vatican II’s Fault by Stephen Bullivant from the English Catholic newspaper The Catholic Herald. “What it was about the 1960s that precipitated all this [the problems in the Catholic Church] is keenly debated among sociologists and social historians. Strangely though, none of them regard either guitar Masses or female altar servers as the primary drivers.”

The Tomb of Hulda the Prophetess: Who’s Really Inside? by Miriam Feinberg Vamosh in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Jews believe the tomb on the Mt. of Olives is that of the prophetess Hulda (see 2 Kings 22), Muslims that it’s the tomb of Sufi mystic  Sit’ Raba’a al-Aduwiyyeh, and Christians that of St. Pelagia. The site requires registration.

A Most Unlikely Saint by James Parker in The Atlantic. G. K. Chesterton’s “message, a steady illumination beaming and clanging through every lens and facet of his creativity, was really very straightforward: get on your knees, modern man, and praise God.”

Bystander Effect Also Found Among Five-Year-Olds by Tom Jacobs in Pacific Standard.  “It was not [a question of] shyness to act in front of others. Rather, it appears that the effect was driven by the diffusion of responsibility.” See also Men Reminded of their Unattractiveness Make Riskier Financial Decisions.