I agree with the view that the ostentatious modesty of the papacy, and of Francis's pontificate in particular, turns out, once you start looking into it, to be nothing more than a set of marketing ploys and slogans

The phenomenon is nicely captured in the series “The Young Pope” with Jude Law, in which one of the most important figures in the hierarchy is not a spiritual office at all but something like a PR director

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September digest on archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

I agree with the view that the ostentatious modesty of the papacy, and of Francis's pontificate in particular, turns out, once you start looking into it, to be nothing more than a set of marketing ploys and slogans

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September digest on archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s