Carthage Must Be Destroyed

So Pope Benedict XVI is resigning. He will be missed. He has fulfilled his post with great diligence and pastoral care. Interesting that his resignation and the next papal conclave to elect his successor will all take place during the Lenten season. I can't say that his monumental move to resign, something that hasn't been done since the Protestant Reformation, isn't wholly surprising. He's a man who has surprised everybody every step of the way. Stay tuned. I'm sure that everybody will be giving their expert input and sensationalizing this story: "I'm shocked, shocked I tell you." Anybody want to go to Rome in mid-March?

From my January 2013 Hall of Men toast “You are great, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Your power is great, and your wisdom can’t be numbered. Humans wish to praise you—humans, a portion of your creation, who carry around their mortality, who carry around the testimony of their sin and that “God opposes the proud.” Even so, humans, a portion of your creation, wish to praise you. You excite us to pleasure in praising you, because you made us for yourself! Our hearts are restless till they find rest in you.” – Confessions, 1.1 William Jurgens said in his three-volume conglomeration on the writings of the Church Fathers that “if we were faced with the unlikely proposition of having to destroy completely either the works of Augustine or the works of all the other Fathers and Writers, I have little doubt that all the others would have to be sacrificed. Augustine must remain.” Name another man since the Apostles who has had more influence than St. Augustine. Men like Boethius, Anselm...