Melinda Henneberger launches a new column on “culture war” in Newsweek, “Varia,” with a response to the many, many, Catholics calling for John Kerry‘s head, or at least hisexcommunication, because he refuses to oppose legal abortion. A Catholic herself, she finds her kind of faith in the words of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washingtion: “I would find it hard to use the Eucharist as a sanction…” Read more. 

A different kind of love: Eve Tushnet‘s evocative portrait of her Easter vigil: “darkness: Lost, waiting–it takes so long for my eyes to adapt. I know there’s something there, the pews and statues and pillars that I can almost see and navigate around. I almost know this place. Because we can’t really tell what’s going on in the dark, we have to rely on the people closer to the aisle and the altar to give us our cues: when to stand, when to sit, where to look.” Look here.

Or, simply enjoy one man’s gorgeous vision of “holy waste.”