The White Plague

In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.

One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles’ heel of armies, police and bureaucracies.

There’s nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.

The failure of civilization can be detected by the gap between public and private morality. The wider the gap, the nearer the civilization to final dissolution

We know about the Catholic families, at least twelve children in every one, all of them living in hovels and slums, beggars in the streets, the whole dirty lot.” “Do you think we’ll really be able to outlaw contraception?” the admiral asked. “Of course! With the Church behind us, how can we fail?

China, Argentina, Brazil and the United States are the only nations that have consented, by local option, to share their breeding women,

Just to see a woman was a magnetic thing, so powerful that the authorities could not deny the demands.

Whatever hurt we’ve had,” Herity said, “comes from our enduring devotion to the superstitions of the Church and it sapping the strength out of us for all these centuries.

Mercie secure ye all, and keep the Goblin from ye, while ye sleep.

Yes, Father Michael shared his Church’s love-hate relationship with death.

The bathrobe he wore was a dark blue thing he had received as a gift while still a priest.

Manhattan was no different and it had the added advantage of a water perimeter no longer spanned by bridges, the tunnels blocked, and that outer buffer zone with its black fire lanes.

God had abandoned them. They couldn’t get at God so they got at the Church.

Guilt should attach only to anyone who remains ignorant in the presence of an opportunity to learn.

The boy hurried up beside Father Michael and walked close to the priest, as though seeking protection there.

Violence endured too long leads to moral anesthesia. It degrades even religious leaders. Society is separated into sacrificial lambs and those who wield the knives. High-sounding labels mask the bloody reality: phrases with words such as “Freedom” and “Political Autonomy” and the like. Such words have little meaning in a world without morality. —Father Michael Flannery

Well, I believe diseases can be tailored to many genetic variations—to white skin, for example; to the susceptibility to sicklecell anemia …

Then you tell me, Will, how a disease can be made sex-specific.

The priest leaned toward John. “Are you Catholic, sir?

When will the Jews ever find a home?

We’ve graves that need blessing,

Tell me, Ari, if you are this Madwoman, how is it you do this thing?