At the New York Times, a profile of "Breitbart's Man in Rome," now-Mr., formerly Rev., Thomas Williams. He used to be Fr. Marcial Maciel's man in Rome, and Maciel was a different kind of fraud from Steve Bannon, but Williams is a polyglot and switching tongues is harder than switching the essential character needed to represent frauds: A shill is a shill is a shill in any language. His comment about his defense of Maciel - "I thought he was innocent. I was wrong."- and Mr. Williams' ability to keep people sufficiently interested to merit a NYTimes profile puts me in mind of what was once said of Gladstone: "He could convince others of many thing, and himself of anything at all." It gives one pause before accepting his comment that he never witnessed a whiff of racism from Bannon.
At RNS, Emily McFarlane Miller looks at President Obama's farewell address last night. I caught most of it, and will fold in my thoughts to a look back at the Obama legacy next week.
Birettas off to Cardinal Ray Burke: Who else could remind us that "The Remnant" is still being published??? In this latest interview with the tellingly named journal, Burke repeats his contention that Amoris Laetitia is not a magisterial document. Maybe he could give his next interview to Breitbart?
