Marriage has a unique place because it speaks of an absolute faithfulness a covenant between radically different persons male and female and so it echoes the absolute covenant of God with his chosen a covenant between radically different partners.

I remain optimistic. What we've seen in Europe and the rest of the world is that freedom has a much stronger attraction than radical fundamentalism.

Obedience is detachment from the self. This is the most radical detachment of all. But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason and responsibility in us. It is the root of freedom it is what makes us men.

End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them but as I wrote my own I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have and take for granted: hot showers enough food friends routines.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

Given my last position that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account.

There is a split between Muslims who want to practice their faith in peace and tolerance with other religions and other people and these extreme radical fundamentalists who have shown a total lack of tolerance for people with different views starting with people who they don't think are good Muslims and going on to include Christians and Jews.

President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It's about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First they came for the Catholics. Who's next?

And Jesus the heart of the Christian faith is the wildest most radical guy you'd ever come across.

Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.