Weigel Defends (Neocons) Pope

As Zoe Romanovsky reports, Weigel gets praise from America Magazine. If he gets praise, it might have to do with he fact that Weigel echoes the tired anti-clerical language of Liberal Catholics, but invokes it to praise the person of the Holy Father, if not the institution of the Papacy, how masonic...

Really, George Weigel is a Hegelian statist who likes the idea of religion, even if he does find its deeper claims and political aspirations distasteful.

Like Peggy Noonan, a careerist, "defending" the Catholic Church, perhaps, more like Grima Wormtoungue in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: these flatterers leave much to be desired in the league of sincerity, but owe everything to their status as infighters and journalistic schemers:

To be sure, the Catholic Church ought to hold itself to a higher moral standard than other similarly situated institutions. But after too long a period of denial, the Catholic Church is now at the forefront of combating the sexual abuse of the young in the United States. And no one in the church has done more, over the last decade, to compel the sclerotic institutional culture [Wow, somebody's mad that he doesn't have the free access he enjoyed when John Paul II was in power] of the Vatican to face these problems than Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI.

These are the facts. [No, these are your impressions] Thus the concern naturally arises, on this Easter, that those who continue to portray Catholicism as a global conspiracy of sexual predators are indulging in the last acceptable prejudice, anti-Catholicism, while aiming at nothing less than the destruction of the Catholic Church's credibility as a global moral teacher.

From InsideCatholic:

Read the article already...

The Archbishop of Canterbury eats his words

With very interesting comments from Shane:

Like every other western country, the Church has been declining here, with ever increasing rapidity, since the 1960s. The impact of the abuse scandals is easily overblown; I think more people are worried about their jobs.

Almost all priestly abuse is historic. Only 2 priests in Ireland have been convicted for sexual abuse offences committed within the last 20 years.

I am the first to argue that the bishops have been scapegoated to an alarming degree and that Cardinal Brady’s actions have been much misrepresented. But that does not account for the lethargic incompetence the Irish episcopacy displays in the discharge of their duties. In the old days, in a mostly rural Ireland, it was common for priests to be personally well-acquainted with all, or most, of their parishioners. The old communal tribal ties which knitted society together have since become untangled, and with them, the very nature of how priests relate to their parishioners. In the early-to-mid 60s Archbishop McQuaid got very hurt when newspaper columnists, in the liberal fervour of the times, suddenly took it upon themselves to criticize him in often venomous language. This was a new experience for him, and he didn’t know quite how to react [previously anti-Catholicism was most forcefully expressed in the Irish Times, then the newspaper of the Protestant minority]. Often he would stir in his room for many hours in sullen dismay. The confusion that set in during this time, on the relationship between the church and the media, has never been conclusively settled.

Mc Quaid’s replacement, Dermot Ryan, epitomized the class of ‘new priests’ appointed to bishoprics in the 70s. Perceived as revolutionary at the time, they are now the Church Establishment. Everywhere you look in the Irish Church, you see them. McQuaid had previously dismissed Ryan from teaching at Clonliffe seminary because he was allegedly teaching modernism to the seminarians. Ryan’s appointment to the see of Dublin was seen as a political statement by the Vatican. Ryan had a powerful friend in the papal nuncio Gaetano Alibrandi, and under the influence of the two, and by the careful appointment of preferred bishops to dioceses, the Irish Church was reconstructed into what it is today. The chair of the Dublin Council of Priests was on a TV discussion panel a few months ago to discuss the contents of the Murphy Report. He expressed amusement at the audience’s media-imbibed tendency to protray bishops like Donal Murray as paragons of reaction, remarking that when he in the seminary these prelates were seen as the ‘new priests’, whose cool outgoing ‘pastoral’ nature contrasted with the relics of obscurantism they were supplanting. This was supposed to be a new dawn for the church, but the church disintegrated in the interim because clergy kept changing what the church meant.

As a recent editorial in Church & State noted:

So the Pope came [in 1979 - shane] and he was received with mindless adulation, lay and clerical, with only two noticeable expressions of dissent — this magazine and the Bishop of Cork, who is now taken to be a by-word for obscurantist reaction, Con Lucey.

The Taoiseach was Cork City politician Jack Lynch, who had won an overall majority in 1977 in an election campaign which was unusually Catholic clericalist for Fianna Fail. But, two years later, the Pope did not visit the second city in the state because the Bishop did not invite him. And, some time later, Lucey retired and went off to be a missionary in Africa. He did not ever explain his failure to invite the Pope to Cork, but it is not hard to see a reason for it.

Vatican 2 Catholicism undermined and trivialised the earnest Catholicism of Pius IX on which the Irish Church had formed itself, in association with the developing national movement, since the mid-19th century. That phase of development was not exhausted in Ireland when it was halted by Vatican 2. It was still filling itself out when it was ordered to stop. If the original impulse given by the triumph of Anti-Vetoism in the Veto Controversy was running out of momentum, there would have been evidence of this in the appearance of a sceptical intelligentsia to dispute certain areas of ground with the Hierarchy, and by so doing to provide for an evolutionary transition to a new relationship of Church and State.

What happened instead was that the new Church formed in Ireland in the mid-19th century—by O’Connell’s Roman colleague, Cardinal Cullen—was stopped in its tracks by the Vatican, while there was still no social development against it to take its place. The Vatican 2 changes had to be imposed on Ireland. And their imposition devalued the values to which the generations then in their prime had dedicated themselves.

Religious development in Ireland, with which social development was connected, was suddenly written off as an aberration. My Lord Bishop suddenly became Bishop Jack or Bishop Jim. Communion and Confirmation became occasions for display of fashion. Hell was abolished—and Heaven along with it, for all that was said to the contrary. And convents and monasteries were deprived of meaning.

The ersatz intelligentsia, which is now kicking the Church because it is down, did nothing to bring it down. It was the Vatican that undermined it. But that is an inadmissible thought in the fashion of the moment because the futile scepticism which is the outcome of Vatican 2 must have it that Vatican 2 was good thing. (The creature must love its creator.)

The Archbishop of Canterbury eats his words

Fr. Reginald Foster Honored by Notre Dame

Here is the full list of honorees.

Reggie, as many of you know, was for many years a senior Vatican Latinist. He is also a world-famous teacher of Latin. He has been miraculously recovering from a series of serious health problems. He’s doing much better now!

I studied with Reggie in his summer program, and it was a truly wonderful experience. He managed to create a community with an amazingly diverse group of students–secular grad students from Cambridge, Harvard, and Berkeley, and priests and religious in soutanes and habits. Students from all over the world. We worked at little desks in the auditorium of an elementary school across from his monastery. Reggie knew, just knew, how much you knew–and how much you didn’t. He unfailingly asked you to translate a sentence that was a little –but not too much–beyond your ability. And so it became part of your ability.

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=7685

Archbishop Rowan Angers Irish Bishops

No doubt, still smarting from +Benedict's Ecumenical Blitzkrieg, the Archbishop of Canterbury found time to vent some long internalized chagrin at men whose education and philosophical inclinations and integrity aren't that much different from his own.

Anglican%20leader%20angers%20Irish%20clergy

USCCB Head Honors Two Heretical Comrades

Rather than running, stumbling to honor heretical Communists who pose as champions of Justice and Truth, how about using this national podium you've created for yourself at the USCCB to do something constructive? Antonio Gramsci much?





Link to Flyer...

Catholic.net - Homosexuals Can Change, Research Says

Catholic.net - Homosexuals Can Change, Research Says

German archbishop calls to examine Church's 'dark aspects'

[Expatica] The leader of Germany's Roman Catholic bishops said in an Easter message on Saturday that "we must examine the Church's dark aspects" and called for a new beginning amid widening child abuse scandals.

"Today particularly we must set out together and examine inconceivable events, awful crimes, the Church's dark aspects as well as our shadowy sides," Archbishop Robert Zollitsch wrote in an Easter message on his diocese website.

"The Church must not be inactive: we need a new beginning," he wrote on the site of his own archdiocese of Freiburg im Breisgau, southwest Germany.

Germany's Catholic Church has been thrown into crisis in recent weeks as dozens of people have come forward alleging they were abused as minors by priests. Most cases date back many years.

Zollitsch called already on Good Friday for the day, when Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Christ, to "mark a new departure which we so badly need".

The child abuse scandal has engulfed much of Europe and the United States with new cases emerging almost daily, drawing in the Vatican for harsh criticism over its handling of the affairs.

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Man Attacks Bishop of Muenster

MUENSTER, Germany (AP) — Police say a man attacked the Roman Catholic Bishop of Muenster with a broom handle during an Easter service in the city's cathedral. Police said in a statement Sunday that 60-year-old bishop Felix Genn defended himself with an incense bowl and was unharmed. A police spokesman tells the German news agency DAPD that "courageous church officials and other service attendants restrained the attacker until police arrived." After the incident, the bishop continued celebrating the Easter service.

http://fratres.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/it-was-only-a-matter-of-when-not-if-german-bishop-attacked-during-easter-service/

An Opus Dei Replacement for Cardinal Mahony

Based on earlier reports that Cardinal Mahony is stepping down at 75, from American Papist, we have a report as to the identity of the man who will head the wealthiest and possibly most troulbed Archdiocese in the world.

According to Maximilian Hanlon, and other sources, the replacement for Cardinal Mahony should be the Opus Dei Archbishop from San Antonio, His Lordship, Jose Gomez.

Bishop Gomez was sent to the San Antonio See in 2004 and had been shepherding the Archdiocese of Denver as Auxiliary Bishop prior to that.

He was a lot more generous with the Immemorial Mass than Cardinal Mahony was and had this to say about the Motu Propio:

... pope's move will help Catholics "be able to clearly see the growth and progress we have realized since Vatican II, while at the same time preserving the rich heritage and legacy of the church." [1]

If he promises to be like his fellow Opus Dei Bishop, Archbishop Finn of Kansas City, this should be a real welcome to the auto-destructive regime of one of the most scandal ridden clerics in the history of the American Church. Archbishop Finn once reminded Catholics that we are in the Church militant and "in a war". Such triumphalist language shows well on Opus Dei.

We would also like to say that this posting is typical of the appointments by Pope Benedict. Earlier this year, he appointed the most conservative Bishop in Belgium to lead the country in Brussels, Archbishop Andre Joseph Leonard . Or the new Auxiliary Bishop of Linz, Father Wagner, who was shouted down by the liberals in that most challenging Austrian Diocese. Or Bishop Jose Munila of Spain in December.

Another not so surprising appointment was Archbishop Carlson, formerly of Sioux Falls and Saginaw, who had a legendary reputation for administration and conservatism.

Bishop Williamson is Back

There's another smear piece now too of someone telling the tale that there's anti-semitism at Winona Seminary at Fisheaters thanks to Gerard.

He's back. Holocaust-denying British Bishop Richard Williamson is giving interviews again, adding Israel-bashing to his opinion portfolio.


He gave a 15 minute interview with a minor French politician known for anti-Zionist views, Pierre Panet, that was, posted in various French media, just in time to compete for headlines with Pope Benedict XVI's synagogue visit this week.

Williamson is quoted saying there were "absolutely irreconcilable" differences between traditionalists and discussions at the Vatican "will end up as a dialog of the deaf."

Williamson is one of four bishops who were excommunicated decades ago for their refusal to accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Benedict made critical headlines last winter when he tried to envelop them back into the church -- if they let go of their discordant views and were rehabilitated.

Williamson continued to give Holocaust denial interviews so alarming even his own leader in the ultra-right Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) gagged him, and brought him back from his seminary post in Argentina to England, reports Reuters religion editor Tom Heneghan at FaithWorld.

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ACLU "Saddened" that Catholics are Catholics

This is really what it's all about, a fundamental hatred of Catholic doctrine and dogma. So when we report that Jeff Anderson, the famed attorney attacking the Catholic Church, is a member of the ACLU, it should account for what this whole thing is really about.

ACLU 'Stunned and Saddened' by Bishops’ Rejection of Domestic Partnership

The ACLU of New Mexico (ACLU-NM) released a statement today saying it's stunned and saddened by yesterday’s announcement that the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops will actively oppose the Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act. After indicating that they would consider a neutral stance on the bill if all reference to “marriage” was removed, the archdiocese now refuses to collaborate with equality advocates outright.

Throughout the State of New Mexico, thousands of committed couples—both same-sex and straight—live without the benefits and protections that married couples take for granted. Domestic partners and their families are denied basic and essential protections such as health insurance, disability benefits and the right to care for a partner with sick or paid leave. When tragedy strikes, domestic partners currently have no say in the medical, legal and financial decision making on behalf of their loved ones.

Disregarding the thousands of men, women and children this bill would protect, the Conference of Catholic Bishops chose to oppose this crucial legislation for fear it might be a “steppingstone to marriage.”

"We are deeply disappointed by the archdiocese's refusal to collaborate with us on this important legislation,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “The ACLU and allied partners did everything humanly possible to satisfy their concerns about the language of the bill, and still the archdiocese would not budge. It is a shame that such a powerful voice has chosen to speak out against equality and fairness for New Mexican families.”

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Bishops of Venezuela Warn that Marxism Threatens the Church

Someone should tell the USCCB

Politics
Leaders of the Catholic Church in Venezuela on Thursday criticized President Hugo Chavez's attempt to turn the country into a Marxist State, and urged political opponents to resolve their differences peacefully.

The Venezuelan Bishops' Conference (CEV) issued a statement voicing concern about the growing anti-religious spirit spread by Marxism, AP reported.

Chavez often asks Venezuelans to adopt Marxism and socialism, but insists that it is also compatible with Christianity. Further, he has referred to Jesus as "the major socialist in history."

The Venezuelan ruler often has verbal clashes with Catholic Church leaders, and accuses them of siding with the opposition. Once he called the Church "a cancer." In response, several representatives of the Church have condemned what they describe as increasing authoritarianism under Chávez.

Link to original...

Do you know this Priest?

A frequent commenter, Don Altabelo, on Rod Dreher's Crunchy-Con site made this personal observation about a Catholic priest he knews. There is a sizeable chunk of them who have these significant character flaws, almost as if they were chosen based on their abillity to be "unseemly", annoying and disedifying.

There was once a priest very much like the one Don Altabello describes, who later turned out to be exposed as a homosexual, who was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in the bad neighborhood around the church where he said Mass and taught "theology" at the parish school. He kept a seperate house far away from the rectory in another town and sometimes came to Mass to "help out" in full biretta, baroque chasuble, amice, stole and maniple.

He was more of a caricature of a Miramax production villain than the good priest, often invoking unreasonable arguments against the students in the school, his students, whom he often referred to as "losers". Well, we get a lot of these types in seminary:

Don Altabello
April 23, 2008 2:21 PM
[chop]
Rod--I'll give a "common sense" anecdote of what I'm talking about (in addition to yours). A certain priest (recently ordained) frequents some of the same events I do. He is boorish, self-obsessed, and (though this word is much mis-used) rigid. He injects himself into conversations constantly, dominating the conversation to talk about theology. The man also seems to have control issues--likes to lord his authority and knowledge over others. Once in a discussion group that he visited, the leader asked him about his vocation story (as a courtesy), and he took about 25 minutes. There's other stuff I have personal knowledge of (nothing criminal or deeply immoral, just unseemly), but I won't disclose it here.

Every time he comes near a group I'm in, I'll just walk away. Now--many people will give this type of person deference because he is a priest. My contention is this--why in the world wasn't someone scratching their head or pulling him aside during seminary? I have no reason to believe he is abusive--but ordaining these types of people just influxes the priesthood with men who have all manner of character problems.

Clergy Sex Abuse Study: Time for Common Sense

April 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Here we go again. The skeletons of clergy sexual abuse are once again being resuscitated by ambitious lawyers and finding sensational new life in a secular media that is increasingly uninterested in reporting the facts.

Now don't get me wrong; the instances of abuse themselves are absolutely reprehensible; that much is indisputable. As Cardinal Ratzinger said of these terrible transgressions shortly before becoming pope, "How much filth there is in the church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely to God."

Whenever the root cause of this "filth" is discussed, faithful Catholics need to pay close attention as those who are less interested in cleansing the Church than attacking her moral foundation make themselves known through their actions.

read further...

Peggy Noonan's Catastrophe

Responding to Father Amorth's statement, confirming the lamentation of Paul VI about the "smoke of Satan" and Father Malachi Martin's lengthy fiction and non-fiction treatement of this systemic and spiritual problem, some people who don't believe in the Devil suffer from the mistaken apprehension that to point out to his power and influence in the world amounts to an attempt to escapt responsibillity for what one has done.

But the Devil is indeed very influential with various ministers within the Catholic Church, some of whom don't believe in him, who make important decisions about how the Church presents her authoritative teaching.

Peggy Noonan, often celebrated as a defender of the Church, joins Her enemies today by insisting that the press has got the story right and has "forced" the Church to "reform".

She says:

In both the U.S. and Europe, the scandal was dug up and made famous by the press. This has aroused resentment among church leaders, who this week accused journalists of spreading "gossip," of going into "attack mode" and showing "bias."

But this is not true, or to the degree it is true, it is irrelevant. All sorts of people have all sorts of motives, but the fact is that the press—the journalistic establishment in the U.S. and Europe—has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on this issue. Let me repeat that: The press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on the scandals because it exposed the story and made the church face it. The press forced the church to admit, confront and attempt to redress what had happened. The press forced them to confess. The press forced the church to change the old regime and begin to come to terms with the abusers. The church shouldn't be saying j'accuse but thank you.

No one in the press is talking aboout the rampant heresy which has plagued the Roman Church and is the source of this problem. No one is talking about the need for more strict Catholicity in the Colleges and Catholic Hospitals. They can't talk about it because their minds and hearts are not large enough to encompass the idea that the Catholic Faith is the one true Faith outside of which no one at all can be saved.

What we need to realize is that it has been a failure to live up to the Church's teachings on the part of the clergy and laity that have led to this artificial crisis, which is far worse outside of the Church than within.

Many Catholic Bishops and laity succumbed the line of argument posed by our enemies.

Cardinal George wants to silence Tom Roeser

Tom Roeser isn't going to stop.

Every Catholic who goes regularly to Sunday Mass knows that every so often after the priest reads the gospel and begins to shuffle through announcements there’ll be a letter from the boss.

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Let's not leave the Jews out of it

Well, perhaps it's because Jewish Rabbis are more likely to abuse children than Catholic priests, here, that we should not leave the Jews out of it. Cantalamessa has never been a particularly orthodox sermonizer and his offensive and less than masculine addresses are always an opportunity for disappointment and embarrassment.

That Jews are more likely to be abusers of children and others is born out by some of these revelations:

Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, reports that 30 percent of rabbis who changed positions in 2000 did so involuntarily, and that sexual abuse was a factor in many instances.[xxiv] The Awareness Center devotes an entire website to “Clergy Abuse: Rabbis, Cantors & Other Trusted Officials.” It is a detailed and frank look at the problem of sexual abuse by rabbis.[xxv] [here]

Whispers in the Loggia thinks that only "rightists" are rising in defense of Benedict, here. Actually, he underscores an important point, that those who foment the scandal and the enemies of the Church within who are largely responsible for the conditions which created the grist of the scandal, are one in the same. As it has been mentioned before, the chiefest accusers of Pope Benedict and the Church are themselves (or people in the coalitions they belong to) eager to legitimize the sexualization of children both under the law and in the culture at large. It seems to be the next brave step from legitimization of homosexuality.

Long list of Rabbinical offenders...

A Jewish organization reports on Rabbinical sexual abuse...

Jews have also hidden a sex abuser in Brazil, finally captured by Interpol, here.

One commenter here, complained that Jews weren't persecuted because they had:

What?! That is incredibly absurd. The Jews weren't persecuted for raping and molesting little boys. They were persecuted for being Jewish, wish is incredibly wrong.
What a sad, pathetic attempt at covering up a dirty deed; a SINFUL, MORALLY WRONG, SICKENING, dirty deed. Why don't people just own up to their mistakes anymore?

What he neglects to mention is that Jews were often accused of things like sexually abusing children, and murdering them.

Jews were also accused during the Middle Ages of sexual abuse as much as they were during the Nazi period.

That changed today when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household, delivered remarks in the traditional Good Friday prayer service in St. Peter's Basilica with Pope Benedict in attendance.

According to the New York Times account of the event, Father Cantalamessa noted that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year. "They (the Jews) know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms," he said.

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"Ethicist" Randy Cohen thinks Its Ok Not to Report Sex-Abuse

After attacking the Church on the National Public Radio program, Midmorning, hosted by Keri Miler, Randy Cohen launched on a brief explanation of how the Church should have intervened to protect those who were victimized by Catholic priests (who were overwhelmingly homosexual) and that their failure to protect children in these cases is the source of their liabillity.

This was a call-in show. The first caller was a man named Ted who explained his own ethical conundrum, that he had failed to report a sexual abuse that happend about 20 years ago. A child came into his school office, where he was counselor for GLBT students. The 16 year old said that he was having a relationship with an older man, but Ted didn't report the situation to the police and asked the 16 year old if he was practicing "safe-sex" instead. Ted felt bad about his failure to report the incident to the police as he was legally and ethically required to do, thus allowing a predator to go free and pursue another adolescent at another time.

Mr. Cohen tried to reassure Ted that it was ok, and that he should't be so hard on himself. When Ted pointed out that his situation was just like that of the Catholic Church, Mr. Cohen tried to pawn this out by suggesting that a 16 year old boy might be mature enough to handle the situation after all. Suddenly, there was hope for a GLBT guidance counsellor where before there had only been darkness and condemnation. Suddenly, Mr. Cohen's principled stand gave way to a special allowance.

When Ted failed to act to protect a 16 year old student from a homosexual predator, he was given a pass, but when Mr. Cohen views the Catholic Church doing the same thing, he is more than prepared to offer a condemnation. According to Mr. Cohen's own argument, Ted failed to protect a child who came to him for counsel, and Mr. Cohen excused him. We hope that Mr. Cohen could be more Solomonic when it comes to his judgement of the Catholic Church, because it is clear that he is operating from a double-standard.

Randy Cohen: Writer of "the Ethicist" column for the Sunday New York Times Magazine and author of "The Good, the Bad & the Difference: How to Tell Right From Wrong in Everyday Situations.

Link to Midmorning show...

ATTEMPTS TO CENSOR DONOHUE FAIL

April 1, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recent attempts to censor him:

TV producers have been telling me for years that my critics have implored them never to invite me back on any program. But they always do. While the media are overwhelmingly liberal, they have an obligation to offer different points of view. [Yours being the official opposition view] Hence, their non-stop invitations asking me to speak.

The latest attempt to silence me comes from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), Call to Action and the Interfaith Alliance. The three left-wing organizations have joined hands demanding that the media "ignore Bill Donohue." Their complaint? My telling the truth about the role homosexual priests have played in the abuse scandal. [Which is a welcome thing indeed]

The data collected by John Jay College of Criminal Justice show that between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent of the victims were male and 75 percent of them were post-pubescent. In other words, three out of every four victims have been abused by homosexuals. By the way, puberty, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, begins at age 10 for boys.

No problem can be remedied without an accurate diagnosis. And any accurate diagnosis that does not finger the role that homosexuals have played in molesting minors is intellectually dishonest. The cover-up must end. And so must attempts to muzzle my voice. Everything I am saying is what most people already know, but are afraid to say it. It's time for some straight talk.

link to original...

Imagined Injustices are Politically Valuable

He was guilty as hell.

Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters

By Louis Begley
Yale University Press £18, 272 pages

The 20th century dawned not on the first day of 1900 (or, for purists, 1901) but on a September evening in 1894, when a cleaner at the German embassy in Paris found a torn-up letter in the military attaché’s wastebasket. The cleaner was working for French intelligence, and the letter, once reassembled, was found to contain military secrets being offered by an unnamed French Army officer. After a cursory investigation, authorities arrested Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery captain working at General Staff headquarters.

Thus began the Dreyfus Affair, in which an innocent man was unjustly convicted, amid rising xenophobia and anti-Semitism, and sent off to rot on a deserted island in South America. A vigorous public campaign against the howling injustice of the affair raged for more than a decade before the captain’s final vindication, which divided France into warring camps of Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards, republicans and traditionalists.

Dreyfus’s ordeal was the first big test of a modern justice system, and it defined one of the central issues of democracy: should the rule of law be applied consistently, or are there cases in which it should be bent to fit a current crisis or pressing national concern? Even today, hardly a month passes without an alleged misstep of justice somewhere in the world being labelled a “new Dreyfus Affair”.

In France, the original case still incites debate. There are people who still believe that Dreyfus was guilty, or that national preservation excused his treatment. Those who celebrate his innocence fear that the kind of state-sponsored injustice he endured has not been eradicated, and that the clubby world of French officialdom continues to act arbitrarily, secretly and sometimes illegally without penalty. For both sides, the Dreyfus case was a watershed in modern French history. The divisions it created resurface periodically – in the debates over wartime collaboration, France’s struggles in Vietnam and Algeria, anti-Semitism, official corruption, immigration and other failures of governance.

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