There are some procedural smoke and mirrors involved to save face, but it appears that the House leadership is relenting on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which has been bottled up by House conservatives for more than a year. So much for the Hastert Rule. The version of the bill favored by women’s advocates that passed the Senate overwhelmingly will likely get a vote in the House before the end of the week and is expected to have plenty of Democratic and moderate GOP votes to win passage. Sahil Kapur reports.
I was charmed and fascinated to see Hans Kung, Pope Benedict’s one-time collaborator during Vatican II and later his nemesis (or vice versa), jumping in to critique Benedict’s transition out of the papacy.
Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, Benedict’s one-time colleague-turned-critic, went further: “With Benedict XVI, there is a risk of a shadow pope who has abdicated but can still indirectly exert influence,” he told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine last week.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Tuesday that Benedict himself decided on his name and wardrobe in consultation with others, settling on “Your Holiness Benedict XVI” and either “emeritus pope” or “emeritus Roman pontiff.”
