Dear Friends,

I apologize for not writing before now, but there were several matters to which I had to attend that were time-sensitive. Try as I do to be more productive, nothing I do hurriedly ever stands the test of time, so I plod along, asking the indulgence of friends who must feel that they might as well be watching the grass grow. 

By way of a brief report, let me say that the Colloquium on Violence and Religion conference last month on the Sicilian island of Salina was a wonderful experience. The journey to and from was arduous - a total of 8 airplanes, two 2-hour shuttle rides and two 2-hour hydrofoil rides - but the time at the conference itself was well-spent and greatly rewarding. As those who saw the little paper I gave at the conference know, I suggested that Pope Benedict's now-famous Regensburg address should be understood as the first part of a two-part "prophetic sign," the second part of which was the very public baptism by the pope himself of a man who had been one of the most prominent Muslim intellectuals in Italy, Magdi Allam, who insists now on including his Christian name: Magdi Christiano Allam. Little did I know when I first drafted my paper that Mr. Allam, who is now a member of the European Parliament, would be addressing the conference. 

Having criticized, not just Islamic extremists, but the core tenets on which the extremists explicitly claim their orthodoxy, Mr. Allam is now something of a hostage in his own country. An hour or so before his appearance at the conference a security force which now protects him 24-hours a day cleared the conference hall using bomb sniffing dogs to protect him from those who have made threats on his life. His remarks were as controversial as expected, but he was both gracious and extremely forthcoming in his engagement with the audience, not all of whom, as you can imagine, agreed with him. I did. 

I returned from the conference and took up the manuscript on which I have been working for some months, one short excerpt from which we posted to the Scriptorium website Randy set up for those who have been supporting our work financially, and another short excerpt of which we are posting today. 

In the weeks ahead, I will be working on the book manuscript as well as preparing two presentations for a conference at Notre Dame this fall, the theme of which is: Radical Emancipation: Confronting the Challenge of Secularism. The title is taken from an address Cardinal Ratzinger on April 1, 2005, the day before John Paul II died, referring to secularism's attempt to eliminate all traces of biblical faith from our cultural life. 

I have proposed a paper for the Notre Dame conference in which I will attempt to bring the work of René Girard and that of Philip Rieff into fruitful dialogue. This is a major project, but I selected the theme of my paper with an eye to the book, and I expect that the paper that results will become in due course a chapter in the book. 

In addition to the paper I will give at the conference, I have been asked by Fr. Michael Sweeney, the president of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, to join him and my old friend Ron Austin on a Dominican School panel which Fr. Sweeney has proposed for the same Notre Dame conference. I traveled up to Berkeley last week to meet with Ron and Fr. Michael about our collaboration. Once again, I will select as my part of our three-part colloquium something that will translate into a chapter in the book. (Plodding writer that I am, I am at least learning to be expeditious in how I use time not directly spent on the manuscript. 

Please keep the work that Randy and I are doing in your prayers, as we will continue to remember you in ours. 

With gratitude and affection,

P.S. (from Randy)

The latest  CD/MP3 from the Famished Craving series, Ostentatious Nonchalance, is now available on our webstore. In this 8th part of the series Gil Bailie continues with the story of Alexander the Great - the world's first famous man - examineing the role of Alexander's 'hero' - Achilles - as the Macedonian's mimetic model. Leo Braudy in his book the Frenzy of Renown says of Alexander, "...nothing was ever enough for him." And like Achilles Alexander could not abide any external authority. Mr. Bailie uses Shakespeare's poetic lens on this particular characteristic from the play Troilus and Cressida where Ulysses gives voice to the Bard's insights into the nuances of mimetic rivalry. The discussion ranges from Tocqueville's take on hierarchy into René Girard's understanding of the double-bind inherent in modern ideologies of unbounded desire. Picking up the story of Alexander's decisive solution to the problem of the Gordian Knot and it's analog - the guillotine - in the French Revolution, Gil Bailie concludes by revisiting the theme from the first CD in this series - the sources of divine kingship in victimage and sacrifice.

Complimentary CDs & MP3 for our donors 

Just as a reminder, our Sustaining donors (those contributing $300/yr or $25/mo) receive these CDs & MP3s for free each month. Regular donors at the $10/mo or $120/yr level receive emailed links to a complimentary downloadable MP3 version of these monthly audio files. And for just $5/mo or $60/yr all donors receive access to our members only Scriptorium web site where Gil is posting draft installments in his manuscript project. (More about that below) We encourage all those who find our work of value to consider becoming a regular supporter of our work.

The theme of this year's COV&R conference is "Disorder/Order - in History and Politics", and Gil is presenting a paper entitled "Building Bridges of Truth" and subtitled "The Church, the Pope and the survival of Europe". This paper is an abbreviated version of a much longer installment being prepared for the manuscript Gil has been working on since last Fall. Members of the Friends of the Cornerstone Forum - Scriptorium project will be able to read the shorter COV&R version when they log into the members only site. We decided to post the shorter version since it had received the more careful edits and benefits from being less than 20 pages in length.  

I continue to post excerpts from the Famished Craving series on Gil's weblog Reflections on Faith and Culture every three days or so.  

We are grateful for your continued interest and support of our efforts. If you find our work of value please let your friends know about our work. In the coming days we will be needing all of the supporters we can find to help us continue this work, and 'word of mouth' recommendations are  most useful in helping those unfamiliar with our work to find us.  

Summer Blessings,  

Randy Coleman-Riese