Pope Francis’ silence over the dismantling of a Catholic Church in China is unsettling. Long-time Vatican-watcher Damian Thompson wonders if the Pope could be an agent of Beijing. In Spectator US, Thompson notes that the Pontiff’s toxic resentment of the U.S. means he has never met a dictator he didn’t like.

The Frigid Isle
Íris Erlingsdóttir shines a light on the world’s first wholly feminized state. Women, she writes in The European Conservative, run everything in Iceland: “the presidency, the prime minister’s office…[the] national state church…schools, municipalities, police…newsrooms and [the] ever-expanding public bureaucracy.” As for the men, Erlingsdóttir observes, they describe themselves ruefully as (bad-taste alert) “pussy-whipped.”


