Pope Baptizes Prominent Italian Muslim

During the Easter Vigil, the pope baptized and received into the Catholic faith “Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel…”

This is not an unusual occurrence. While attending Easter Vigil at St. Mary’s church in Coventry, my wife and I witnessed several men and women being received into communion by Father Victor Chaker and Father Ray Introvigne.

The Egyptian born Madgi Allam explained why he had titled his recent book "Viva Israele.” He had received death threats from Hamas, and “Having been condemned to death, I have reflected a long time on the value of life. And I discovered that behind the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is the discrimination against Israel. Everyone has the right to exist except for the Jewish state and its inhabitants. Today, Israel is the paradigm of the right to life."

None of this, one supposes, will be received in a spirit of good will in the badlands of Pakistan, where Osama bin Landin has been hunkered down issuing threats against the Pope and Europe. But then, with the exception of a few Danish cartoonists, the Pope and Allam very well may be the last two living men in Europe.

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Donna

I am writing this for members of my family, and for others who may be interested. My twin sister Donna died a few hours ago of stage three lung cancer. The end came quickly and somewhat unexpectedly. She was preceded in death by Lisa Pesci, my brother’s daughter, a woman of great courage who died still full of years, and my sister’s husband Craig Tobey Senior, who left her at a young age with a great gift: her accomplished son, Craig Tobey Jr. My sister was a woman of great strength, persistence and humor. To the end, she loved life and those who loved her. Her son Craig, a mere sapling when his father died, has grown up strong and straight. There is no crookedness in him. Thanks to Donna’s persistence and his own native talents, he graduated from Yale, taught school in Japan, there married Miyuki, a blessing from God. They moved to California – when that state, I may add, was yet full of opportunity – and both began to carve a living for them...

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

The Murphy Thingy

It’s the New York Post , and so there are pictures. One shows Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy canoodling with “Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill.” The canoodle occurred one day or night prior to Murphy’s well-advertised absence from President Donald Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress. Murphy has said attendance at what was essentially a “campaign rally” involving the whole U.S. Congress – though Democrat congresspersons signaled their displeasure at the event by stonily sitting on their hands during the applause lines – was inconsistent with his dignity as a significant part of the permanent opposition to Trump. Reaching for his moral Glock Murphy recently told the Hartford Courant that Democrat Party opposition to President Donald Trump should be unrelenting and unforgiving: “I think people won’t trust you if you run a campaign saying that if Donald Trump is ...

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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