Readers were anxious to talk about pedophile priests and literature: Read on to find out which book is most often mentioned in the Fray, and where to find a brand-new novel.

Subject: Good Shepherdesses
Re: "Frame Game: Booty and the Priest"
From: The Bell
Date: Thu Mar 7 10:51 a.m. PT

Rather than allowing male priests to marry—which much research suggests would not deter true pedophiles—[the Catholic Church could] try another out-of-the-box solution and allow celibate women priests. The pool of potential candidates is immediately doubled. … Surely, whatever historical objections the Catholic Church may hold toward women priests, they cannot view them as less desirable than pedophiles. A Good Shepherdess sounds infinitely better to me than a Bad Shepherd.

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Subject: A Historian's Crime
Re: "Culturebox: Farewell to Mini-Me"
From: BML
Date: Mon Mar 11 5:26 p.m. PT

The evidence against [Philippe] Aries' [theory] is overwhelming—child-care books were in huge demand after 1100, schools specifically for children were sprouting in cities … and the cult of the child Jesus proves Europeans were able to see something precious in pre-pubescence. And yet his stinking, dehumanizing thoughts remain. In a single book, Aries deprived the people of an entire millennium [of] the most basic human trait, turning them into something slightly higher than animals. A historian is supposed to recover the humanity of lost ages, not destroy it. That's what Aries did. The [Culturebox] author was much too easy on him.

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Subject: Supremes in Palestine
Re: "Other Web Sites: Grand Inquisitor Scalia?"
From: Neal
Date: Tue Feb 26 8:11 p.m. PT

The real irony of [Justice] Scalia's originalist view of Christianity is that Christ Himself was hardly an originalist. He opposed (or at least reinterpreted) Mosaic law about stoning adulteresses, performed miracles on the Sabbath, and committed other acts that ran afoul of tradition. Why, He was practically the Earl Warren of first-century Palestine. I suspect that if Justice Scalia were there at the time, he would have sided with the Pharisees.

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