…is up. John Allen reports on much of interest, including conservative critiques of the Curia, particularly in regard to the UN:

As this critical reflection deepens in conservative circles, one issue where I suspect it will increasingly focus is the Vatican’s attitude towards the United Nations. Although the Holy See has waged battles against elements within the United Nations on the family and population control, the Vatican remains one of the United Nations’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders on international relations and war and peace.

Conservatives devoted to the principle of subsidiarity increasingly wonder why the Vatican is gung-ho about handing over chunks of national sovereignty to an international authority they see as unaccountable and occasionally hostile to religious values.

..the appointment of an Opus Dei bishop in Spain, the Inquisition report and a talk by a US priest-ethicist:

Fr. Tad Pacholczyk is one of those rare cultural polyglots who speaks the language of both science and religion. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from Yale, and did postdoctoral work at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School. Yet he also holds degrees in theology and bioethics from the Gregorian University and the Lateran University in Rome.

Despite this rare combination of learning, Pacholczyk is adept at expressing himself in terms accessible to nonexperts, which is probably one of the reasons he is often called upon to testify on bioethical issues before legislatures across the United States. Pacholczyk is a strong opponent of cloning and embryonic stem cell research, and he brought his case to Rome in early June.