Religion & Law

Paul Krog makes an interesting and useful analogy of the USA to Spain on the eve of its Civil War (government-tolerated killing in both cases).  But in my view, we are heading toward rather more direct analogies: hatred of religious folk leading to church burnings and worse, as has already been publically threatened in Spain itself. In any event, I strongly recommend Gironella's THE CYPRESSES BELIEVE IN GOD, recently republished by Ignatius Press, which is a profound 800-page study of the events leading up to that conflict. The translation is excellent (something which cannot be said for all the subsequent volumes in his trilogy of pre, during, and post war events). It's just a great read.