1. Kelly Gissendaner sang “Amazing Grace” as a state-administered lethal drug cocktail killed her shortly after midnight this morning.
2. Cecile Richards Has ‘Never Heard’ of Abortion Survivors. Here Are Two.
3. John McCormack on a head-scratcher of a hearing.
4. The pope met Kim Davis last week. As John Allen notes:
There’s no way to view the encounter other than as a broad gesture of support by the pope for conscientious objection from gay marriage laws, especially taken in tandem with his statement aboard the papal plane that following one’s conscience in such a situation is a “human right” – one, he insisted, that also belongs to government officials.
This was obviously an important point for him to make. Religious liberty came up again and again throughout the trip. And reminding us that religion is healthy for the public square, that it is good for us, even necessary. We’ve believed that now and again throughout out history.
Allen also writes:
To put the point in crudely political terms, Francis is a figure who utterly defies the usual left/right divides, equally capable of meeting Kim Davis and embracing poor immigrant children at a Harlem school – seeing both as part of a continuum of concern for human dignity.
That will be a source of consolation to some and consternation to others, but in any event it’s now officially part of the Francis narrative.
5.
You’d think meeting with Fidel Castro would have been controversial enough for the pope.
— Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) September 30, 20156. More on his U.S. trip from Archbishop Chaput.
7. In case you missed this last week:
Hear from Little Sisters of the Poor, who had a surprise visit from Pope Francis yesterday. #religiouslibertyhttps://t.co/ZAFxGvhKbL
— US Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) September 24, 20159.
“It’s so weird — she looks like one of us, but she’s not,” Liberal Feminists Ponder Carly Fiorina http://t.co/PD38ZgWpaS
— Kay Hymowitz (@KayHymowitz) September 28, 201510. Henry Olsen’s Picture of the GOP’s Four Factions
11. A Contradictory Man: The Legacy of Daniel Patrick Moynihan
12. The Plaza and the Indian supreme court… I had no idea
PLUS: 10 St. Jerome things.