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The theological genius of the East was different from that of the West.

Political jealousies and interests intensified the disputes, and, at last, after many premonitory symptoms, the final break came in 1054,

Pope Leo IX struck at Michael Cerularius and his followers with an excommunication and the patriarch retaliated with a similar excommunication.

the Greeks were bitterly antagonized by such events as the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204.

Western pleas for reunion (on Western terms), such as those at the Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1439), were rejected by the Byzantines.

Dialogue and improved relations continued into the early 21st century.

The schism has never healed,

In some ways, the Catholic Church in the United States has been in pseudo-schism with the Vatican for centuries

Bishop Curry said that despite the “overwhelming” vote against his church, he saw signs of openness to change from the primates. “If this is of God, things will change in time,” he said. “And it may not be fast. I don’t know how long. But I know in my lifetime I’ve seen things change that I didn’t believe would ever change.”

But Archbishop Welby said that the church’s provinces, while autonomous, were “interdependent” and obligated to one another not to deviate from doctrine. “And if you simply ignore that, there will be consequences,” he said.

But the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael B. Curry, said in a telephone interview that he did not expect his church to reverse the decision it made last summer to permit same-sex marriages and to change the definition of marriage so that it was no longer defined by gender.

The archbishop of Canterbury said there was no clarity about what would happen if the Americans did not reverse course and the Canadians moved to affirm gay marriage. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said at the news conference.

He also announced that he intended to hold the next international assembly of Anglican bishops, known as a Lambeth Conference, in 2020. With schism averted at least temporarily, Archbishop Welby said that Friday, the primates agreed to join discussions with the Coptic Church leader, Pope Tawadros II, and Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, to set a common date for Easter.

The foreign policy hawks fear it would lead to a diminished role for America in an increasingly unstable world. And they worry about their party losing its firm grasp of what has traditionally been a winning issue.

Mr. Paul calls himself a “realist, not a neoconservative nor an isolationist.” But his view of America resembles that of his father, former Representative Ron Paul, who built a deeply committed following of libertarians and Tea Party Republicans by opposing most American involvement overseas.

discussions had been underway “for at least two years,” and the fact that both leaders planned to be in Latin America created the possibility of a “neutral place” for a meeting.

The two agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations only at the end of 2009, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met Francis in June 2015, in what was seen as a break of Russia’s isolation from the West over the crisis in Ukraine.

Francis has worked to reconcile divisions in Christianity that trace to the Great Schism of 1054, which formally divided the Eastern and Western churches.

Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian, also noted that the Cuba meeting has meaningful geopolitical implications, because it comes at a time when the United States and Europe diplomats are working to isolate Russia.

Trump’s supporters exhibit high levels of what political scientists call “authoritarianism.” Authoritarians are unusually fearful of disorder and favor simple, brutal methods of quashing it. As Amanda Taub has noted, “When many Americans perceived imminent physical threats, the population of authoritarians could seem to swell rapidly.” So by fanning popular fears of chaos, especially violent chaos, Trump wins yet more votes.

He does this, in part, by turning his treatment of the activists who seek to disrupt his events into a parable for how he would restore order in society at large.

After mid-century, Peter I of Castile invaded the Crown of Aragon, prompting Peter IV to back Henry of Trastámara’s claims to the Castilian throne, but Henry subsequently refused to reward him with any territorial concessions. That disappointment was offset to some extent by the reincorporation of Sicily into the dominions of the Crown of Aragon in 1377. Peter IV remained neutral during the Great Schism, but his son John I (1387–95) acknowledged the pope of Avignon. Both John and his younger brother and successor, Martin (1395–1410), had to attend constantly to agitation and unrest in Sardinia and Sicily.

Alfonso V (the Magnanimous; 1416–58) opted to pursue ambitions in Italy and generally neglected his peninsular domains.

Louis XI of France seized the opportunity to occupy Roussillon and Cerdagne, thereby laying the foundation for future enmity between France and Spain. By 1472 John II had suppressed the Catalan revolt; subsequently he aided his daughter-in-law Isabella in acquiring the Castilian crown. His son Ferdinand succeeded him as king of Aragon and Sardinia, and his daughter Eleanor inherited Navarre.

In its emergency session on Sunday, the Parliament granted expanded powers to its new speaker, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, who now has the authority to carry out the duties of the president of Ukraine as well.

Former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who was jailed by Mr. Yanukovych after losing the 2010 presidential election and was freed on Saturday, issued a statement saying she did not want to be considered for the premier’s post. Still, it left open the possibility that she will run for president.

The center of Kiev is scorched and scarred. The streets are blackened from fires set during clashes with the police. On Sunday, people placed flowers and candles at makeshift shrines memorializing the dead. Outside the Cabinet of Ministers building, parents had their small children pose for photographs with victorious antigovernment fighters who are still armed with clubs and wearing helmets, but now stand guard over the government headquarters. Many had flowers attached to their metal shields.

“Part of white fragility is to assume that when we talk about racism, we are calling someone out as being individually a racist,” he said. “So if you say we're going to talk about racism, white people think you're going to call them a name. But for most people of color it's a system. And we're talking about dealing with a structure so the real problem is the system.”

When separate groups of people are using the same word with different implied meanings then problems will persist.

When it comes to racism and increased segregation, both Wise and DiAngelo noted that there seems to be this rigid unwillingness to address any inequality, because it would upset the very people who are both benefiting from the injustice and refusing to acknowledge its existence.

The fear is that if someone seeks to define and fix racism, many white people feel like they’re being directly attacked. So instead of waiting for the attack, white fragility promotes protection by putting punitive restrictions on “the others.”

The Obama era has been an interesting petri dish of white fragility. On the heels of a moderate economic recovery, we’ve seen sweeping new state laws aimed at social issues: voting rights restrictions, defunding of Planned Parenthood, anti-gay legislation, Stand Your Ground bills, and restrictive union laws to weaken their bargaining power. These laws have resulted in a rollback of rights for minorities, women, the LGBT movement, and the working class.

The strangest thing about white fragility politics is that the detrimental policy results are spread out across race and class. Yet, the political results for the conservative movement priming the pump of white fragility and rage is election victories. And why should they change when they can get large sections of an aging white population to consistently vote for policies proven to statistically hurt their economic chances, personal health, their children’s education, and their very safety?

These are not rational decisions. These are fear-based politics that create avoidable disasters in which all suffer. This new wave of segregation fear is surging across the country. In response to the continued white fragility panic of 2008, conservative political movements are set to capitalize on the cycles of manufactured hysteria. “We are watching the repeal of the 20th century,” Wise said.

When I asked Wise and DiAngelo to give me something hopeful for the future, they both gave me a bleak picture. When I suggested that more facts and evidence could sway people, they disagreed. “People who are deeply committed to a world view don’t change their opinions when confronted with new facts,” Wise said. “Oddly enough, new facts cause them to dig in more deeply.”

89 percent of Democrats described themselves as concerned that intervention in Iraq and Syria “will lead to a long and costly involvement there.”

Mrs. Clinton resisted disavowing her original vote for the war for a long time and as secretary of state pressed for a muscular approach to the world.

At first, the president seemed to lean more toward Mrs. Clinton’s view, if not entirely, as with the 2009 Afghan troop surge. But the war in Libya in 2011 proved a turning point. After his reluctant approval of airstrikes left a fractured country, Mr. Obama soured even more on intervention.

For his part, Mr. Biden could point to Libya as a case study in the perils of Mrs. Clinton’s brand of American meddling in the conflicts of other countries. She might argue that she favored a more expansive involvement than that taken by the administration, which all but washed its hands after Qaddafi’s death, but the terrorist attack on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi has become an enduring political liability for her.

A 56 percent majority of the younger group of Democrats believes that “Wall Street helps the American economy more than it hurts,” with just 36 percent believing that Wall Street hurts the economy. Older Democrats have almost exactly the opposite view. 56 percent believe that Wall Street hurts the economy; 36 percent believe it helps.

Asked by Pew to choose between two statements — “Racial discrimination is the main reason why many blacks can’t get ahead” and “Blacks who can’t get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition” – the older Democratic cohort blamed discrimination, by an 80 to 10 margin. In contrast, only 19 percent of the younger group of Democrats blamed discrimination, with 68 percent saying that blacks “are mostly responsible for their own condition.”

Some 91 percent of the older group said the “U.S. needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights,” and just 6 percent said the “U.S. has made the changes needed to give blacks equal rights.” 67 percent of the younger group said the United States has done enough for blacks, and 28 percent said that the country needs to do more to give blacks equal rights.

When asked by Reason if they would consider voting for Clinton, 53 percent of those surveyed said yes, and 27 percent said no. Both Joe Biden, the vice president, and Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, received more yeses than noes.

every one of the prospective Republican presidential candidates pollsters mentioned — Christie, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal — received more noes than yeses from millennials, by margins ranging from two noes for every yes to four noes for every yes

By a margin of 70-35, millennials in the Reason survey chose “competition is primarily good; it stimulates people to work hard and develop new ideas” over “competition is primarily harmful; it brings out the worst in people.” By 64-25, millennials picked “profit is generally good because it encourages businesses to provide valued products to attract customers” as opposed to “profit is generally bad because it encourages businesses to take advantage of their customers and employees.”

In some other respects, the millennial voters studied by Reason appear to hold orthodox liberal views: they support more spending to help the poor, even if it means higher taxes; government action to guarantee a living wage, enough for everyone to eat and have a place to sleep; and a government guarantee of health insurance. Conversely, majorities of the same voters believe that wealth should be distributed according to achievement as opposed to need, and that “people should be allowed to keep what they produce, even if there are others with greater needs.”

“You may have issue differences within the Democratic Party, but they become irrelevant when confronted by a Republican Party determined to turn elections into cultural conflicts,” Greenberg said in a phone interview. “These differences don’t matter in the context of a Republican party that brings out the commonality of the Democratic Party.”

Money, in Leege’s view, will be likely to trump the demographic trends favoring Democrats. Continue reading the main story 378 Comments Leege raises a fundamental question. The Democratic Party could well gain strength politically as it edges away from economic liberalism to a coalition determined to protect personal liberties from conservative moral constraint.

Corporate America faces a divided Democratic Party, vulnerable to the kind of lobbying pressures that the business elite specializes in. Under this scenario, Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce will enjoy increased leverage in the policy-making arenas of Congress and the executive branch despite – or even because – of Democratic political success.

Liberals and conservatives could no longer think of themselves simply as political rivals competing within a common and settled American identity. That identity was no longer settled—or even legitimate—because it was stigmatized in the 1960s as racist, sexist, and imperialistic

It was no longer enough for the proponents of these perspectives merely to vie over the issues of the day. Both worldviews would now have to evolve into full-blown ideologies capable of projecting a new political and cultural vision of America.

This is how the mandate of the 1960s to reinvent America launched the infamous “culture war” between liberalism and conservatis

When we argue over health care or immigration or Middle East policy, it is as if two distinct Americas were arguing, each with a different idea of what it means to be an American. And these arguments are intense and often uncivil, because each side feels that its American identity is at risk from the other side. So the conflict is very much a culture war, with each side longing for “victory” over the other, and each side seeing itself as America’s last and best hope.

Since the 1960s, this war has divided up our culture into what might be called “identity territories.”

America’s universities are now almost exclusively left-leaning; most public-policy think tanks are right-leaning. Talk radio is conservative; National Public Radio and the major television networks are liberal. On cable television, almost every news and commentary channel is a recognizable identity territory—Fox/ right; MSNBC/left; CNN/left. In the print media our two great national newspapers are the liberal New York Times and the conservative Wall Street Journal (especially in the editorial pages). The Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Grants are left; the Bradley Prize is right. The blogosphere is notoriously divided by political stripe. And then there are “red” and “blue” states, cities, towns, and even neighborhoods. At election time, Americans can see on television a graphic of their culture war: those blue and red electoral maps that give us a virtual topography of political identity.

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In the America envisioned by both ideologies, there is no racism or sexism or imperialism to be embarrassed by. After all, ideologies project idealized images of the near-perfect America that they promise to deliver. Thus, in one’s ideological identity, one can find the innocence that is no longer possible—since the 1960s—in America’s defamed national identity.

To announce oneself as a liberal or a conservative is like announcing oneself as a Frenchman or a Brit. It is virtually an announcement of tribal identity, and it means something much larger than ideology

Nationalism—the nationalist impulse—is passion itself; it is atavistic, beyond the reach of reason, a secular sacredness. The nationalist is expected to be intolerant of all opposition to his nation’s sovereignty, and is most often willing to defend that sovereignty with his life.

when we let nationalism shape the form of our liberal or conservative identities—when we practice our ideological leaning as if it were a divine right, an atavism to be defended at all cost—then we put ourselves on a warlike footing. We feel an impunity toward our opposition, and we grant ourselves a scorched-earth license to fight back.

yes, like my young nemesis, I could experience my ideology as a nationalism. But unlike him I wanted to discipline that impulse, to subject my ideology—and all the policies it fostered—to every sort of test of truth and effectiveness. And I was ready to modify accordingly, to disabuse myself of even long-held beliefs that didn’t pan out in reality

these disparities— and many others—most certainly had their genesis in centuries of racial oppression. But post-1960s liberalism conflates the past with the present: it argues that today’s racial disparities are caused by precisely the same white racism that caused them in the past—thus the poetic truth that blacks today remain stymied and victimized by white racism.

I had stated a hard fact: that since the 1960s, white racism had lost so much of its authority, power, and legitimacy that it was no longer, in itself, a prohibitive barrier to black advancement. Blacks have now risen to every level of American society, including the presidency. If you are black and you want to be a poet, or a doctor, or a corporate executive, or a movie star, there will surely be barriers to overcome, but white racism will be among the least of them. You will be far more likely to receive racial preferences than to suffer racial discrimination.

But past oppression cannot be conflated into present-day oppression. It is likely, for example, that today’s racial disparities are due more to dysfunctions within the black community, and—I would argue—to liberal social policies that have encouraged us to trade more on our past victimization than to overcome the damage done by that victimization through dint of our own pride and will

The young man at Aspen demanded to speak so that he could corral people back into a prescribed correctness and away from a more open-minded approach to the complex problems that our racial history has left us to deal with—problems that the former victims of this history will certainly bear the greatest responsibility for overcoming

there also comes a time when he must stop thinking of himself as a victim by acknowledging that—existentially—his fate is always in his own hands. One of the more pernicious cor- ruptions of post-1960s liberalism is that it undermined the spirit of self-help and individual responsibility in precisely the people it sought to uplif

he truth—that  blacks had now achieved a level of freedom comparable to that of all others

what was not true—that racism was still the greatest barrier to black advancement

Poetic truth—this assertion of a broad characteristic “truth” that invalidates actual truth—is contemporary liberalism’s greatest source of power. It is also liberalism’s most fundamental corruption.

the great trick of modern liberalism is to link its poetic truths (false as they may be) with innocence from all the great sins of America’s past—racism, sexism, imperial- ism, capitalist greed

if you want to be politically correct, if you want to be seen as someone who is cleansed of America’s past ugliness, you will go along with the poetic truth that racism is still a great barrier for blacks.

A distinction must be made. During and immediately after the 1960s, racism and sexism were still more literal truth than poetic truth. As we moved through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, America morally evolved so that these old American evils became more “poetic” than literal

Yet redeeming America from these evils has become liberalism’s rationale for demanding real power in the real world—the political and cultural power to create social programs, to socially engineer on a national scale, to expand welfare, to entrench group preferences in American institutions, and so on

what happens to liberal power when America actually earns considerable redemption—when there are more women than men in the nation’s medical schools, when a black can serve as the president, when public accommodations are open to anyone with the price of the ticket?

My young antagonist in Aspen was not agitated by some racial injustice. He would have only relished a bit of good old-fashioned racial injustice, since it would have justified his entire political identit

a divide like this suggests that America has in fact become two Americas, two political cultures forever locked in a “cold war” within a single society. This implies a spiritual schism within America itself, and, following from that, the prospect of perpetual and hopeless debate—the kind of ego-driven debate in which both sides want the other side to “think like us.

Today, liberal and conservative Americans are often contemptuous of each other with a passion that would more logically be reserved for foreign enemies.

Our national debate over foreign and domestic issues has come to be framed as much by poetic truths as by dispassionate assessments of the realities we face

the poetic truth that blacks are still held back from full equality by ongoing “structural” racism carries more authority than the objective truth: that today racism is not remotely the barrier to black advancement in American life that it once was.

In foreign affairs, the poetic truth that we Americans are essentially imperialistic cowboys bent on exploiting the world has more credibility than the obvious truth, which is that our wealth and power (accumulated over centuries of unprecedented innovation in a context of freedom) has often drawn us into the unwanted role of policing a turbulent world—and, it must be added, to the world’s immense benefit.

Today the actual facts fail to support the notion that racial victimization is a prevailing truth of American life. So today, a poetic truth, like “black victimization,” or the ongoing “repression of women,” or the systematic “abuse of the environment,” must be imposed on society not by fact and reason but by some regime of political correctness

Poetic license occurs when poets take a certain liberty with the conventional rules of grammar and syntax in order to achieve an effect. They break the rules in order to create a more beautiful or more powerful effect than would otherwise be possible. Adapting this idea of license and rule breaking to the realm of ideology, we might say that “poetic truth” disregards the actual truth in order to assert a larger essential truth that supports one’s ideological position

He could subscribe to “diversity,” “inclusiveness,” and “social justice” and think himself solidly on the side of the good. The problem is that these prescriptions only throw fuzzy and unattainable idealisms at profound problems

What is “diversity” beyond a vague apologia, an amorphous expression of goodwill that offers no objective assessment whatsoever of the actual problems that minority groups face?

The danger here is that the nation’s innocence— its redemption from past sins—becomes linked to a kind of know-nothingism

We can’t afford to know, for example, that America’s military might—a vulgarity in the minds of many—has stabilized vast stretches of Asia and Europe since World War II, so that nations under the umbrella of our power have become prosperous trading partners today

Today’s great divide comes from a shallowness of understanding. We don’t altogether know what to do with our history

many of our institutions are being held in thrall to the idea of moral intimidation as power. Try to get a job today as an unapologetic conservative in the average American university, or in the State Department, or on public radio.

We all know, to the point of cliché, what the solutions are: mutual respect, empathy, flexibility, compromise

We can’t admit today that the lives of minorities are no longer stunted by either prejudice or “white privilege.

hose who doubt this will always point to today’s long litany of racial disparities. Blacks are still behind virtually all other groups by the most important measures of social and economic well-being: educational achievement, home ownership, employment levels, academic test scores, marriage rates, household net worth, and so on. The fact that seven out of ten black women are single, along with the fact that 70 percent of first black marriages fail (47 percent for whites), means that black women are married at roughly half the rate of white women and divorced at twice the rate. Thus it is not surprising that nearly three-quarters of all black children are born out of wedlock. In 2008, black college students were three times more likely than whites to graduate with a grade point average below a meager 2.5—this on top of a graduation rate for blacks of only 42 percent, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Consequently, blacks in general have the highest college dropout rate and the lowest grade point average of any student group in America

"We need to put aside internal disagreements at this tragic time and join efforts to save Christians in the regions where they are subject to the most atrocious persecution,"

“Sanders statements portend that he would outsource U.S. foreign Policy in the Middle East to Iran,” Pregent said. “Iran is not in Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIS—they are there to grow influence and ensure their proxies are emboldened and empowered.”