Bruni and Dowd for your Sunday

In the NY Times today, both Frank Bruni and Maureen Dowd have excellent columns about the Pope and Roman Catholicism. It's a Mother's Day extravaganza. Since the Times keeps its stories behind a paywall, I'm providing readers with free links to both. Here you go.

Bruni says:

Those matters take center stage in an expanded employment contract that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati is forcing on more than 2,000 teachers, some of whom are refusing to sign it. In what the document does and doesn’t spell out, it sends the tired message that virtue resides in whom you share your bed with and how you do or don’t procreate.

And Dowd says:

The cool pope suddenly doesn’t seem so cool, allowing Rome’s grand inquisitors to torque up the derogation this Mother’s Day of the American sisters who have mothered so many — even as an endless parade of ghoulish priests were shielded as they defiled vulnerable kids in their care.

Both columns are terrific. What are you waiting for? Go read them.