All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees - famously in recent years at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the three original TV networks.

The American Revolution and Declaration of Independence, it has often been argued, were fueled by the most radical of all American political ideas.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

There's something totally crazy about this.

John Paul was the first modern pope to grow up in a secular culture: He attended public schools, danced with girls - indeed, as a teenager he had a crush on a beautiful Jewish girl who fled his hometown just ahead of the arrival of the Germans.

Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

There had always been black people in and out of our house, and from the outset I had been taught that for them life was defined by struggle and filled with injustice.