I'm a Catholic by background. I was raised in Goa, a part of India that was visited by Portuguese missionaries a few hundred years ago, which explains my last name.

Christianity has always embraced both reason and faith.

And who can deny that Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic.

What was distinctively Western was not slavery but the moral crusade to end slavery.

I do believe that the Barack Obama administration has reached a new low by using the instruments of the state against its political adversaries. Obama does not see people who disagree with him as well-meaning opponents but rather as enemies. That's not something that Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton did as President. Probably Obama's direct descendant in this line is Richard Nixon. And Obama seems to have carried Nixonian tactics to a new low. So, we've turned a corner in American politics that doesn't bode well for our future.

The life of West, Nietzsche said, is based on Christianity. The values of the West are based on Christianity. Some of these values seem to have taken a life of their own, and this gives us the illusion that we can get rid of Christianity and keep the values. This, Nietzsche says, is an illusion...Remove the Christian foundation, and the values must go too.

America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.