The John Batchelor Show

Saturday 1 September 2012

Air Date: 
September 01, 2012

 

Photo, above:  Alexis de Tocqueville observed that in the fledgling United States, liberty and religion were intertwined.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Saturday 905P Eastern Time:   Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies by Marcello Pera; 1 of 2

Saturday 920P Eastern Time:   Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies by Marcello Pera; 2 of 2

Saturday 935P Eastern Time:  Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich; 1 of 2

Saturday 950P Eastern Time:   Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich; 2 of 2

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According to John Locke, there are three natural rights:  Life: everyone is entitled to live once they are created.  Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right.  Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights.

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Saturday 1005P (705P Pacific):  Playing with Fire: Pakistan at War with Itself by Pamela Constable; 1 of 2

Saturday 1020P (720P Pacific):  Playing with Fire: Pakistan at War with Itself by Pamela Constable; 2 of 2

Saturday 1035P (735P Pacific):  Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel by Nicholas Blanford; 1 of 2

Saturday 1050P (750P Pacific):  Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel by Nicholas Blanford; 2 of 2

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It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. ... They...consequently are instruments of injustice. The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.  --Thomas Paine

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Saturday 1105P (805P Pacific):   Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee; 1 of 4

Saturday 1120P (820P Pacific):  Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee; 2 of 4

Saturday 1135P (835P Pacific):   Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee; 3 of 4

Saturday 1150P (850P Pacific):  Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee; 4 of 4

 

Saturday/Sun 1205A (905 Pacific):  Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian; 1 of 2

Saturday/Sun 1220A (920 Pacific):   Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian; 2 of 2

Saturday/Sun 1235A (935P Pacific):  Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies by Marcello Pera; 1 of 2

Saturday/Sun 1250A  (950P Pacific):  Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societies by Marcello Pera; 2 of 2

 

Giacomo della Porta and Fontana brought the dome to completion in 1590, the last year of the reign of Sixtus V. His successor, Gregory XIV, saw Fontana complete the lantern and had an inscription to the honour of Sixtus V placed around its inner opening. The next pope, Clement VIII, had the cross raised into place, an event which took all day, and was accompanied by the ringing of the bells of all the city's churches. In the arms of the cross are set two lead caskets, one containing a fragment of the True Cross and a relic of St. Andrew and the other containing medallions of the Holy Lamb.[15]

In the mid-18th century, cracks appeared in the dome, so four iron chains were installed between the two shells to bind it, like the rings that keep a barrel from bursting. As many as ten chains have been installed at various times, the earliest possibly planned by Michelangelo himself as a precaution, as Brunelleschi did at Florence Cathedral.

 

Around the inside of the dome is written, in letters 2 metres (6.6 ft) high:

TV ES PETRVS ET SVPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM. TIBI DABO CLAVES REGNI CAELORVM
("...you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven..." VulgateMatthew 16:18–19.)

Beneath the lantern is the inscription:

S. PETRI GLORIAE SIXTVS PP. V. A. M. D. XC. PONTIF. V.
(To the glory of St Peter; Sixtus V, pope, in the year 1590 and the fifth year of his pontificate.)