2013 is shaping up early to be one of those singular years in which people will be asked “Where were you when…?”
Two things of note at the moment, both of which have the slimmest of connections—or maybe not, depending on your perspective: this is the first largely popular effort in support of gun control since the late Sixties, at least rhetorically, and, if the polls are to be believed, demographically; and the first resignation of a sitting pope since 1415.
Connected? In terms of the kind of faith some people bring to certain givens, perhaps. But in both cases, core ideologies are being challenged by external pressures that have grown so great as to impose change.…