BOSTON – UNITED STATES The word of the week over here was ‘iconoclasm’. Estimable journals have been dropping it, from National Review to The American Conservative to my own Catholic Herald:

In the ancient world, smashing pagan idols was one way to proclaim the triumph of Christ over the false gods of the world… Catholics, however, are more likely to associate statue-breaking with the tragedy of the Reformation, when sacrilege and blasphemy against Our Lady was carried out on a vast scale.