Rearguard Action

The Taliban critically injured a 14 year old girl who had advocated Education for girls and western culture.  This is what I call a rearguard action, that is, a desperate attempt to return to an old way of doing things.  I believe that when such things happen, shooting teenage girls over religious and cultural issues, it is the beginning of the end for nostalgia.  The world is changing too fast for the Taliban.  My sense, from history, is that whenever a religious group puts great energy into returning to a past that is really past, the tide has already turned against them.   The Bishops are in Rome now at a big meeting ( synod) trying to figure out how to get back those who left, and to get new members.  We will see.