John Paul II, Youth Minister
Pole that he was, Karol Wojtyła had a well developed sense of historical irony. So from his present position in the Communion of Saints, he might be struck by the
The Catholic Crisis, in Perspective
Perspective is at least as important when reading the signs of the times as it is in landscape painting. And so, in this autumn of our Catholic discontent, I was
Courage in the Slough of Despond
I never took a class from the historian Frank Orlando, but the motto he placed in the faculty section of my college yearbook—“History is an antidote for despair”—has stuck with
Fridays without Charles
Take my word for it: You don’t want to be around me at breakfast. I am not a chipper morning person, and it’s best to leave me to the coffee
A Caveat on the Great Tom Wolfe
When the great Tom Wolfe died on May 14—he of the white suits, the spats, and the prose style as exuberant as his wardrobe—I, like millions of others, remembered the
A Pastor in Full
Almost a quarter-century ago, Fr. Jay Scott Newman, back in Rome to finish a graduate degree after his priestly ordination in Charleston, took me on an extended ramble around the
Grace Under Pressure
AÂ chapter in a remarkable American and Catholic life will close on June 6, when Abbot Thomas Frerking, OSB, concludes more than two decades of service as leader of the monastic
Homage to Don Briel
In the history of U.S. Catholic higher education since World War II, three seminal moments stand out: Msgr. John Tracy Ellis’s 1955 article, “American Catholics and the Intellectual Life”; the
In Memoriam, 2017
This was a tough year for losing friends. At one point, I got so tired of writing obituary columns that I wrote a kind of pre-obituary so the friend in
Remembering Congressman John Miller
Several years ago, after speaking in the Lithuanian Parliament in Vilnius on the 20th anniversary of John Paul II’s visit to that small Baltic country, I ran into three figures
Fifty Years of Friendship with Cardinal Pell
Msgr. Thomas A. Whelan, my pastor when I was growing up in Baltimore, was a striking character: Princeton friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald; former Wall Street broker; high-ranking Army chaplain
Remembering Peter Berger
One by one, they leave the stage: Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J.; Father Richard John Neuhaus; Michael Novak; now, on June 27, Peter Berger — men whose work I first read
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