The other day I asked a friend of mine, an old-timer and a longtime baseball fan, if he remembered the 1955 World Series. He thought a moment, and said: “Oh, yeah, wasn’t that a Dodger-Yankee series?” Yes, it was. But 1955 was special.
History
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Tested by Fire
J Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist whose brilliant blue eyes came to express such engulfing sadness, brought a new kind of fire into the world and was burned by it. Like Hesiod’s Prometheus, Oppenheimer fought on the side of humankind, giving us the tools and weapons to determine our own fate; and fate punished him for it.
Posted inFaith
Excommunicating Politicians: Some cautionary tales from history
How has the church traditionally dealt with political figures who have run afoul of the church, or at least of churchmen?
Posted inFaith
The Style of Vatican II
John W. O’Malley, S.J.: The ‘how’ of the church changed during the council.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
The History Behind Celibacy and the Priesthood
Why and how did the celibate state became a requirement for ordination?
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Walter Kasper: On the church
Cardinal Walter Kasper on the relationship between the universal church and local churches.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
The Millennium and the Papalization of Catholicism
Everyone has been trying to see the big picture. We have been bombarded with a certain type of question. Who is the man or woman of the century—better, of the millennium? What are the happenings in the past thousand years that most changed the course of history?
Posted inFaith, Vantage Point
American Catholic Panorama: From April 14, 1962
Some day you would like to write a book about Catholicism in America as you have known it. You keep putting it off, and the relentless years keep passing. The book will probably never be written.
Posted inArts & Culture, Vantage Point
The Church and the Fiction Writer: From March 30, 1957
From 1957, a classic essay by Flannery O’Connor, who died 50 years ago on Sunday.