Churches and cathedrals are not merely temples built according to some preconceived pattern to honor the deity, an enterprising designer or a loyal benefactor. They are powerful epiphanies or metaphors of what the church is, how it behaves and what it stands for in the modern world.

John W. O’Malley, S.J.: The ‘how’ of the church changed during the council.

Maybe the devil made me do it, but after reading Bishop (now Cardinal) Walter Kasper's essay "On the Church" (reprinted in America, 4/23) for the second or third time, I went back through the text and conducted a little test.

When Hans Küng's Infallible? An Inquiry appeared in 1971, it drew ample praise and blame, including sharp criticisms by his theological colleague, Karl Rahner, S.J.. AMERICA carried discussions of the book's theological and philosophical aspects by

Any attempt to evaluate all the accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council's first session would be not only presumptuous but also premature. Some things, however, may be profitably noted.

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.