I have the honor of responding to Bishop Boyea’s magnificent reflection on the “spirit of governance.” I love the focus specifically on the “spirit” of governance. Using that phrase drawn from the prayer of episcopal ordination, Bishop Boyea is able to emphasize that the munus regendi, the office of pastoral
In October 1994, I arrived for the first time at Hyde Park as an invitee of my friend Daniel Garber to serve as a visiting professor in the department of philosophy. While I was unfamiliar with many of the names of my new colleagues at the University of Chicago, one
Anuncio vobis Gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam! Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Robertum Franciscum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost qui sibi nomen imposuit LEONEM XIV. I will always remember where I was when I heard this pronouncement. Having written a dissertation on Leo XIII during my doctoral program, I exploded with
Responsibility for one’s neighbor becomes responsibility for everything—even the world where one’s neighbor exists. It coincides with the responsibility of a servant of God who believes that the fate of the world depends upon his prayer and sacrifice. One is either responsible for everything or for nothing. Only the one
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.—Ezekiel 36:26 We are members one of another. —Ephesians 4:25 The exchange of hearts, a familiar
Tributes to Alasdair MacIntyre published since his death on May 21, 2025 have noted his impact on a wide range of academic fields, not just philosophy. His work has shaped inquiry in the fields of theology, political theory, sociology, psychology, classics, communication, law, education, and many more. Even business ethics, a
Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser’s life story begins in Algeria in 1918, as part of the French colonial diaspora. It ends in Paris, with him as the murderer of his elderly wife Hélène, occasionally stalking the city streets (when not in mental hospitals) and disconcerting bystanders by bellowing, Je suis le
It was 1970 or thereabouts, and I was an undergraduate of middling achievements. On my own, not for a class, I had just read Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire—the whole mad thing: the forward, the poem, the commentary, and even the index, with its haunting coda, “A distant northern land.” I