Welcome back to “America Jeopardy!”, our annual beach-reading homage to the popular game show and everybody’s favorite Catholic magazine. The game is played like the real “Jeopardy!” except that you’ll have to log on to our website for the answers, er, questions. You can find those at www.americamagazine.org/jeopardy2020. And while you’re there, be sure to check out all the amazing digital-only content that is included with your subscription. Good luck. Have a blessed summer!
1. During a congressional hearing in 1957, this U.S. senator and future president said that an article in America was wrong to claim that Catholic parents were excommunicated for not sending their children to parochial schools.
2. John Wynne, S.J., the founder of America, modeled the magazine on this British periodical, which shares a name with the newspaper of the Diocese of Brooklyn.
3. This former governor of New Jersey, who also served as a co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, is a subscriber and contributor to America.
4. Joseph A. Califano Jr., a former member of the board of directors of America, accompanied President Lyndon B. Johnson to the funeral of this prominent American prelate in December 1967.
5. Ethel Kennedy, an America subscriber, invoked the teachings of this medieval thinker to rebut the points the philosopher A. J. Ayer was making at a dinner at the White House in 1962.
6. The byline of this actress, who portrayed the wife of Ray Romano’s character in the CBS sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” appeared in America in 2017.
7. John LaFarge, S.J., fifth editor in chief, was a close friend of A. Phillip Randolph, the leader of the first predominantly African-American labor union. They successfully lobbied this man to ban discrimination in the defense industry in the spring of 1941.
8. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski, a subscriber and a graduate of the Jesuit-sponsored Loyola College in Toronto, served as national security advisor to this U.S. president.
9. This occasional contributor to America served as archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982. Later, he had a much bigger job.
10. Robert Hartnett, S.J., sixth editor in chief, published a controversial op-ed in The Chicago Tribune in 1957 in which he criticized this man for instituting a military staff system at the White House.
11. Robert I. Gannon, S.J., a frequent contributor to America, was assigned to reopen this Jesuit institution in 1930, which had been closed since World War I, and is still located in Jersey City, N.J.
12. Drew Christiansen, S.J., the 13th editor in chief, grew up in this place, also known as Richmond County, N.Y.
13. This man, who was the last U.S. president without a college degree, wrote to America’s editors to congratulate them on the occasion of the magazine’s 40th anniversary.
14. For 50 years the editorial offices of America were located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, not far from the resting place of this U.S. president.
15. Msgr. James H. Murphy received a letter from this woman in 1938, in which she thanked him for his review of her novel, Gone With the Wind, in America magazine.
16. Charlie Sykes, an occasional contributor to America, hosted a podcast for this conservative magazine, which was founded by Bill Kristol. It abruptly ceased publication in 2018.
17. Daily Double: This U.S. representative from Michigan was a contributor to America. At 59 years, he enjoyed the longest congressional tenure in U.S. history.
18. The editors of America initially took the wrong side in this conflict, which Ernest Hemingway covered for the North American Newspaper Alliance.
19. Maurice Timothy Reidy, America’s deputy editor in chief, graduated from this university in New Jersey, which the playwright Eugene O’Neill had also attended—before dropping out in 1907.
20. This man, the 14th editor in chief, portrayed Don Quixote in his high school production of “Man of La Mancha.” Some believe that he is still tilting at windmills.
