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.

Let us not chide Cardinal Newman for writing in the middle of the 19th century instead of the middle of the 20th. But also let us not assume that what he had to say then had absolute and unconditioned validity for all such institutions in all times.

A case for prayer as exercise for the soul

An essay by Dorothy Day from April 19, 1933.

St. Dominic de Guzman and his Order of Preachers have left a lasting impact on the church through their saints and defense of the faith.