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.

How has the church traditionally dealt with political figures who have run afoul of the church, or at least of churchmen?

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

Why and how did the celibate state became a requirement for ordination?

Cardinal Walter Kasper on the relationship between the universal church and local churches.

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?