The Interviews

The Interviews

Many of the interviews posted here will be “director’s cuts,” that is, in a longer form than that in which they were originally published. In some cases they won’t always be as “tight,” but they will cover more ground than they would fit in the print medium.


The Church has the Truth

An Interview with Alice von Hildebrand


Preserving the Legacy of a Giant: 

An Interview with John Henry Crosby, 

Director of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project


‘The Most Prophetic Statement of the 20th Century’

An Interview with Father Joseph Fessio, Founder, Editor, of Ignatius Press, San Francisco


An Interview with Father Tom McSherry

The Sooner Catholic, July 3, 1994


The Whole Picture

An Interview with Janet Smith, Ph.D.


The Most Important Encyclical in History

Interview with Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., Founder of Human Life International


Australia’s Gentle Giant

A Year 2000 Interview With Then-Archbishop (Now Cardinal) George Pell


An Interview with Joseph Scheidler

The “Green Beret” of the Pro-Life Movement


An Interview with Joan Andrews Bell

America’s Pro-Life Heroine


Pro-Life Blogging Pioneer: An Interview with Jill Stanek


‘You do the Truth in Love’

An Interview with Monsignor William Smith, STD


Death With Dignity? An Interview with Rita Marker


A Conversation with Bishop Robert Vasa


The Stem Cell Debate: Science vs. Deception: An Interview with Richard Doerflinger


Preserving The Legacy of a Giant: 

An Interview with John Henry Crosby, Director of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project


Embracing the Cross of Infertility: An Interview with Marie and Joseph Meaney 

This article  appeared in a condensed version under the title Childless Couples in the November 2007 issue of Messenger of Saint Anthony, of Padua, Italy. It is published here with their kind permission.


God’s Network An Interview with Michael P. Warsaw, president of Eternal Word Television Network, the American Catholic Media Corporation which continues to pursue Mother Angelica’s legacy


The Dictatorship of Relativism: A conversation with Professor Peter Kreeft



An Interview with Father George Rutler

Conducted for the Observer of Boston College, March 1990, with my two Colleagues, Molly Baldwin and Michael Raiger, covering issues of relativism, Catholic identity at Catholic universities, and why priests should wear clerical collars


Culture: the Soul of a Nation: An Interview With Dr. John Haas This interview was conducted with John Haas in Eichstätt, Germany in 2000 during a summer seminar sponsored by his institute, The International Institute for Culture. John, a theologian, is one of my favorite people n the planet.


Project Rachel: Healing the Wounds of Abortion An in-depth interview with Project Rachel founders Victoria Thorne and the Late Father Blair Raum from the Sooner Catholic, 1995. Special Note: Project Rachel is holding a special conference this month on Reclaiming Fatherhood. This conference is the first to focus on the effects of abortion on men. Speakers will cover the following topics: pertinent research, abortion as trauma, and counseling men who have experienced pregnancy loss through abortion. This is a unique opportunity for those who deal with men in pastoral or clinical settings to learn about this much neglected topic. Go here for more information.


Cardinal Francis George for Inside the Vatican. This interview took place by phone in 1998 the day before Cardinal George boarded the plane for Rome to receive his red hat. Editor Bob Moynihan told me it made it into the book of daily press clippings distributed to the Vatican Curia.


Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz for Inside the Vatican. The interview took place in October, 1997 in a hotel lobby during a conference for Women for Faith and Family. We discussed his declaration of excommunication of radical groups in his diocese in 1996.


Archbishop Renato Martino for Inside the Vatican, August-September, 1999. Archbishop Martino, now Cardinal Martino, is a very sweet man. This interview took place in his office at the Holy See Observer mission at the UN in New York during one of the notorious UN conferences. The interview was scheduled for 10 am. I had difficulty sleeping the night before and 10 am was precisely to moment my eyes opened the day of the interview. Looking at the clock, I blurted an expletive, jumped up in horror, threw on clothes, splashed water on my face and scrambled down the stairs of the religious house where I was staying. I scrambled for the phone number of the Observer Mission, called and got someone who didn’t seem to understand English very well. As clearly as I could I asked them to tell Archbishop Martino I was very sorry and was on my way, flew out the door and hailed a cab feeling grungy from no shower. I arrived at 10:20 spitting apologies. The Archbishop wasn’t angry but looked anxiously at his watch and said in his warm Italian accent, “Ooh, John, I am sorry but I have an appointment at 11, so I can only give you forty minutes!” I said, That’s fine Archbishop! That’s more than enough!” and we settled into the interview. We were not watching the clock, but when I snapped off the tape recorder I looked at the clock and it was exactly 11 o’ clock. We both smiled. God was with us.


Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap. For Inside the Vatican. The interview took place during the NewTech 98 conference sponsored by the Archdiocese of Denver which brought together well-known experts and thinkers to discuss the phenomenon of new technology, especially the Internet, with bishops and Cardinals from the Vatican and around the world.


Walter Hooper for Crisis magazine. What a delightful, modest, humble man. Walter is the literary executor of the C.S. Lewis Estate and was Lewis’s personal secretary. I met him when I was living in Steubenville and he was speaking at the Defending the Faith conference and I was delighted to interview him. In the days after Lewis’s death, Walter literally saved hundreds of pages of Lewis’s writing from the flames in the nick of time, as he spotted Lewis’s brother Warnie carrying them out of the house to be burned. When I went to the Sunday Mass of the conference there was an empty chair next to Walter near the back. I sat next to him and as Mass began, I leaned over and said to him, “I’m offering my Mass in thanksgiving for all you did to save Lewis’s work.” He looked at me in astonishment and gratitude, almost gasping in amazement, “Thank you!” So humble and modest he was after all he did for the world and the body of Christian literature.


“It’s the Same Game” An Interview with Prof. Dr. Gerhard Fittkau What a fond memory it is to remember the time I took the train from Essen, Germany to this wonderful priest’s house. He was a delightful man. He had been, as a young priest, the secretary to the heroic Bishop Maximillian Kaller in the Diocese of Ermland, now East Prussia. He was taken prisoner by the Soviet Army who overran The Ermland on their way to conquer Berlin. He spent some time in a gulag until the end of the war and made his way to find Bishop Kaller, but not without seeing the wreckage done by the Soviets as they raped and murdered their way through his beautiful, sweet homeland. He was in his 80s when I met him and was amazed at how well-informed he was about the current state of the Church especially in the United States. His story of the time he spent in Soviet captivity is recounted in his book, My 33rd Year.  It remains one of the finest books on the priesthood I’ve ever come across. He was 33 years old when he was taken captive by the Soviets.


An Interview with Archbishop Charles A.  Salatka, Archbishop Emeritus of Oklahoma City. A wonderful and humble, holy man.




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The Interviews