In his 90th year, the indefatigable historian John Hope Franklin has written his life story. More than any other scholar, Franklin has made African-American history an essential part of American history.

The other day I asked a friend of mine, an old-timer and a longtime baseball fan, if he remembered the 1955 World Series. He thought a moment, and said: "Oh, yeah, wasn't that a Dodger-Yankee series?" Yes, it was. But 1955 was special.

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?