It is distressing to contemplate how much influence journalists have on Catholic life, but in truth this has long been the case. The furious exchanges among writers at First Things, Commonweal, La Civiltà Cattolica and the Catholic Herald have their precedents in the 19th century, when Louis Veuillot defied the Archbishop of Paris in the pages of L’Univers.
A recent article in the National Catholic Reporter by Brian Flanagan recognises this continuity and identifies Ross Douthat and me as representative of the “new ultramontanes” – today’s versions of Veuillot and William George Ward. If the comparison holds in my case, there could be no surer proof of decline.
