Fr George Rutler's new book, which I blogged about last week, is the product of an original mind. So I wanted to ask him: what were his formative influences? "My parents," he tells me. “That usually is the case or should be in a healthy culture, but mine had a strong experience of two world wars, the Great Depression and various challenges that made them special proofs of the power of virtue.”
Fr Rutler adds that “several clergymen, Anglican and Catholic” had shaped his idea of the priesthood, and that “enjoying academic life in the early 1960s, before the social revolution sent universities into virtual chaos, let me appreciate the ideals of classical culture before they faded.”
