Hello, welcome to the editor's desk.

This is the podcast where we take a closer look at the essays and articles in the latest print issue of First Things magazine.

I'm Rusty Reno on the editor of First Things magazine, and I'm here with you today at the editor's desk.

Welcome Dan Hitchens to the podcast. Dan is a senior editor here at First Things Magazine,

the exalted position of senior editor. And we're going to talk about your review of Karen Hall's book, The Sound of Silence,

the Life and Canceling of a Heroic Jesuit Priest. It contains reflections on and writings from

Father Paul Mankowski. Is that right? That's right. A name probably familiar to a lot of first things

readers because we were one of the places where he published. And when he died in 2020, a lot of

tributes came out, people talking about the impact he's had on their lives, talking about the greatness of his writings and so on.

And the tributes haven't really stopped in the last four years.

People brought out apologies of his stuff.

And now there's a full-length memoir by a good friend of his about his life and trials.

So tell us who, tell us about the man.

Who was Paul McHalty for those who are not part of the inner circle of the first

things universe?

Born in 1953, um, to a devout, a very intellectually engaged Catholic family, goes to college, is very good at languages.

He thinks he's going to become a professor and leader, comfortable life with a big Catholic family,

and then out of nowhere he gets the call and he realizes he's

being called to the Jesuits and enters just as obviously the order is liberalizing and

he describes in a very funny scene that's quoted in this book, this sort of mutual misunderstanding

where he thinks that all the

doctrinally dodgy stuff he's hearing, he must have somehow misunderstood because you'd only

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