Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Peter McDonough
If you’ve visited Rome, you may have noticed that the Jesuit headquarters, right off St. Peter’s Square, overlooks–“looks down on”– the Vatican. Jesuits are fond of reminding visitors, with a smile, of this topographical curiosity and its symbolic freight.
By Peter McDonough
Vocation directors report a ten percent bump in applications to the Society of Jesus since the ascension of a Jesuit to the papacy. The blip reflects a certain relief. The personable contrast that Pope Francis offers to his dour predecessor shifts the motivational calculus.
By Peter McDonough
Writing about Catholicism started out as a sideline for me. Most of my research as a political scientist was about the breakup of authoritarian regimes in places like Brazil and Spain.Then, in what indulgent colleagues called “Peter’s midlife crisis,” I began inquiring into changes in the Catholic church.
The question of how social scientists choose the topics they write about doesn’t agitate inquiring minds as the puzzle of what drives creative writers and artists does. Many innovative social scientists take up the same subjects again and again, and their obsessiveness is probably indicative of considerations and compulsions more powerful than increasing ease with a familiar field of inquiry. They are specialists who have fallen in love with their subjects, rather like artists…