Special thanks go to my literary agent, Bill Barry, for his patience, intelligence, and editing skill. Bill encouraged and shepherded the writing of Render Unto Caesar nine years ago, and it was a great pleasure to work with him again. He once mentioned that if he had a nickel for every writer with a great idea who later questioned his own sanity for starting on a book, he’d be a rich man. I had forgotten. Over the past eighteen months, I’ve had occasion to remember.
Bill opened the path to the excellent publishing team that president and publisher Steve Rubin leads at Henry Holt, and I’m deeply grateful for their competence and professionalism. This includes, especially, deputy publisher and marketing vice president Maggie Richards and senior editor Serena Jones, both of whom provided wonderful guidance for this project through the publishing process.
My thanks go as well to Gary Jansen, my former editor at Random House and an early supporter of the ideas behind this book, a talent and a gentleman in every sense.
Thanks also to my friends at First Things magazine and the Institute on Religion and Public Life for permission to adapt portions of my 2014 Erasmus Lecture for the book’s first chapter. Portions of chapter 12 are gratefully adapted from my 2010 remarks to the “Fifth Symposium Rome: Priests and Laity on Mission,” sponsored by the Emmanuel Community and the Pierre Goursat University Institute, in collaboration with the Pontifical Institute Redemptor Hominis.
Many good minds reviewed parts of this text and offered their counsel and helpful criticism, or made valuable suggestions on the theme, or told me what else to read, or simply inspired me by their own impressive work and by their witness as Christians in the world. Among them in a particular way are Michael Hanby, David Scott, Meghan Cokeley, Rusty Reno, Matthew Franck, Gerard V. Bradley, Jonathan Reyes, Thomas W. Smith, Suann Malone Maier, Jayd Henricks, Daniel J. M. Cheely, Matthew O’Brien, Mark Shiffman, David L. Schindler, Kevin Hughes, Anna Bonta Moreland, Michael Moreland, Ken Myers, Edward Mannino, Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, and Christopher C. Roberts. Whatever readers find worthwhile in this book, these friends have had a direct or indirect share in creating. Any mistakes or errors, obviously, are mine alone.
Thanks to Bill Rivers, who provided excellent research assistance while finishing his master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks also to my good friend Daniel Mark for connecting us.
I owe special gratitude to Nathaniel Peters and Brandon McGinley for their tireless and gifted help in developing the text. They brought the best of their own Catholic faith and considerable intellectual energies to a demanding task. Thanks also to David Mills for his early help with the project.
Finally, throughout my ministry as a bishop, I’ve been blessed with an exceptional and long-serving personal staff. This book would not exist without the largely invisible support and perseverance of Donna Huddell, Kerry Kober, and Francis X. Maier. They already know it, but I’ll say it again: I will always be grateful.
Philadelphia
June 2016
Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More