Mark Sullivan of National Catholic Register interviewed me about this blog and other works. It’s posted at the newspaper’s website, but available only to subscribers. Here’s a snippet:

Q: Pope Benedict has indeed been talking about the Fathers of the Church recently. Do you see this as a trend back towards the Fathers?

A: Christians have been trending this way for a couple of centuries now. A hundred years ago, it was mostly an academic thing. The patristics movement worked to recover the study of the Fathers, and the liturgical movement turned attention to the ancient texts of the Mass and the other sacraments. Both movements were very influential at the Second Vatican Council.

But the Fathers aren’t just for scholars or elites in the Church. They’re for everybody, and that’s what my blog is all about. The Fathers were preachers and pastors above all. Very few of them had academic careers. They wanted to reach people like you and me and the folks next door. They were brilliant. They were tough. They knew how to argue. They knew how to deliver a joke. What’s very cool is that they still have the power to reach us, across the millennia.

Pope Benedict realizes all this. He has made the study of the Fathers a family matter. He is re-introducing them as true Fathers in God’s family.

Q: What is it that attracts people to the Fathers?

A: There’s a natural fascination with ancient things. Go to any museum and watch the crowds in the Egypt rooms. Well, that fascination has a supernatural dimension as well. Christians want to see the tides of divine grace in history. People are curious, too, about their own origins and genealogy. Christians want to know about their ancestors in the faith. They want to find the lineage that takes them back to the Apostles, back to Jesus. It’s there in the Fathers. They give us an unbroken paper trail on all the doctrines and practices we hold today. The Catechism says they are “always timely witnesses” to the Church’s tradition.