Clergy Exposé

Diogenes Unveiled: A Paul Mankowski Collection edited by Philip F. Lawler

Father Paul Mankowski, S.J., died of a massive heart attack on September 3, 2020. He was not an old man. I know of no one in the world who has replaced him, or who could replace him. Many Catholic priests, a few of them Jesuits, are as faithful as Father Mankowski was, but I doubt that anyone has his combination of far-ranging and careful scholarship, his wide human experience outside of university halls, his deep sympathy with human beings of all classes, and his sharp pen and ready wit.

For many years, his order forbade him to publish articles on the Church under his own name, and he obeyed. Obedience is the arm-twist whereby the disobedient and the double-dealing deal with priests who are wiser and better than they are. Nevertheless, Mankowski did write under the moniker “Diogenes,” and his blog essays have been collected and edited by his friend and compatriot, Philip Lawler, in Diogenes Unveiled.

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Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

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