John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801–1890) is on the eve of being beatified. His contributions to theology and philosophy of religion are of such stature that many deem him worthy to be named a Doctor of the Church. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning (1808–1892) is thought to be the most illustrious of Westminster's archbishops since the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850. Newman mistrusted Manning, and Manning thought Newman lacked orthodoxy. The strained relationship began in their Anglican days and continued life long. Its story is here recounted and concludes with an explanation of why strain set in. Their very different views on the workings of authority in the Church, the role of the laity in the Church, and the Church's relationship to the world provided a sure recipe for their continued alienation.

This exchange between ethicist Peter Gathje and one of the guests of Manna House of Hospitality (Memphis, Tennessee) points to the task of the public theologian. Gathje serves at Manna House, sharing meals and prayers with its guests. Through his blog Radical Hospitality he echoes and responds to the theology of the people he serves, and their deep questions about justice in our world. In this dialogical movement he enters the locations where he serves meals and prays with his “public,” who in turn ask for a justice that seems all too elusive from their vantage point. His “public,” the guests and others who pass through Manna House, are sources for theological imagination and critical questioning, shaping the way Gathje organizes his vision of the Christian story and the liberating truth it seeks to relate to the world.

Romano Guardini read Rilke's Duino Elegies as a compelling eschatological vision for the modern world, but one that must be rejected. I argue that in Rilke's writing, Guardini detected the secular analogue to the substantial image at the end of the Christian eschatological imagination—that is, the communion of saints. Rilke's vision is coherent in that the end he perceives follows from the beginning he assumes; therefore, understanding Rilke's end requires his commentator to see all that precedes that end, beginning with Rilke's own beginning. In a time of increasing loneliness, Guardini's response to Rilke rings with renewed contemporary relevance to guard against the ultimate erasure of the human person.