About This Issue

Kenneth J. Zanca (Marymount College, Palos Verdes, CA) contributes our lead article, "The Lion Who Did Not Roar . . . Yet: The Editorials of James A. McMaster - May 1860 to May 1861," giving us insight into this formidable Catholic journalist's thinking during a pivotal year in United States history.

John F. Quinn (Salve Regina University) in "We Hold These Truths at Fifty: John Courtney Murray's Contested Legacy," tracks the impact of the eminent Jesuit scholar's landmark work through five decades and the varied interpretations it has received and causes into which it has been enlisted.

"Scripting the Saints" offers reflections by four distinguished and rather prolific authors who have given much of their lives to a special companionship with saints. The contributions by Lawrence S. Cunningham, Robert Ellsberg, Wendy M. Wright, and James Martin, S.J., make for rewarding reading.

Our cover essay by Joseph F. Chorpenning, O.S.F.S., the Editorial Director of Saint Joseph's University Press, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Saint John Neumann. Our cover photos and this tightly written gem of an essay help us to join in the celebration of a saint who helped make the point that in saintliness the manner is ordinary.

A collection of eight book reviews and our semi-annual roundup of dissertation abstracts complete this issue. Finally, we invite you to review, on the following page, the three awards that contributors of American Catholic Studies have received in the latest referred competition of the Catholic Press Association. We congratulate these scholars, Thomas F. Rzeznik and Peter S. Cajka, and thank all who help to sustain American Catholic Studies and make it thrive.