Diogenes Unveiled

Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth sampling of the best satirical writings by Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J., a brilliant, perceptive, and knowledgeable analyst of Church affairs during the early twenty-first century. Writing under the pseudonym Diogenes, Fr. Mankowski delighted his many readers with his keen observations and biting wit. Fr. Mankowski had a special gift for satire, and—appropriately for a man who had been a boxer in his student days—he never pulled his punches. Yet he could empathize with confused teenagers, elderly dementia patients, and ordinary Catholics in the pews. While teaching in Rome, he spent his Christmas vacations working among the poorest of the poor with the Missionaries of Charity, and some of his journal entries about these experiences are included in this collection. Diogenes could be a cynical commentator, but the man behind this persona was a committed and self-sacrificing Catholic priest.