Did someone mention Mortimer Adler?

“I was at Chicago during the famous Hutchins-Adler period. Mortimer Adler

came from an orthodox Jewish background and became fascinated by

Catholicism, and he almost joined the Catholic church. Half a dozen or more

students of Adler’s at Chicago became Catholics as a result of taking

courses from him. I never liked Adler. I took one course, a Great Books

course he taught with Hutchins. I wrote a letter to the New Republic –

it was published — saying that readers should all pray for Adler’s

conversion to the Catholic church, because that would clear the air, and we

would know exactly what he believed. I have a very rare document, a speech

that Adler gave at Northwestern University, and incredible as it may seem,

he argued that, if the Catholic church is a true church, it has a right to

execute heretics. Can you imagine somebody in this day and age saying that

the church had a right to execute heretics? [No comment–JD] That’s in this

lecture. Adler of course is very much ashamed of it. But the punch line is

that, shortly before he died, Adler joined the Catholic church. So it took

about half a century for the prayers of the New Republic readers to be

answered.”

—From an interview with Martin Gardner in the current (June/July ‘05)

issue of the Notices of the AMS. The interview is pure Gardner, ranges

over science, pseudoscience, math, pseudomath, philosophy, and personal

encounters. God bless this wonderful man.