Father Charlie Gordon, C.S.C.
Professor of Theology
Cheerful Brilliant Raconteur

South Side of Chicago boy, one of eight kids, his dad working in the stockyards, before the family sailed off to rural Massachusetts. Earned his history degree at a small Holy Cross university in Indiana and got a job and one Saturday afternoon in 1980 he's sprawled on a couch in Pennsylvania listening to Notre Dame football on the radio and he swears to God that if Harry Oliver's kick beats Michigan he will be a priest, and it's good!, and "a second later I realized that being a priest was exactly what I wanted to do," he says, so off I went. Ordained in 1987, taught theology in Kenya, earned a doctorate at Cambridge University, and eventually I found my way here, where I teach theology and Catholic literature. I love to explore art and literature that tries to break open the world, tries to catch the transcendent gift in and under everything, you know? All my life I've had the feeling that if we could break the code, if we could see and hear more sharply, we could see angels, we could hear God directly, but words are the best we can do. They're so often weak, but when shaped into great art they point to the wonder. In a sense I rue that art fails at capturing the transcendent, but I love that it tries so hard, so beautifully...