Updike fans know the name George Hunt from his early monograph, John Updike and the Three Great Secret Things: Sex, Religion and Art, but Hunt was also an ordained Jesuit priest who served as literary editor and then editor-in-chief of America magazine for 14 years. The current editor, James T. Keane, remembers Hunt and his associations with people like Updike and former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent in an article that draws heavily from Jesuit Father Hunt’s own words.

You’ll want to read the entire article, which also has a link to the essay “John Updike” Suspicious of Santa but fond of Christ.” We’ll end this post with pullout quotes from the article:

“George Hunt: If it is true, as Aquinas said, that God created the world at play, then a fortiori God was definitely at play—partying—when he re-created that world in the image of his Son.”

“George Hunt: What kind of an earth shall we pass on to our children? Shall it be one in which the Word would wish to be enfleshed?”

“George Hunt: As Karl Rahner reminds us, the Word in the announcement means: I love you. Our answer must be an echo of that word: Yes, I heard, I will be there at your party.”