For years, Tom Roberts edited Joan Chittister's columns for National Catholic Reporter. The two were friends and he says he thought he knew the Benedictine sister and spirituality writer well. That was before he began a series of lengthy and intense interviews with Chittister. Roberts' new biography plows some old ground, like Chittister's famous showdown with the Vatican over her support of women's ordination; her work on global human rights; her many books on monastic wisdom for contemporary readers, as well as her years as prioress of her monastery after the Vatican II reforms. But Roberts also discovered things about her life that Chittister had chosen to leave out of her many autobiographical writings.
Tom Roberts is editor at large of National Catholic Reporter. His new biography is "Joan Chittister: Her Journey from Certainty to Faith."