About the authors

Archbishop Philip Hannan was born in Washington, D.C. in 1913. He attended seminary at Old North American College in Rome. A U.S. delegate to the Second Vatican Council, he was appointed the 11th bishop of New Orleans in 1965, where he served until 1988.

Nancy Collins is a highly respected journalist whose in-depth interviews with President Bill Clinton, Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson, Jennifer Aniston, John Travolta, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tim Russert, Will Smith, and Rudy Guiliani, among others, have appear on the covers of Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, Rolling Stone, New York George, Interview, Harper's Bazaar, Forbes, Life, and Good Housekeeping. As an on-air correspondent for NBC's 'Today Show' and ABC's 'Primetime Live' and '20/20,' Ms. Collins' interviews have included Senator Joe Biden, Whoopi Goldberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Diane Keaton, and Linda Tripp. In 1990, Random House published her memoir-cum-anthology, How to Get: Fast Talk and Rude Questions Along the Interview Trail, in hardcover, followed by Harper Collins in soft cover. Miss Collins, who lives in New York City, is the daughter of Elsie and Aeneas Patrick Collins, the first cousin and boyhood friend of Archbishop Hannan

Peter Finney, Jr., has served as executive editor and general manager of the Clarion Harold, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, since 1993. In 2001 and 2009, he was named by the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada as the national winner of the Individual Excellence Award for an Editor/Writer. He is a former sportswriter for the New York Post and New York Daily News and was selected in 1988 as the recipient of the "Dick Young Award" by B'nai B'rith International for "achievement and continuing excellence as one of New York's top sports journalists." Peter and his wife, Carolyn, has four children.