My former colleague, Seton Hall Professor of Rhetoric Jon Radwan, recently invited me back to Seton Hall for a sit down interview about "On This Ground." Prof. Radwan is director of the Institute for Communication and Religion, which fosters public dialogue and debate on religious issues. We covered a lot of ground, touching on the similarities between Seton Hall and St. Benedict's, the volatile history of the city of Newark, and the strength and strictures of faith when cont

Some 25 years after I first attempted to write this book, and more than 45 years after I first thought the story of the downtown monks of Newark Abbey had a story that ought to be told in a book, William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, today officially published On This Ground. To make the day even sweeter, this morning's Wall Street Journal carried a full column review, from the top of the page to the bottom, of my book, saying that it will leave readers "with a sense o

My latest opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 15, 2026

P laying on God’s team. In the summer of 1967, Newark, New Jersey, was beset by violence and arson. Civil unrest forced the city’s premier Catholic high school, St. Benedict’s, to close in 1973, but a devoted band of Benedictine monks revived the campus. Over the next 50 years, St. Benedict’s became one of the most demanding and rewarding private high schools in the U.S. DePalma, author of The Cubans: Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times , writes that the school has become t

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