In the spring of 1959, when I was faculty advisor of the law review (then called the Notre Dame Lawyer), and my future colleague Bob Blakey was the student associate editor, we worked together on an article called A.I.D.—An Heir of Controversy. The subject, artificial insemination from a donor, was interesting, the treatment was at once lively, rueful, and orthodox, and the conclusion was an engaging shrug of the shoulders: "Upon that note . . . your writer respectfully throws in the towel.'' The author, a graduate of Boston College Law School taking an advanced degree at New York University, was obviously a comer in the Catholic legal academy.

The author-of course it was Charlie-did not throw in the towel, however. He applied himself with steadfast militancy to one battle after another as traditional Catholic values came, one after another, under legal and constitutional attack. He had already distinguished himself on the law faculty at Fordham and had written a book on the Supreme Court's school prayer decisions by 1969, when he came to teach at Notre Dame, and to locate his numerous and growing family in the wilds of Wyatt, Indiana.