On January 21, 2022, the Vatican released a decree stating that Pope Francis ordered that St. Irenaeus of Lyon be given the title “doctor of unity.” Pope Francis stated that the life and teaching of Saint Irenaeus served as a “spiritual and theological bridge between Eastern and Western Christians.” St. Irenaeus is actually the second Doctor of the Church named by Pope Francis. St. Gregory of Narek whom Pope Francis proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 2015 was the first. With the addition of St. Irenaeus to this list, the number of Doctors of the Church is now thirty-seven. Thirty-three are men and four are women. Irenaeus was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor (now modern-day Turkey). Because he was concerned about the rise of Gnostic sects within the early Christian church, Irenaeus wrote “Adversushaereses” (“Against the Heresies”). In that work Irenaeus refuted gnostic beliefs that emphasized personal spiritual knowledge over faith in Christian traditions. I have had a particular interest in St. Irenaeus from my acquaintance with Fr. Dominic Unger, a Capuchin Franciscan friar who had been asked to translate “Against the Heresies” for the Ancient Christian Writers series published by Paulist Press. For a number of reasons, Father Dominic’s work had not been published by the time of his death in 1982. Father Tom Weinandy had promised him that we would see that his work would be published. I began to work on editing the Unger translation and commentary shortly after I was awarded a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America. There are five books in the “Against the Heresies.” The first book of the Unger translation was published in 1991. The second and third books were published in 2012. The latest catalog from Paulist Press contains the happy news the fourth and fifth books which contain an introduction and further revisions by Dr. Scott Moringiello of De Paul University in Chicago will soon be published. The description in the Paulist Press catalog states that this new translation, based on up-to-date sources, is an invaluable addition to scholarship on the most significant work on one of the most renowned authors in early Christianity. The news of the publication of these two final books fills me with a great deal of satisfaction and makes me feel very happy that our promise to Fr. Dominic will soon be fulfilled. Until next week, Fr. John