Last week Robert Novak, for decades one of Washington’s leading journalists, was diagnosed with a brain tumor and announced that he was suspending his syndicated column. Today Novak stated that his health situation is “dire,” and that he is to receive chemotherapy and radiation treatments. He also said that, after an uninterrupted 45-year run (the first 30 or so years in collaboration with the late Rowland Evans), his column has come to an end. Novak, whose upbringing was Jewish but who attended Christian services intermittently in the ’50s and ’60s, began attending Catholic services in the early 1990s and in 1998 converted to the faith. (The priest who baptized him, Rev. Peter Vaghi, had been, in civilian life, an aide to New Mexico Senator Pete Dominici – and also, you guessed it, one of the columnist’s innumerable sources.) If you have any prayers to spare, send some Bob Novak’s way.