The Commonweal Podcast

Three theologians—Massimo Faggioli, Susan Bigelow Reynolds, and Terence Sweeney—reflect with Commonweal editors on the pope’s legacy. More coverage of the death of Pope Francis: Isabella Simon on Let Us Dream César J. Baldelomar on Laudato Si’  Griffin Oleynick on Evangelii gaudium

Catholics listen to snippets of the Bible read every Sunday, but how many of them actually sit with and ponder the text?  It’s long been a truism that Catholics don’t actually read the Bible — at least not as much or in the same way as their Protestant brethren. But that doesn’t mean Catholics don’t encounter it, whether in books, films, plays, or popular culture.  On this episode, Fordham theolog...

What should great fiction do for us? That’s the question asked by Edwin Frank, editorial director of New York Review Books and author of Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel.  Good books—and there were many written during the past hundred years—can entertain, just as they can give us pleasure. But great ones have the ‘power to breach,’ that is, to upset and provoke us, shatt...

In his first month back in office, Donald Trump has made cruelty toward migrants and refugees central to his agenda, while J. D. Vance has used his flawed understanding of Catholic social teaching to justify the administration’s plans for mass deportation.  Their actions and remarks have alarmed many in the Church. On this episode, three guests tell us how and why. Massimo Faggioli, Commonweal con...

Fights over federal spending usually follow a predictable pattern, with Republicans attempting to cut entitlement programs as Democrats seek to expand the social safety net.  One thing that’s rarely threatened, though, is Social Security, a testament to the political clout of “older people”—formerly known as “senior citizens” in America. How did things get that way?  On this episode, historian Jam...

For as long as humans beings have existed, we have had a knack for forgetting—not only when memory proves difficult, but when it becomes inconvenient.  We need only look at Donald Trump’s pardoning of the January 6 “hostages” for the latest, most egregious example.  Why do humans long to forget? Why do we hide the truth from ourselves? What is the function of memory in democratic societies?  On th...

As you probably know by now, 2024 was a big year for Commonweal, marking one hundred years of continuous publication.  It was also an important one for the podcast, which for five years—and nearly one hundred and fifty episodes—has been bringing you reflective conversations with inspiring writers, thinkers, artists, and political and religious leaders.  On this episode, we’re revisiting four of ou...

What does it mean to “have hope,” especially during challenging times? Is it something we can possess, like a talisman to ward off despair? No, argues Norman Wirzba, distinguished professor of Christian theology at Duke and author of the new book Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis. Instead, “hope” is a verb—an action we have to do. On this episode Wirzba explains how he manages to hope...

In the wake of the 2024 election, many are wondering how to make sense of the results—including how a capable, qualified woman could lose to a man like Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist whose campaign regularly celebrated a version of masculinity that many find offensively misogynistic.  On this episode, Commonweal editor-at-large Mollie Wilson O’Reilly and Natalia Imperatori Lee, professor of r...

The invitation-only Catholic prelature known as Opus Dei, founded in Spain in 1927 by the recently canonized priest Josemaría Escrivá, currently counts just around 3,000 members in the United States. Yet its influence, especially among rightwing Catholics who occupy significant posts in Washington, is vast.  On this episode, editor Dominic Preziosi speaks with financial journalist Gareth Gore, aut...

It’s no secret that there’s a mental health crisis affecting young people in the United States. Rates of anxiety, symptoms of depression, and even suicide attempts have hit record highs.  That’s partly what motivated Anna Moreland and Thomas Smith to write The Young Adult Playbook, a kind of “self-help” book intended to help high school and college students think through the deep questions of life...

The Trump campaign has made us all too familiar with the ideology of Christian Nationalism, with its violent rhetoric and racist undertones.  Far less well-known, though, is the tradition of Black Christian Nationalism, a radical social and religious movement founded by Rev. Albert Cleage, Jr., in civil-rights-era Detroit. On this episode, associate editor Griffin Oleynick speaks with writer Aaron...

Corporate boosters of artificial intelligence promise that the technology will vastly improve efficiency in the world of work. But is that actually desirable?  On this episode, associate editor Regina Munch speaks with University of Virginia sociologist Allison Pugh, whose new book The Last Human Job explores the concept of what she calls “connective labor”—interpersonal work that relies on empath...

Garth Greenwell’s latest novel, Small Rain, is set in a midwestern ICU during the early days of the pandemic, as its unnamed narrator, a writer, experiences a health crisis and lies confined to his bed in excruciating pain.  In long pauses between visits with nurses and doctors, amid the weird dilations of ‘hospital time,’ the narrator muses on his suffering and disappointments, but also the natur...

As the fall semester begins, colleges and universities are bracing for fresh controversies over free speech, affordability, and the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence.  On this episode, Tania Tetlow, the first layperson and first woman to serve as the president of Fordham University, joins editor Dominic Preziosi to weigh in on what Catholic colleges and universities can do differentl...

Religious disaffiliation, the drifting away of Americans from their churches, isn’t a new story. But it’s certainly a true one.  And yet it’s also not the whole story, as veteran New Yorker journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold argues in her new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church.  Griswold’s is a work of ‘immersion journalism,’ repo...

The 2024 Paris Olympics have brought massive investment to the City of Light, including the construction of new housing, sports facilities, and public transportation.  Yet we shouldn’t let that obscure a more sinister phenomenon: gentrification, which has rapidly transformed many of the city’s former immigrant and working-class strongholds into expensive quarters for the newly affluent.  On this e...

Alim Braxton, a convicted murderer who admits his guilt, has been incarcerated in North Carolina prison for more than thirty years, spending seven years in solitary confinement and many more on death row. He was once hopeless, but after his conversion to Islam many years ago, he began working for redemption by advocating for prison reform and the exoneration of innocent inmates.  Braxton is also a...

Egalitarianism remains one of the core tenets of most liberals and progressives. But does the idea that everyone ought to be equal in the sphere of political economy also hold true for the realm of culture?  Absolutely not, argues Becca Rothfeld, nonfiction book critic at the Washington Post and author of the debut collection All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess. The modern insiste...

In the past, having kids was simply taken for granted. It was just a thing a person did, like going to college or getting a job. But now, in the face of rising costs and environmental degradation, more and more millennials and zoomers are questioning whether they should become parents at all. On this episode, Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi is joined by Rachel Wiseman and Anastasia Berg, editor...

Can trees ‘hear’? Can flowers ‘see’? Are shrubs ‘intelligent’? A decade ago, these questions might have seemed absurd. But an emerging scientific consensus posits that plants are much more like animals than previously thought.  On this episode, managing editor Isa Simon speaks with Zoë Schlanger, a staff writer and science reporter at The Atlantic and author of The Light Eaters. Schlanger shows ho...

One of the misconceptions about Judaism is that the religion is concerned primarily with justice and the law, not love and grace.  That’s precisely backward, argues Rabbi Shai Held, president and dean of the Hadar Institute in New York and author of the new book Judaism Is About Love. Jewish theology, spirituality, and ethics emerge as free responses to a generous, loving God. On this episode, Hel...

For decades, discussions of poverty and inequality in America have tended to focus on cities. That’s understandable—cities are often the places where income disparities are most visible.  But as poverty researchers Kathryn Edin, H. Luke Schaefer, and Timothy Nelson argue in their recent book The Injustice of Place, traditional income-based indicators of poverty can mask the “deep disadvantage” fac...

Vinson Cunningham is one of the most dynamic critics working today. Best known as the New Yorker’s theater critic and co-host of the weekly podcast Critics at Large, he’s also the author of the novel Great Expectations, based on his experience working for the Obama campaign in 2008. On this episode, Cunningham joins Commonweal contributing writer Anthony Domestico for a discussion about criticism—...

We’re all familiar with the tired stereotype of the “God of the Old Testament,” a capricious creator Who subjects His chosen people to endless cycles of punishment and retribution.  But in her reading of the Book of Genesis, novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson describes a God of gentleness, one wildly in love with creation and humanity. In this special episode of the Commonweal Podcast, moder...