The Commonweal Podcast

Does capitalism make us bad Christians? Eugene McCarraher thinks so. His new book, The Enchantments of Mammon, explains how money came to replace God in the modern era, seducing us with false promises of profit maximization. But he hasn’t given up hope. We can reverse our “misenchantment” and return to real abundance: beloved community in a world charged with the glory of God. Plus, the Commonweal...

Proudly LGBT, and proudly Catholic? Many believers are both.  In this episode, journalist Michael O’Loughlin joins associate editor Matt Sitman for a behind-the-scenes conversation about his new podcast series “Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS & the Catholic Church,” out now from our friends at America Media.  They discuss the urgency of documenting an understudied period of church history, when pri...

What is a home? And what happens when old patterns of life break down?  In his new book Savage Gods, British writer and former environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth wrestles with these questions. Contemporary threats to nature, he argues, are indicative of a deeper problem: the crisis of culture and language in the West. He joins Commonweal books columnist Anthony Domestico for a wide-ranging con...

Native Californian (and Catholic writer) Kaya Oakes stopped by our offices a few weeks ago. She spoke with associate editor Matt Sitman about what it’s like to live, think, and write from her perch at the other end of the country. Noting the utopian thrust of California culture, Oakes explains how religion and spirituality continue to lurk beneath the surface of her state’s supposedly laid-back, s...

Conversion is never neat and tidy. We like to think of “the new life” as a radical break from the past. But in reality the threads of our prior lives—both good and bad—are woven into our present. Few know this as well as Megan Phelps-Roper, author of the new memoir Unfollow, and a former member of the now-infamous Westboro Baptist Church. She talks with us about her formative early years in that c...

Political power doesn’t just “happen.” It has to be built.  In this episode we speak with Benjamin Francis-Fallon about his new book, The Rise of the Latino Vote. Tracing the decades-long process of organizing among hispanic immigrant communities in the U.S., Francis-Fallon rebuts the myth of Latino voters as the country’s “sleeping giant.” They constitute not a unified political bloc, but a varie...

Is Catholicism compatible with representative democracy? A twentieth-century Italian priest, Don Luigi Sturzo, certainly thought so. As populism threatens democratic norms across the globe, Massimo Faggioli tells us how Sturzo’s anti-fascist Popular Party empowered lay Catholics to respectfully challenge the hierarchical church as they asserted their right to engage meaningfully in public life. Pl...

In this episode, we speak with Fr. Anthony Andreassi, principal of Regis High School, the historic Jesuit institution in Manhattan. Fr. Andreassi talks about the school's early twentieth century roots before discussing the challenges faced by Catholic educators today: not just soaring costs and falling enrollment, but also dealing with uncomfortable questions about gender, economic privilege, and...

Each day we find ourselves awash in a sea of information. Our social media feeds, newspapers, and cable news bring stories of fresh catastrophe, clouding our memory and our judgment. Fake news might be easy to spot, but where can real wisdom be found? In this episode, we speak with award-winning author Barry Lopez, whose magisterial new book, Horizon, came out earlier this year. A longtime travel...

Summer's closing days are upon us. As temperatures cool and the days grow shorter, it's also the best time to hit the beach (or a nice shady grove) with a stack of books. In this episode, Commonweal editors and writers discuss what they've been reading this summer, touching on everything from David Hockney and Robert Caro to Jia Tolentino and Rick Steves. Plus, we speak with Mexican actress Gabrie...

There are some things we'd rather not remember: old wounds, moral lapses, humiliating failures. But there are also things we have a duty to never forget, like historical traumas and present injustices. Cultural critic Lewis Hyde explores this tension—how the hard work of "forgetting" can pave the way to healing and regeneration, touching on Buddhist philosophy, St. Augustine, and Marcel Proust.  P...

We all want change: in our inner lives, in our friendships, in our politics. But what's the best way to get there? Less, as they say, is often more. In this episode, we introduce a new, leaner format. The editors weigh in on the crowded 2020 Democratic primary field.  And California-based writer, teacher, and digital artist Jenny Odell explains the merits of doing nothing, arguing that contemplati...

This month, we delve into courtroom dramas and sanctuary spaces.    Writer Casey Cep explores our growing fascination with true crime, and reveals Harper Lee's struggle with writer's block. Activist Felix Cepeda roots the sanctuary church movement in the history of Catholic civil disobedience.  Plus, the editors discuss HBO's Chernobyl.

Novelist Alice McDermott, a self-described “contrarian Catholic,” speaks about her forays into op-ed writing. Pulitzer-prize winning author Paul Harding expatiates on his love of Karl Barth and the literary qualities of the Bible. Mockingbird Ministries’ David Zahl diagnoses our modern spiritual malaise and our foolhardy quest for “enoughness.”

Alice Quinn is the executive director of the Poetry Society of America, and is on the faculty of the graduate school of Columbia University. She was also the longtime poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine. Here she speaks with our associate editor Matthew Sitman about her work and her life in poetry, including her instrumental role in the beloved program that brought poetry to the New York City...

The poet Carolyn Forche is also an editor, translator and human-rights activist. Her most recent book is What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance. Nicole-Ann Lobo, the Commonweal Garvey Writing Fellow, recently spoke with Carolyn about the memoir, about her experiences during the war in El Salvador, and about what it was like to meet, and receive Communion from, St. Oscar Ro...

On this episode, we’re marking National Poetry month by featuring conversations with three wonderful writers. Our associate editor Matthew Sitman talks with Alice Quinn about her work and her time as poetry editor with the New Yorker magazine. Our literary editor Anthony Domestico speaks with Shane McCrae, whose collection "The Gilded Auction Block" has just been published. And Nicole-Ann Lobo, ou...

Eula Biss is artist-in-residence in the English Department at Northwestern University, where she also teaches creative writing. She’s the author of On Immunity: An Inoculation, which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and of Notes from No Man's Land, a collection of essays that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 2010. Eula spoke w...

On this episode, Catholic journalist and papal biographer Austen Ivereigh talks with senior editor Matthew Boudway about the Vatican’s February summit on clerical sex abuse. Eula Biss, author of On Immunity: An Inoculation and No Man’s Land: American Essays, speaks with assistant editor Griffin Oleynick about the spiritual challenges of racism, the meaning of “whiteness,” and the craft of non-fict...

Last winter, we sat down for a conversation with Fran Lebowitz, the writer, speaker, wit, and archetypal New York personality. Here you'll hear an excerpt from that interview, which lasted for more than two hours, in which we discuss the Trump presidency, #MeToo, former President Obama, the contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and the rapidity of change in New York City. 

Dominic Preziosi sat down with Commonweal contributor Massimo Faggioli to get his thoughts about the upcoming bishops’ summit on clerical sex abuse, which gets underway at the Vatican on February 21. Contributor, Paul Moses, speaks with Marie Collins, a former member of Pope Francis's papal commission on clergy sexual abuse, about her experiences and insights on the issue. Associate editor, Matthe...

Peter Steinfels discusses the PA Grand Jury Report, a document he contends is "inaccurate, unfair, and fundamentally misleading" in its characterization of how church officials handled allegations of abuse there. Allan Lichtman, author of The Embattled Vote in America, discusses the complicated history of voting rights in the United States and how the Constitution is actually responsible for many...

Senior editor Matthew Boudway introduces special feature "Why We Came. Why We Left. Why We Stayed" — with essays by converts, practicing cradle Catholics, and lapsed or ex-Catholics. We speak with three of our contributors: Ross Douthat, Helene Stapinski, and Dorothy Fortenberry. Four editors discuss the books they read in 2018 and recommend to you in our annual Christmas Critics roundup. Plus, a...

Reporter Dan Barry spent more than a decade crisscrossing the United States, chronicling ordinary lives and extraordinary moments for his column in the New York Times, This Land. About a hundred of these standalone dispatches have now been collected in a hardcover book of the same name. Dominic Preziosi talked to Dan about the book and also about the importance of journalism, local and otherwise,...

The poems in Katie Ford’s fourth collection, If You Have to Go, implore their audience—the divine and the human—for attention, for revelation, and, perhaps above all, for companionship. Our literary columnist Anthony Domestico spoke with Katie recently about the poems in the book, including the sonnet sequence at its heart. It’s a great conversation—and hearing Katie read her work, as you will—rea...