Now live on the website, the new issue of Commonweal.
Among the highlights:
Kathleen Sprows Cummings on the “torturous” path to sainthood of Native American Kateri Tekakwitha, a process that took more than a century and that offers an “illuminating glimpse into American Catholic history
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Commonweal editor Paul Baumann’s review of George Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st Century Church is now available at the website of The Nation. Excerpts follow:
When President Obama was invited to give the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in 2009,
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Just posted on the homepage, the editors on the paucity of options in Syria, where fighting has killed seventy thousand people over two years and driven three million from their homes:
Only the most unrepentant advocates for the invasion of Iraq think the United States has the tools and the
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Now on the homepage, E. J. Dionne Jr. assesses the victory of former governor Mark Sanford in South Carolina’s special congressional election:
"I want to publicly acknowledge God's role in all of this," declared a victorious Mark Sanford as he celebrated an unlikely political rebirth
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As part of the New Conversation on Marriage Initiative at the Institute for American Values, Peter Steinfels recently joined David Blankenhorn for a discussion on whether liberals will help to save marriage (the Institute’s Amy Ziettlow, an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, also
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The new issue is now live. Featured is a package of essays on Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, with philosopher Gary Gutting, biologist Kenneth R. Miller, and physicist Stephen M. Barr discussing what the Guardian
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If there’s a word I don’t immediately associate with a for-profit, pre-K-through-nine educational venture that has $85 million in private-equity financing (with another round on the way), that in full-page newspaper and magazine ads has proclaimed its aspirations for expanding around the globe
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A lot of talk over the past couple of weeks about what President Obama can or can’t do or should or shouldn’t do given the mainly obstructionist agenda of the opposition party (there was this from Maureen Dowd, which sort of kicked things off, and there was this and this from Charles P. Pierce
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Just posted to our homepage, the editors on the plight of the Guantánamo prisoners:
Reviewing the establishment and operation of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which was intended to keep detainees outside the reach of U.S. law, the report [released by the bipartisan Constitution Project’s Task
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Just posted to our home page, an interview with novelist Richard Ford, who talks about writing, reading, the place of faith and religion in fiction, and the meditative qualities of authors like Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor. Read the whole thing here.
Also, E. J. Dionne Jr. examines how
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Two items now on our website examine the current real-world implications of prejudicial thinking. First, William Pfaff looks at how the take-your-medicine conclusions reached by economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff in 2010 confirmed the “untutored intuition” of policymakers looking for a
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Our new issue is now live.
From Alice McDermott’s piece on the faith of a Catholic novelist:
I suppose it’s an occupational hazard of mine—after more than thirty years in this writing business—to apply writing metaphors to any number of things, but lately I have felt the urge to ask my
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A voice I used to hear a lot on Sundays belonged to Pat Summerall, the play-by-play man for NFL telecasts on CBS and Fox (as well as for tennis and golf), who died last week at eighty-two. If the morning was Mass and CCD, the afternoon was Summerall, whose accounting of the action—in a clear and
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If you’re seeking a respite from the news, stop by our website, where we’re currently featuring a lot of new material.
William Galston looks at Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion:
In the broadest sense ... we must understand the U.S. Constitution as positive law. Rational analysis might
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Charles Pierce reflects on a week that began with a bombing and has since seen the release of a report confirming the United States engaged in torture after 9/11, as well as the successful effort by a minority in the U.S. Senate to block a motion on cloture and thus prevent an up-or-down vote on a
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Posted on our site today, E. J. Dionne Jr. on what the current gun debate is really telling us, and Rand Richards Cooper on the documentaries The Gatekeepers and The House I Live In.
From E. J.’s piece:
Because the accounts from the Sandy Hook families have been so moving and so wrenching, it
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That’s how Robert Silvers of the New York Review of Books, in a wide-ranging interview, characterizes the amount and type of writing being generated through social media (including Twitter and blog posts). He seeks a way to talk about the “kinds of prose, and the kinds of thinking, that
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Now featured on our home page, E. J. Dionne Jr.’s 1991 take on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. Dionne noted that the prime minister was far more popular in the United States than she was in Britain, in part because "she seemed to like us so relentlessly. Her pro-Americanism was visceral.&
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Nelson, Ga., is a small town that made a big symbolic gesture this week when it voted to require all of its citizens to own guns. Lawmakers say they won’t actively enforce the ruling but that doesn’t make it meaningless. For one thing, as E. J. Dionne Jr. points out in a column now posted on
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Our latest issue is now live. Among the highlights: Cathleen Kaveny on why the Supreme Court isn't likely to rule against the contraception mandate, Steven P. Millies and Gerald Russello on the future of conservatism, and continuing coverage of Pope Francis. Also, Leo O'Donovan writes on theology
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In case you missed it, Franz Jalics—the Jesuit whose kidnapping during Argentina’s dirty war raised questions about Jorge Bergoglio’s interactions with the military junta—released a statement Wednesday saying the new pope did not report him and another priest to the authorities. As reported
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There’s no shortage of reaction and analysis on the first full day of the papacy of Francis. With some five thousand journalists reporting from Rome, and innumerable others commenting from all corners, what else could we expect? The general press continues to key in on the simplicity-and-humility
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Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, born in 1936, has taken the papal name Francis; he is the first Jesuit pope.
Damian Thompson:
Pope Francis I … is a priest of holinesss and tremendous modesty of manner – a man who, until now, has taken the bus to work. His challenge
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Day One of the conclave began with the Mass for selecting the supreme pontiff, concelebrated by all the cardinals present, including those over eighty. Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, gave the homily and reminded electors of the importance of “unity” as they contemplate their
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Our new issue is now live.
Among the highlights: The editors on Antonin Scalia and the Voting Rights Act; continued installments in “Regime Change,” our special package of stories on Benedict and his successor; Celia Wren on Charles Dickens and Mary Ellen Konieczny on a new collection of
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On the last day before the conclave, most observers have concluded that there is no clear favorite to succeed Benedict, with this pronouncement from Andrea Gagliarducci perhaps summing things up: “Now more than ever, each cardinal has approximately the same odds of becoming Pope.” Not that
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Now online at the Wall Street Journal, six views on what sort of leader the next pope should be. One wants a culture warrior, another a "new Gorbachev." Commonweal editor Paul Baumann, who is also featured, wants a Californian. Read Paul's whole piece here, along with pieces from Peggy
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Some quick links for the end of the week:
As everyone now knows, the papal conclave will begin on Tuesday, likely to be preceded by a formal Mass in the morning. At the close of the week, governance was said to remain a topic of discussion among cardinals, but other reports say meetings have
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Leading stories on a slow news day: “Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi has announced that no date for the papal conclave has been established,” while rumors of a Monday mass for “election of the pontiff” are not true. And, the final electing cardinal has landed in Rome; he is "
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The news out of Rome begins with news about news no longer available.
John Thavis writing late yesterday:
U.S. cardinals are getting rave reviews from journalists for their availability during the “general congregations” leading up to the conclave. In contrast to their brethren from the
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Welcome to the first of our regular conclave updates. We’ll be rounding up items of interest, from various sources, for the duration. As ever, you’re welcome to comment (subject to our usual guidelines) or point us to the pertinent links we might have missed.
For now it’s morning-
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A reason to get the conclave started already? La Stampa and other news organizations reported today that a man dressed as a bishop was able to sneak into the Vatican and mingle with the 100 or so cardinals meeting to determine schedules and logistics. He gave his name as Basilius and said he
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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Shelby County, Alabama’s challenge of Sections 4 and 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The early consensus is that the key provisions of the seminal piece of civil rights legislation—which SCOTUSblog calls “history’s most successful civil
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Our new issue is live. Check out our coverage on the resignation of Benedict here, here, and here, if you haven’t already. Also featured is Mollie Wilson O’Reilly on guns and the culture of death:
Why the reluctance among conservative opponents of gun control to criticize America’s gun
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A lot of new material just posted on our website.
In “Shock Therapy,” Peter Steinfels discusses what the next pope could learn from Benedict.
The church needs shock treatment, and until the mini-shock of his resignation, Benedict, to the relief of many, did not seem like the man to
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Now on our homepage, the editors on the ramifications of the resignation:
Even Benedict’s most ardent supporters concede that his papacy has been marred by too many scandals and too many gaffes. The few glimpses the public has gotten into the opaque operations of the Holy See—from the Vatican
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Our web-exclusive feature continues. In our 2005 series of articles titled “What Next?,” Commonweal asked five writers to look at the challenges the then newly elected Benedict XVI was likely to face. We’ve been checking back with those writers to get their thoughts on whether the hopes they
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Featured now in our “Looking Back” web exclusive, Robert P. Imbelli, whose piece "Shepherding the Church" appeared in the May 6, 2005, issue of Commonweal. Following is an excerpt from his reflection on Benedict’s papacy:
[Eight years ago] I expressed the hope for a new
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Web exclusive: “Looking Back.” In our 2005 series of articles titled “What’s Next?”, Commonweal asked five writers to look at the challenges the then newly elected Benedict XVI was likely to face. We’re checking back with those writers to get their thoughts on whether the hopes they
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It wasn’t the water-duck or the mouth-wiping, but what Marco Rubio said, much earlier in his SOTU response (just about two minutes in):
In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies.
You’d think that by 2013 Republicans might have
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Among those said to be strong contenders to succeed Benedict XVI is Angelo Cardinal Scola, the Milan archbishop, who is described as a “conservative theologian with an interest in bioethics and Catholic-Muslim relations,” and is known for his media skills and intellect “even if his writings
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Video of the Vatican news conference: "The Pope took us by surprise," Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, says
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Joe Arpaio, the Arizona law enforcement caricature who fashions himself as America’s toughest sheriff, has been generously offering the services of his Maricopa County posse to help patrol schools and prevent mass shootings. The all-volunteer posse generally works to harass immigrants, though
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Dodge’s Super Bowl ad featuring Paul Harvey’s ode to the farmer has generated a lot of talk right from its airing, and not just for the Americana-drenched production. Some have called out the ad for its portrayal of the farmers whom God on the eighth day made; the majority of them reflected the
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Just posted on our homepage: The editors on revisions to the contraception mandate.
On February 1, the Department of Health and Human Services released a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” that included two important changes to its controversial requirement that most health-insurance plans cover
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Now on our homepage. E. J. Dionne Jr. on the change in regulations concerning contraception coverage:
A little more than a year ago, the Obama administration set off a bitter and unnecessary clash with the Roman Catholic Church over rules mandating broad contraception coverage under the Affordable
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Gabby Giffords gave the opening statement at today’s Senate hearing on gun violence. It will be interesting to see whether she can help counter the revitalized campaign of inaction. Though Newtown has helped keep the issue in the foreground for much
longer than Aurora or Virginia Tech, an
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Now on our website: Paul Lauritzen writes on William F. May and the crisis of bioethics, and the editors comment on the response to Chuck Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary. Also, Anthony Domestico reviews James Wood’s The Fun Stuff, while Conor P. Williams examines the Chris Christie
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On the same weekend that five people were shot at three different gun shows around the country; that a New Mexico teenager killed five members of his family with a gun; and that more than a million gun rights supporters across the U.S. celebrated Gun Appreciation Day at events both live and
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The new issue is now live, featuring a remembrance of Dorothy Day by Patrick Jordan, and a look at the life of “Catholic Muslim” Louis Massignon. Plus E.J. Dionne Jr. on the myth of American decline, and Jack Calhoun on lessons learned from picketing a gun show
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Just posted on the homepage: Commonweal’s editors on confronting gun violence.
The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, with more than 200 million guns in circulation. The result: a rate of violence wildly out of step with all other developed nations. There are
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Excerpts from recent takes on the “religion” of guns and the readiness with which gun-control opponents invoke the threat of tyranny in explaining their elevation of the Second Amendment. All are worth reading in full.
Gary Wills in the New York Review of Books:
[What happened at Sandy Hook
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Check out our latest issue, with pieces by Gary Gutting (on capitalism and the good life), Jo McGowan (on the rise of religious fundamentalism in India), Margaret O'Brien Steinfels (on the end of men), and more
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Now featured on our homepage, E.J. Dionne on the Newtown shootings:
How often must we note that no other developed country has such massacres on a regular basis because no other comparable nation allows such easy access to guns? And on no subject other than ungodly episodes involving guns are
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Our new issue is now live. Highlights include Phyllis Zagano making the case for women deacons; Julia G. Young on the Catholic Church’s complicated past in Latin America (and what it might mean for the future); and Daniel M. Murtaugh on this year’s winner of the National Book Award for
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One month after the election, we’re well into the second wave of Republican self-examination, with denial, anger, and depression giving way in some quarters to bargaining and even acceptance. (Of course, there are numerous exceptions.) Thus Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio waxing kinder and gentler this
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New stories now featured on our homepage: The editors on President Obama's troubling approach to the use of drones, and Charles R. Morris on high spending on health care.
From the editorial:
It is both sobering and disheartening to learn that it was only the prospect of a President Romney
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The new issue is now online.
Highlights: Joseph Sorrentino’s photo essay on the dangers faced by migrants traveling through Mexico aboard “the train of the unknowns,” Elizabeth Kirkland Cahill on the connections between Mr. Biswas and Mr. Bond (James Bond), and our 2012 Christmas critics.
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Coming up on Tuesday, November 27, E.J. Dionne will be delivering the Sorensen Lecture at Yale Divinity School. The topic: “Our Divided Political Heart and the Election of 2012.” The lecture, which begins at 5:30 p.m., is free and open to the public, but if you can’t make it to New Haven
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Now featured on our home page, Ian Marcus Corbin on the vexing legacy of Catholic jazz composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, who in 1969 received a commission from the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace to compose her third Mass, called Music for Peace:
As the 1970s began, Williams
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Now featured at the website, the Commonweal editors on the events in Gaza:
With Israel again bombarding Gaza and gathering troops for another potentially devastating incursion into the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave, it is tempting to think that nothing really changes in the Middle East, and
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Our new issue is live. Among the highlights:
Paul K. Johnston on Shakespeare's argument against celibacy--and in favor of life:
Does [the] rejection of Catholic asceticism make Shakespeare anti-Catholic? Or should it make us think more deeply about the Catholic Church’s mixed message to the
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Now on the home page, Nathan Pippenger on what President Obama faces in his second term:
Obama’s first four years were as consequential as any presidency since Lyndon Johnson’s, but without four more, they might largely have been erased.
Yet positive results may still be hard to come by in
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Xavier University, which in April stated it employees’ health insurance would no longer cover contraception, has reversed its stance.
The policy change was announced in an interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer, although the decision was made earlier, said Kelly Leon, a university spokeswoman.
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New web-exclusive piece now featured on our home page: David Cloutier's "'Intrinsic Evil' & Public Policy." From the story:
Moral theologians will continue to debate which acts, described in what way, fall into the category of the “intrinsically evil.” But the case of
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The new issue is now live; check it out here. Among the highlights: Daniel Callahan reflects on his religion and his time at Harvard and Yale, Fr. Nonomen examines the loss of good priests, and Richard Alleva reviews The Master. Also, Gabriel Young on Lebanon's fragile unity, and E.J. Dionne's
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Over at the website, three new posts tied to the news.
The day after the second presidential debate, E.J. Dionne tallies Romney's sketchiness:
Under pressure this time, the former Massachusetts governor displayed his least attractive sides. He engaged in pointless on-stage litigation of the
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The new issue is now available at our website. Highlights:
Daniel K. Finn on "prudence" in the bishops' teaching of economic and life issues; Robert K. Landers on JFK's keen awareness of the power of appearances, and how it helped him manage the Cuban missile crisis; and Paul J.
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Grant Gallicho mentioned in a previous post the remarks of Georgetown president John DeGioia, who at our recent Commonweal Conversations event received the third Catholic in the Public Square award. He spoke movingly of "the common good," and his remarks are definitely worth viewing (or
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The new issue is up.
Highlights: The editors on Vatican II, half a century later, and John Wilkins on collegiality after the council. Also, Gerald W. Schlabach identifies four lessons about religious freedom and Andrew J. Bacevich notes the lack of a credible peace candidate in American
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Teachers and teacher advocacy groups have staged protests at early screenings of Won’t Back Down, a new film about the widely assumed decrepitude of American public education that posits the only way forward is for parents to “take back” their schools. That’s not a critique; it’s what the
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Now featured on the website: James T. Kloppenberg examines the rhetoric of the party conventions, and evaluates President Obama’s acceptance speech in the context of his record:
The juxtapositions between the two conventions were jarring and emblematic. In the space of just a couple of weeks,
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Our new issue is live. Among the highlights:
Cathleen Kaveny, in "The Single-Issue Trap," on what the bishops' current voting guide overlooks:
Affirming the status of the unborn has not only acquired pride of place in the years since the bishops’ first electoral missive; it has also
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Running an errand in the car with my eight-year-old daughter last night, I subjected her to NPR coverage of the Democratic National Convention, just in time to hear host Brian Lehrer taking calls from listeners on what event or experience had turned them into Democrats (he did the same for
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Our new issue is now live.
Highlights:
Richard W. Garnett on how both political parties have ignored the Constitution
Benjamin Wittes and Ritika Singh on the troubling new consensus in Washington on the legal and political issues surrounding terrorism
Robin Darling Young on Henri de
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Engaging discussion on Moyers, centering mostly on the Ryan budget plan. An interesting moment, shown as a clip at about the 12:25 mark, is Ryan’s equating of subsidiarity with federalism, which Robert Royal is compelled to dispute, if fleetingly. (Royal also helpfully reminds Sr. Simone and
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Much has been made of Senator Scott Brown’s truck, much of it by the Massachusetts Republican himself. In fact, when he’s not being photographed in it or mentioning it on the stump, he’s working it into intimate nighttime conversation with his wife, even when the nominal topic is Todd Akin (
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Now on the website, two new takes on the Ryan pick.
William Pfaff looks at the implications for U.S. foreign policy:
Neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan seem close to the hawkish ideology that gave the United States its present military deployments in Asia and Central Asia ... But they seem to
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Now on the website, E.J. Dionne Jr.'s challenge to conservatives who rail against Obamacare:
Here's a chance for all who think Obamacare is a socialist Big Government scheme to put their money where their ideology is: If you truly hate the Affordable Care Act, you must send back any of those
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Head over to the website for a look out our new issue, which has just gone live. Some of the highlights:
Peter Steinfels reflects on evolving responses to sexual abuse, across institutions and over time; Wayne Sheridan on how mergers between Catholic and secular hospitals affect the poor and
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Now featured on our website: Jeff Madrick on why this year's election could be the most important since 1932 (in spite of progressives' disappointment with Obama, "the alternative is far, far worse"), and Tom Quigley on the differences (and similarities) between the visits of Popes
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My re-entry on Sunday from a (media-free) vacation included a check of the Commonweal blogs and website to see what I’d missed during my week away. E.J. Dionne Jr.’s column on standing up to the gun lobby was one of my first reads, and if you haven’t gotten to it yet, it’s still available
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Now on the website, E.J. Dionne Jr. issues a challenge to conservatives: Acknowledge what's really hurting the middle class (and it's not unions, taxes, or "big government").
It's good that conservatives are finally taking seriously the problems of inequality and declining upward
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Now on our home page, “Holding All the Cards,” a web exclusive from Jeff Sovern on the power credit-card companies continue to wield over their customers.
Congress passed a credit-card-reform law in 2009 and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010. But the interest rules didn
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A lot now happening over on our website, where the new issue is live along with some online exclusives. Take the holiday week to take a look.
From the Commonweal editors:
Republicans complain that President Obama’s executive order makes permanent immigration reform more difficult—an
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Now on our home page, E.J. Dionne Jr. on how Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain is wounding him in swing states.
In this year's 12 battleground states, many of which have gotten a heavy run of the anti-Bain ads, only 18 percent viewed Romney's business experience positively; 33 percent viewed it
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Now on the Commonweal site, E.J. Dionne Jr.'s column on why it's time for Antonin Scalia to step down.
He's a fine public speaker and teacher. He'd be a heck of a columnist and blogger. But he really seems to aspire to being a politician -- and that's the problem.
So often, Scalia has chosen to
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Now on our homepage: “Bad History,” in which Julia G. Young challenges comparisons of Barack Obama to Plutarco Elías Calles, the infamous anti-Catholic president of Mexico who in the 1920s waged a brutal campaign against the clergy while outlawing public worship.
The comparison between
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E.J. Dionne proposes an alliance of “public-spirited citizens” to offset big super PAC spenders and destroy incentives for the very rich to buy the election. But could there ever be an alliance spirited enough to discourage a buyer like Sheldon Adelson?
Adelson on Wednesday gave $10 million
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