Commonweal is proud to announce that award-winning journalist and columnist Heidi Schlumpf is joining the magazine as Senior Correspondent. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Heidi, who will continue to strengthen Commonweal’s rich engagement with Catholic thought as the magazine enters its second century of publication,” said Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi. “Heidi’s achievements and skills as a writer, reporter, and editor speak for themselves, and I’m excited that she’s now bringing her voice and insights to our readers.”

With three decades of experience covering religion, politics, and issues of social and cultural import—most recently for the National Catholic Reporter—Schlumpf will help expand Commonweal’s regular coverage of these areas. Her work will appear regularly in the print magazine and on the Commonweal website. 

“I’m excited and honored to join Commonweal’s century-long history of thoughtful and independent discussion about the issues that matter most in our country, the world, and the Catholic Church,” Schlumpf said. “Commonweal’s commitment to the common good is especially urgent at this critical time, when Catholic social teaching could be better informing our politics and culture.”

Before joining Commonweal, Schlumpf spent sixteen years at the National Catholic Reporter, where she served as a columnist, correspondent, executive editor, and vice president. Previously, she was managing editor of U.S. Catholic magazine and a reporter at Chicago’s archdiocesan newspaper. Her NCR pieces about Catholic Trump voters, legal activist Leonard Leo, and women’s response to the 2024 election earned her second-place honors for news analysis from Religion News Services. And, over the years, the Catholic Media Association has recognized her work with multiple prizes, most notably for her investigative reporting on the EWTN and the business practices of Dynamic Catholic's Matthew Kelly. The association also recognized her pieces about the 2024 election, which ran in Mother Jones and U.S. Catholic. 

Her essay about a new generation of Catholic “mom bloggers” ran in the September issue of Commonweal, and she recently covered for the magazine a People’s Mass for Justice and Peace near the Great Lakes Naval Base outside Chicago, a reported hub for National Guard and ICE agents sent to the city as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.  

“Heidi not only brings decades of experience and credibility, but a voice and a perspective that the staff at Commonweal and our many readers will greatly benefit from hearing from with greater consistency,” said Ellen Koneck, Commonweal’s executive director. “I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, a friend for many years, and I’m now eager and honored to call her a colleague.”

Schlumpf is the author of Elizabeth A. Johnson: Questing for God (Liturgical Press, 2016) and While We Wait: Spiritual & Practical Advice for Those Trying to Adopt (ACTA, 2009), and editor of The Notre Dame Book of Prayer (Ave Maria, 2010). She is also co-host of the Francis Effect podcast, which examines politics and current events through the lens of Catholic teaching and spirituality, and a part-time faculty member in theology at Loyola University Chicago and previously taught journalism as an associate professor of communication at Aurora University in Illinois.

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Schlumpf earned a master's degree in theological studies at Northwestern University, where she studied with feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. She is based in Chicago, where she lives with her husband, Edmund, and their two children. She is a member of St. Gertrude Parish in the city’s Edgewater neighborhood.

“I look forward to joining a team that remains committed to intelligent debate in today’s media landscape of quick takes and misinformation,” she said. 

Commonweal is a journal of opinion on religion, politics, and culture, founded in 1924.  Independent and lay-led, the magazine fosters rigorous and reflective discussions about faith, public affairs, and the arts, centered on belief in the common good.