Paul Baumann

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Paul Baumann is Commonweal’s senior writer. He is working on a book titled Why Do I Go to Church?

Article

A Trip to the Orkneys & Into the Past

Desolate, wind-swept islands off the coast of Scotland occasion a traveler’s musings on sacred spaces and climate change

October 17, 2018

Article

Time to Leave?

In the face of the church's manifold sins, we stay because we long for what the church teaches about human life to be true

By Paul Baumann

September 23, 2018

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Clericalism

Secularism and Modernity

Article

An Endangered Inheritance

A visit to the under-appreciated FDR memorial in Washington helps us recall basic truths about the purpose of democratic governance

September 5, 2018

Article

Remembering Paul Horgan

The Catholic director of the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University was also an accomplished novelist and historian

By Paul Baumann

August 21, 2018

Fiction

Books

Article

A Farewell Note

Commonweal's editor reflects on retirement after nearly three decades with the magazine

By Paul Baumann

June 17, 2018

Farewell

Article

Real Time with Ross Douthat

When Ross Douthat is defending Catholicism against the attacks of scoffers like Bill Maher, I feel he is defending my beliefs as well

By Paul Baumann

May 1, 2018

U.S. Catholicism

Secularism and Modernity

Must Reads

Politics

Look Forward in Anger

Kavanaugh wrote in an op-ed that ‘the justices do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle.’ But it's too late for those platitudes

By Rand Richards Cooper

October 8, 2018

Religion

Gaps in the Story

Cardinal Marc Ouellet released an open letter to Archbishop Viganò denying that there had been any sanctions against Theodore McCarrick

By Paul Moses

October 10, 2018

Religion

Business Class

How cozy is Catholic University’s relationship with the Kochs?

By John Gehring

October 4, 2018

Religion

Synods Aren’t Just for the Bishops

As in the sixteenth century, the question is not whether the Catholic Church will survive this age of scandal, but what form the church will survive in

By Massimo Faggioli

October 1, 2018

Culture

Nasty Woman

There was always anger at assault allegations: touching, drugging, choking; at pay gaps, at locker-room talk. But the anger I’m feeling has changed—for the worse

By Katherine Lucky

October 4, 2018

Books

Undemocratic by Design

Quinn Slobodian's new book is a fascinating look at the neoliberal mystification of markets.

By Eugene McCarraher

October 15, 2018

Collections

The Church That Has to Come

A series of reported reflections from Rome, where bishops and young people are gathering this October to discuss the future of the church

By Griffin Oleynick

October 16, 2018