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Commonweal

Commonweal

Magazine | United States | Centre-Left
www.commonwealmagazine.org/

Liberal Catholic magazine offering independent commentary on religion, politics, and culture.

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Discussions from Commonweal

Education

A Shrine and a School

A Shrine and a School On his way out of town, the eminent sociologist Christian Smith nailed his ninety-five theses to the doors of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, resigned his longtime professorship, and raged against the dying of the light in an essay in First Things: “I am done with Notre Dame.” Presumably, it’s mutual. As Catholic scholars who also taught for years at Notre Dame, we recognize—and reject—Smith’s dyspepsia. He has failed to understand the unique place of the university in...

United States
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Geopolitics

Leo’s Transatlantic Task

Leo’s Transatlantic Task There were rumors that Leo XIV would travel to his home country this year, perhaps for a stop at the UN, among other places. But the U.S.-born pope will not be visiting the United States anytime soon, the Vatican recently confirmed. John Paul II and Benedict XVI visited their own native countries within a year of their elections (though Francis never went to Argentina). So far Leo has yet to travel in Europe, or even to other Italian cities, while his relationship wit...

Global
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Culture

The Priesthood’s Ritual Logic

The Priesthood’s Ritual Logic There was a lot of disappointment, even irritation, over last year’s decision by a Vatican commission to shelve further discussion by the Synod on Synodality of the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate. I do not doubt the sincerity of those who advocate for what they argue is a restoration of an office that existed in the early Church and that, tellingly, continues to exist in some Eastern Churches. Nor am I a scholar who can parse the exact meaning of...

United States
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Politics

A Multiracial Right?

A Multiracial Right? I grew up in a God-and-country Evangelical family in the very conservative panhandle of Florida. I later attended a Pentecostal Bible college and a Baptist seminary. I left the world of conservative Evangelicalism nearly two decades ago and am now a progressive, to the left of most Democrats. Whenever I talk to my old conservative friends and family members about politics, it feels like I spend most of my time correcting the distorted views they have about the left. The D...

United States
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Culture

Dialogues for the Common Good

Dialogues for the Common Good Why pay attention? In the digital era, when information is treated like a commodity, distraction abounds, but attention is scarce. What does it mean to pay attention today? How is the simple—but radical act—of attending essential to our humanity and our intellectual, moral, creative, and social well-being? Join us Thursday, February 12, for an evening of reflection and discussion with author and ethicist Jennifer Herdt, and poet and author Shane McRae. Moderated ...

United States
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Geopolitics

The Politics of Empty Chairs

The Politics of Empty Chairs There is a way to read foreign policy that does not run through solemn speeches or spectacular crises, but through the spaces that are left empty. In recent weeks, the United States has announced its withdrawal from an impressive number of international bodies: technical forums, UN agencies, scientific platforms, cooperation programs. Taken one by one, many of these announcements mean little to the public. Considered together, however, they tell a coherent story—a...

Global
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Politics

Another Requiem in Minneapolis

Another Requiem in Minneapolis The personal misery of a police state is hard for language to capture. The Russians are better at it than we can pretend to be during this ragged Minnesota winter of our ICE occupation. Well, their experience is so much longer, deeper. Czarist prisons, the Soviet Terror. Their decades, even centuries; our recent months. We do share a relentless climate, the biting winters of Moscow and the steppe, our brutal winds sweeping across the plains to the old northern r...

United States
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Politics

Things Will Get Better Before They Get Worse

Things Will Get Better Before They Get Worse I was optimistic going into November’s off-year elections. Despite the Trump-led Republican Party’s dominance in 2024 and despite media chatter about a “fundamental realignment of American politics” that followed, I expected things to turn around once voters got another chance to weigh in. My optimism was justified. Not only did Democrats win high-profile races in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, and California, they also made significant local...

United States
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Politics

‘How Will You Say No?’

‘How Will You Say No?’ A line of religious leaders knelt on the concrete in front of the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, their breath visible as they prayed the Our Father in sub-zero temperatures. They had gathered Friday to protest the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, which had already resulted in one death in their city. A second person, ICU nurse Alex Pretti, would be killed by ICE the next day. About one hundred of these faith leaders, Religion News ...

United States
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Geopolitics

Cruel and Indiscriminate

Cruel and Indiscriminate While the recent attack on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro have been a startling and disturbing escalation of U.S. antagonism toward the country, U.S. economic sanctions against Venezuela for the past two decades have done considerable damage in their own right and serve as a precursor to the recent military aggression. Economic measures have often been employed in the context of warfare, sometimes with devastating effect, as in the siege of Leni...

Venezuela
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Society

The Little Hours of Delaney Hall

The Little Hours of Delaney Hall O God, come to my assistance. The DHS detention center is in an industrial part of Newark, in between some warehouses and the county prison, a few hundred yards from where the Passaic River flows into the bay. This area must have been estuary before it was concrete—they tell me the stink was terrible when they had protests here in the summer. But on a January afternoon, there was only an occasional smell of gas when some valve was opened in the fuel depot acro...

United States
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