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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

Healthcare

Back to the Lab Again

Back to the Lab Again I’ve been to the lab so many times that it has started to feel like home. In the twelve years I’ve been coming, not much has changed. This time, the buzzer was out of commission at the back entrance—the door used by the test subjects. Ushered in by a woman wearing maroon scrubs, I took in the smell of gauze, the room’s sterile palette of beige and gray, scrubs in every color. There was a certain warmth associated with this facility, even if the temperature always hovered...

United States
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Culture

A Fairy Tale Ending?

A Fairy Tale Ending? In Venice Observed, her cultural history of that enchanting city, Mary McCarthy quotes a sixteenth-century German prince’s assessment of the Venetian character. Venetians were “conspiring the ruin of everyone,” the prince complained, and he urged resistance to “the insatiable cupidity of the Venetians and their thirst for domination.” Venice was, of course, not just a city of wealthy art patrons, but first an avaricious commercial empire. Venetians were “religious about b...

Italy
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Politics

Democracy and Encounter

Democracy and Encounter Pope Francis’s call in Fratelli tutti for a “culture of encounter” marked by respectful engagement across difference has received little attention outside Catholic circles. Political theorists have taken up similar ideas, insisting on the need for civil discourse and constructive disagreement if we are to address our deep democratic divides. This past February, with the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at G...

Global
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Culture

Released from Countdowns

Released from Countdowns Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping is the best American debut novel of the past fifty years, maybe the best American novel of the past fifty years, period. It’s a bold move, then, for Harriet Clark to put her own debut, The Hill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28, 273 pp.), in such explicit conversation with Robinson’s masterpiece. Clark borrows character names, Helen and Sylvie, from Housekeeping, and she channels the cadences of Robinson’s prose: “Say that this resurrec...

United States
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Education

St. John’s Turns Its Back

St. John’s Turns Its Back St. John’s University faculty are currently embroiled in a bruising labor battle with university leaders. The administration fired the opening salvo on the afternoon of February 19, when it informed its faculty, in the midst of contract negotiations, that it would be unilaterally derecognizing their two unions: the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors and an independent, standalone Faculty Association. The announcement has triggered one ...

United States
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Politics

Too Radical for Michigan?

Too Radical for Michigan? Infighting in the Democratic Party has spiked to levels not seen since Bernie Sanders’s 2016 insurgent presidential campaign. A series of uncomfortable revelations culminating in an accusation of sexual assault forced Graham Platner to end his populist, antiwar Senate campaign in Maine, mere weeks after trouncing Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment favorite, in the June Democratic primary. Stunned supporters and left-wing organizers from afar had barely come to terms...

United States
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Culture

The Culture-War Factory

The Culture-War Factory In June 1988, James Dobson, radio host and founder of Focus on the Family, rallied his listeners to protest a film he declared “the most blasphemous, evil attack on the church and the cause of Christ in the history of entertainment.” Never mind that he and the rest of a self-declared group of “offended brethren” had not actually seen the film in question, Martin Scorsese’s as-yet-unreleased The Last Temptation of Christ. All they’d experienced of the film was an outdat...

United States
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Politics

‘They Don’t Want to Say Yes’

The article explores the complexities and hesitations surrounding commitment in relationships, highlighting the emotional barriers that prevent individuals from fully embracing their feelings.

United States
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Culture

Loved but Not Wanted

Loved but Not Wanted In the third episode of the recent HBO show DTF: St Louis, a side-character makes a remark that becomes one of the show’s defining lines: “No one’s normal. It just looks that way from across the street.” This is an oddly sweet line for a show that positions itself as an erotic thriller. But DTF: ST Louis is neither particularly erotic nor thrilling. Its sex scenes range from cringe-inducing to unwatchable, and its thrills lead to surprisingly sober revelations. Told in a ...

United States
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Politics

Hunger Is a Cry to Heaven

Hunger Is a Cry to Heaven “Hunger…is a cry that rises to heaven and requires a swift response from every nation, every international organization, every regional, local or private body. No one can remain on the sidelines in the fight against hunger.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops included these words from Pope Leo XIV in a letter to the Senate on July 9 about the priorities of the Farm Bill. The bill sets agricultural policies and funds programs that address hunger in the United Sta...

Global
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Society

The Commonweal Fund for Moral & Civic Renewal

The Commonweal Fund for Moral & Civic Renewal Thomas and Allison Franco have made a founding gift of $1,000,000. We invite you to join them. Introduction In an era of deep polarization and widespread distrust of institutions, Commonweal’s independent voice is more urgently needed than ever. The Commonweal Fund for Moral & Civic Renewal is a permanent endowment designed to ensure that voice endures—free, fearless, and faithful—for generations to come. The challenges facing American civic and r...

United States
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Culture

Why We Love to Hate Tradwives

Why We Love to Hate Tradwives The summer’s most talked-about novel, the debut Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, has a tantalizing premise: a tradwife influencer wakes up one day to find that her modern kitchen, two nannies, and the other behind-the-scenes creature comforts that prop up her “traditional” lifestyle brand have disappeared. Instead, she is now living in 1855, where she has to bake her signature sourdough over a fickle fire and bloody her hands while scrubbing clothes with a washbo...

United States
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