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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

Society

Get Conversion Therapy Out of the Church

Get Conversion Therapy Out of the Church When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy last month, I immediately thought of Alana Chen, a twenty-four-year-old Catholic woman who died by suicide in 2019 after counseling from priests and other Catholic leaders about her homosexuality. I had worked with Alana’s mom, Joyce Calvo, to publish her essay pleading with Church leaders to protect LGBTQ Catholics from the dangerous practice of conversion therapy. Chen’s sto...

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Culture

The Roots Conversation Series

The Roots Conversation Series The Roots conversation series is a collaboration between Columbia’s Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary and Commonweal. It convenes a range of thinkers for a series of public discussions grounded in philosophy, theology, and the humanities. The aim is not to defend specific positions or provide inarguable conclusions. Instead we seek to invite reflection, provoke conversation, and inspire action—a mode of meeting the political, moral, and existential chal...

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Technology

The Rise of the Catholic Chatbot

The article explores the emergence of AI chatbots within the Catholic community, examining their potential to engage believers and facilitate discussions on faith in the digital age.

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Culture

Preaching the Seven Last Words

Preaching the Seven Last Words The following meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ were delivered at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle in Washington D.C. on Good Friday, 2025. Each meditation was followed by a musical interlude sung by the choir. Preaching on the Seven Last Words is not part of the Good Friday liturgy. It has instead been traditionally part of the Three Hours Devotion on Good Friday, a practice begun in Lima by the Peruvian Jesuit Alonso Mesia (1665–1732), a ...

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Culture

Why Do We Persevere?

Why Do We Persevere? When we ask for Mary to guide us, we should be prepared. The journey might be inconvenient, rainy, freezing cold, dangerous. Sometimes Mary brings us to the foot of the cross, sometimes to the gates of ICE detention. I pray the rosary at my parish on Tuesday mornings with a remarkable group of women. We convened fifteen years ago—young, weary, overworked moms, desperate for community and support. Most of us thought the rosary was for old ladies. Now, I’m pretty sure we ar...

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Culture

All the Way to the Abyss

All the Way to the Abyss “[T]he way of the cross is traced close to the earth. The mighty withdraw from it; they desire to grasp at heaven. Yet heaven is here below; it hangs low, and we can encounter it even when we fall flat on the ground. Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of Hell. God’s economy, on the other hand, does not kill, discard or crush. It is lowly, faithful to the ...

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Politics

Fight for the Fourteenth

Fight for the Fourteenth The U.S. bishops remain divided about many issues, but immigration is not, for the most part, one of them. Their special message against mass deportations passed overwhelmingly last November, and bishops across the ideological spectrum have publicly expressed concern about immigration enforcement that has crossed moral and legal lines. But Catholics on the right don’t always agree with their religious leaders on this issue, as evidenced by the reaction to a recent ami...

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Culture

Poem | The Encounter

Poem | The Encounter I saw Jesus today. A figure bent hobbled disheveled, clinging to a rickety walker, shuffling toward reception, needing help or a kind word. Wavering, I offered neither. I saw Jesus today. And I passed him by. James Hannan March 23, 2026

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Culture

Wittgenstein’s Apocalypse

Wittgenstein’s Apocalypse “It isn’t absurd,” the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in 1947, “to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity.” The proposition is looking less absurd by the day: AI may eventually turn on us; industrialization has turned the planet against us; social media is turning us against each other; and nuclear weapons linger just offstage, waiting for another turn. What Wittgenstein—and the many other Romantically inclined ...

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Culture

Modern Archbishop, Medieval Pilgrimage

Modern Archbishop, Medieval Pilgrimage On March 25, Dame Sarah Mullally will make history when she is installed as the first female archbishop of Canterbury. As the 106th archbishop, she will become the leader of the Church of England and spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, which comprises more than 85 million people worldwide. In preparation for this historic inauguration, Mullally also became the first modern archbishop of Canterbury to participate in the medieval Becket Camino: an ei...

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Culture

More than a Real Estate Deal

More than a Real Estate Deal In summer, wildflowers broke out along the stony ridges of the mountains, and for most of winter the valley would be hushed with snow the color of cotton paper. The Trappist monks of St. Benedict’s Monastery were lovers and stewards of the place and called it their “sacred valley.” They came from Brooklyn or Boston, had once served in the Air Force or as missionaries abroad. One brother had fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and when he died, I helped carry his bo...

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Society

Collective Mourning, Collective Action

Collective Mourning, Collective Action When our four children were much younger, our family squeezed into our minivan for a cross-country trip from Arizona to Washington D.C., thinking this might possibly be the last time we could coax the two oldest into a two-week vacation that included their parents. We took a southern route with stops along the way at historical sites and spent the better part of one day in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. It was there that we saw poignant and distu...

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