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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

Politics

Firing Squads Are Back

Firing Squads Are Back Randy Gardner hardly remembers anything about the day in 1985 when his brother Ronnie Lee Gardner was sentenced to die. Maybe he prefers not to. “I wasn’t too worried,” Randy tells me. He knew the appeals process would probably take decades—and it did. But twenty-five years of failed appeals did eventually yield to an execution date: June 18, 2010. Gardner’s family had to say goodbye in advance after he requested they not be present. Instead, they held a vigil outside t...

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Politics

Sewer Socialism Takes Providence

Sewer Socialism Takes Providence To the extent that Providence has a national profile, it is as a shabbily quaint small town with an Ivy League university and an outsized mafia presence. In the six years I’ve lived there, though, it’s been ruled not by mafiosos but, like most other gentrifying post-industrial cities, by an uneasy alliance of townie landlords, mansion owners, luxury-apartment developers, and cops. Next year, it will likely be run, in no small part, by democratic socialists. On...

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Geopolitics

9/11 Changed Everything

9/11 Changed Everything At 8:45 on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was alone in my office on the thirty-first floor of the midtown Manhattan building I commuted to every day from Brooklyn. I was starting up my computer when something cast a brief fluttering shadow over the desk and carpeting. My first thought was birds, though that seemed strange; I had never seen birds up here before, this high. The building itself was set at an angle to the cross-streets, East Thirty-Third and Park Ave...

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Society

Neither Hidden nor Dead

The article explores the complexities of faith and doubt, emphasizing the ongoing relevance of spiritual struggles in contemporary life and the importance of dialogue in addressing them.

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Culture

Long Dead, Long Resurrected

Long Dead, Long Resurrected It wouldn’t be right, by Armida’s logic, to drive through Tucson without playing Canciones de Mi Padre, Linda Ronstadt’s best-selling Spanish-language album. Driving strictly five miles below the speed limit through colorfully painted, half-dilapidated, half-gentrified barrios of Ronstadt’s hometown, my grandmother is imparting some exaggerated small-town gossip. Admittedly, I’m eating it up. We make this pilgrimage every few years, driving two hours south to Tucso...

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Technology

A Warning Sign for Big Tech

A Warning Sign for Big Tech Once upon a time, in the far-off ’90s and aughts, the internet was widely, if wishfully, touted for its potential to give anyone a voice. Online, we would join new communities, make a difference, go viral. The internet, it was thought, would strengthen a democratic public sphere against regimentation by corporations and suppression by governments. That historical moment ironically shadows the recent $17.1 billion settlement reached between state governments and Mar...

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Culture

Why Did Dolly Mean So Much to Us?

Why Did Dolly Mean So Much to Us? When a celebrity dies, a few days of public grieving and tributes are to be expected. But it’s been more than a week now, and my social-media feeds are still full of quotes set to “I Will Always Love You” and news reports about a proposed airport renaming and an upcoming Dollyfest. Even the subsequent deaths of actor Tim Curry and poet and environmentalist Wendell Berry haven’t slowed the public adulation for the late singer, songwriter, and philanthropist Do...

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Culture

Participants, not Prosecutors

Participants, not Prosecutors “I enter the ancient courts of ancient men. Received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me.” Niccolò Machiavelli wrote these words in 1513 while under house arrest, describing what happened each evening when he turned to the literature and history of antiquity. More than three centuries later, W....

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Culture

The U.S.-Born Pope Is Changing U.S. Catholicism

The U.S.-Born Pope Is Changing U.S. Catholicism Pope Leo XIV is changing the public voice of American Catholicism. He is building on the legacy of Pope Francis, but has turned out to be better placed than Francis was to shift the direction of the U.S. Church, and not only because of his national origin (or the fact that he’s a baseball fan). Leo has focused his papacy on a series of issues—immigration, economic justice, war and peace, and the moral challenges of artificial intelligence—on whi...

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Society

Catholic Social Teaching Is Having a Moment

Catholic Social Teaching Is Having a Moment At the beginning of each semester, I ask my undergrads at Loyola University Chicago how many of them have heard of Catholic social teaching (CST). Usually only a few hands go up, confirming the adage that this portion of the magisterium is indeed the Church’s “best-kept secret.” In my course, students learn the principles of Catholic social teaching and apply them to contemporary issues, including immigration, racism, war and peace, economic justice...

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Society

A Terrible Thing to Ask

A Terrible Thing to Ask I once stopped a man from killing himself. There was nothing noble in what I did, though the story might seem admirable from a distance—the kind of thing some people share on Facebook, with lines about never giving up on the people you love. What I actually did was prevent a person from doing something he desperately wanted to do. And afterward, I left him at a hospital while I went on with my life. I’m sorry this is happening, I hope you get better, but I have to go. ...

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