Commonweal Magazine
@commonwealmag
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A review of religion, politics, and culture since 1924, edited by lay Catholics. Subscribe here:
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The October issue is here! Feat.
-
@Melody_S_Gee
on what Baptism offers
- Charles McNamara on the ancient history of political 'weirdness'
- Regina Munch on the case for marriage
- An interview with Charles Taylor
& more!
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NEW PODCAST EPISODE: While
#CoronavirusPandemic
has upended daily life across the globe, Hong Kong has managed to limit the spread even in the midst of
#HongKongProtests
.
@jwassers
@ColumbiaGR
joins us to share what we can learn from the movement.
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NEW PODCAST EPISODE!
In the wake of
#CoronavirusPandemic
,
@jwassers
@ColumbiaGR
chats w/ assistant editor Griffin Oleynick &
@BSEliot2
on what we can learn from
#HongKongProtests
in limiting the virus's spread while continuing the movement.
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"For many in Hong Kong’s civil society the fight against the virus is very much a continuation of the city’s resistance movement."
@kingholeung
, research fellow at
@univofstandrews
, on both protest and pandemic in Hong Kong today.
#HKProtests
#COVID19
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This weekend, take a deeper dive into Hong Kong's history, its cultural identity, and why the
#HongKongProtests
matters today with our new Commonweal Podcast featuring
@jwassers
, Griffin Oleynick, and Emily King.
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NEW PODCAST EPISODE:
@jwassers
@ColumbiaGR
joins Griffin Oleynick &
@BSEliot2
on why Hong Kong matters now in the wake of
#CoronavirusPandemic
, and what
#HongKongProtests
mean for us & other mass protests by young people
#ClimateStrike
#EndGunViolence
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730
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"Calling yourself a Christian, or putting it in your Twitter bio, is not the same as being one. It’s performative, and it’s nonsense. It’s not showing faith through works."
State Sen.
@MalloryMcMorrow
discusses her LGBT advocacy:
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"The movement's gone on much longer than anybody expected, in part because it became a movement against police violence."
@Jwassers
on the
#HongKongProtests
in the context of
#coronavirus
.
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We're sad to learn that Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, has entered palliative care.
From our archives, a long piece on his life and teaching of "tenderness."
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"Eight weeks ago, I gave birth to my second child. Today, I’m expected to return to my job at a Catholic university."
Imagine if instead of simply talking about a culture of life, Catholic employers actually started to build one.
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Happy birthday to the remarkable and prophetic Dorothy Day!
To celebrate, we'd like to share the complete collection of Dorothy's writings in Commonweal--check it out:
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Today was
@MatthewSitman
's last day as an editor at Commonweal. Matt has brought an immense amount of talent and energy to the magazine since he arrived in 2015. He's also written some remarkable articles. Here, in no particular order, are some of his best. 1/5
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"Even the most well-intentioned statements on women in the Church bear the unmistakable hint of the male CEO who calls his female secretary 'the real boss' and sincerely believes it’s a compliment." —
@SusanBReynolds1
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"As Catholics, we’re not fundamentalists, or literalists. We have to understand things in their historical context." —
@JamesMartinSJ
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"A Christianity configured as a political ideology, focused mostly on the definition of moral norms and training 'cultural warriors' for the defense of orthodoxy does not correspond to the aspirations of the human heart." — Cardinal Christophe Pierre
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"Finally after years of accommodating those who dislike or reject the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, the Church’s highest authority took a definitive step to unify the Roman Rite."
Liturgist Rita Ferrone: Francis' move is of great strategic importance.
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"It does not strike me as coincidental that much of the Eucharistic Revival focuses on eucharistic adoration, passive in nature, and so offers an easy alternative to the active engagement of walking together synodally." — Bishop John Stowe
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Dorothy Day died on this day in 1980. We are constantly reminded of how much we can learn from her life's work, her legacy, her commitment to the poor, and above all, her deep love.
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Arriving first an intern
@ellen_koneck
has been an instrumental part of Commonweal for years, serving as our Community and Events Manager and later on our board of directors.
We're thrilled to announce that Ellen will be Commonweal's Executive Director!
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"The resurgence of an anti–Vatican II agenda in the last few years, and not just on the fringes of Catholicism, must be viewed as part of Benedict’s legacy." —
@MassimoFaggioli
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"Now the mantle of MLK that Lewis carried for decades has passed to Raphael Warnock, epitomizing the faith and hope of the Black social gospel."
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Today, on Dorothy Day's birthday, we are still inspired by her work (considered for beatification!) as social activist and founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, radically defending the poor and marginalized. Read Day's contributions to Commonweal:
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Alice McDermott: The all-male priesthood of the Catholic Church has become an outward sign of inner corruption.
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Dorothy Day died on this day in 1980. We are constantly reminded of how much we can learn from her life's work, her legacy, her commitment to the poor, and above all, her deep love.
A complete collection of her decades of contributions to Commonweal:
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"Francis acknowledged a well-financed and media-backed American effort to undermine his pontificate and said that it was an 'an honor that the Americans attack me.'"
@MassimoFaggioli
on the Pope & the Americans:
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In the American Church today, few figures are as outspoken about the need for Catholics to treat LGBTQ people with love and respect as Jesuit priest
@JamesMartinSJ
.
He and filmmaker Evan Mascagni join us to discuss their new documentary,
@Building_film
:
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If
@marcorubio
is going to quote papal encyclicals about labor and corporate profit, it would seem natural (& essential) to also mention unions or a living wage. But that would require confronting his own anti-labor voting record.
@gehringdc
on Rubio:
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"We are left to wonder why people were so eager to see victory in a story with so much suffering, why the story of a woman’s relentless capitulation to male desire was sold as a feminist feat."
@Dorothy410berry
on Molly Roden Winter’s 'More':
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Martin Gugino made national news when he was pushed to the ground by Buffalo cops.
When he was asked to explain his local activism, he responded: "Jesus said to clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty."
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"If
@Pontifex
is afraid of implicating his two predecessors, who promoted McCarrick and allowed him to continue in public ministry, he shouldn’t be. The truth is more important." - The Editors on
#ViganoTestimony
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Today is Saint Oscar Romero's birthday! Read the full text of his speech on the political dimensions of Christian love in Commonweal:
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The rise of Catholic anti-liberalism marks a regression in the ability of Catholics to understand the problem of the state and of politics in our age.
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The great Jesuit and Catholic historian John W. O’Malley, S.J. has passed away at 95 years old.
A groundbreaking historian of Church councils, Fr. O'Malley was a sophisticated scholar of Catholic doctrine over the centuries. RIP.
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Dawn Foster was a brilliant journalist and one of the most thoughtful and insightful Catholic voices in media. Condolences to all of those who loved her. RIP.
We are sad to announce the death of our dear friend Dawn Foster. Dawn passed away at home earlier this week, for reasons related to long-term illness.
Please donate in her memory to a charity she loved:
To get in touch with us: fordawnhfoster
@gmail
.com
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BREAKING:
@austeni
in an exclusive interview with
@Pontifex
, where
#PopeFrancis
shares his wide-ranging thoughts on the crisis of
#COVID19
and the church that must come out of it.
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It was in '06 that Fr. John Ryan, the original "social justice warrior" wrote his dissertation
@CatholicUniv
on the moral necessity of a living wage... that is, in 1906
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"Gay men remain officially barred from seminaries by force of a document whose reasoning cannot withstand thirty seconds’ thought."
@dwaldenwrites
: Catholic conversations about sex and gender are rife with nonsense.
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The editors: This election is not a time for American Catholics to stand on the sidelines. Donald Trump's presidency has been a moral disaster. He cannot be allowed a second term.
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"It is Pope Francis’s boldest move yet, and potentially the most transformative moment in Catholicism since the Second Vatican Council."
@austeni
: The upcoming Synod is set to mark Christianity forever:
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"Look, it’s 2020, so I’m just going to say it: the Catholic Church is wrong about gay people."
@MollieOReilly
explains her reasons for speaking up.
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The American Health Care Act does not pass the test proclaimed in the Gospel and endorsed by the pope
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The idea that Catholics in good standing cannot vote for Joe Biden is religious slander, pure and simple. Catholic Social Teaching cannot be reduced to any one political position.
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"I was a stranger and you welcomed me" -Matthew 25:35
"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” -Exodus 22:21
@EJDionne
writes on nuns and Jewish activists who risk arrest to stand up for migrants:
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The death of Cardinal Pell exposed conservative Catholic efforts to secure the reversal of the Francis agenda at the next conclave.
@austeni
on Pell, Müller, and Gänswein:
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In light of the sex-abuse crisis, "it's finally time to revisit the basic models of ecclesial organization that the Council of Trent imposed on the Catholic Church," argues
@MassimoFaggioli
's latest column.
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"Ratzinger also did not work to bring about the canonical and theological change that the sexual-abuse crisis made painfully and clearly necessary."
@MassimoFaggioli
considers the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI:
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“God meant for things to be much easier than we have made them”
- Dorothy Day
(ICYMI, here's everything she ever wrote for
@commonwealmag
)
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"I’m unapologetic about promoting social justice because that was and is the mission of Jesus." — Bishop John Stowe to
@gehringdc
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It is a mistake to see Trump only as a political leader. In 2024, he is also a cult for Evangelicals who no longer want to be Christians.
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"We must talk about poverty because people lose sight of it, can scarcely believe that it exists."
A sobering but necessary reminder from Dorothy Day, whose works in Commonweal we have collected.
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"Depression forces itself through the cracks of one’s life, finding the weak spots particular to the person it inundates."
@MatthewSitman
reviews a depression memoir like no other:
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The good news is that we are still a Vatican II Church: thanks to Francis, efforts by some to shape the Church in an anti-conciliar way have failed.
The latest from
@MassimoFaggioli
:
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"The professional Catholic right is made up of well-funded activist groups, anti-Francis bishops, and single-issue fundamentalists who have spent the past several decades organizing around the idea that Catholicism can be reduced to opposing abortion."
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"There are very few spaces in the Church where queer Catholics can be fully ourselves—spaces where we can speak the shared languages of both queer people and Catholics with no boundary between them."
@dwaldenwrites
reports from the Outreach conference:
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"Americans are, of course, the most thoroughly and passively indoctrinated people on earth."
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There is a clear conflict between the libertarian, free-market capitalist agenda and the pope’s proposals for more regulation
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"I don’t see any conflict between ensuring our LGBTQ friends and neighbors are protected from discrimination and being a person of faith."
Chatting with Michigan state Senator
@MalloryMcMorrow
, who challenges the Right’s claim on Christian representation:
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"If synodality can’t get young people interested in the Church, then what can?"
@MassimoFaggioli
: Students were once the engine of social change, but now they seem to be laser-focused on their studies and myriad extra-curricular activities.
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"In reading her, one sometimes gets the sense that she is less a novelist than a mystic for whom the novel is a metaphysical arena for staged confrontations with language."
@JaredMPollen
considers Clarice Lispector's ‘The Apple in the Dark’:
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Pope Francis knows that traditionalism is not going away any time soon, writes
@MassimoFaggioli
. Willing to accommodate it where he can, he will not give an inch on Vatican II.
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"World Youth Day in Lisbon will go down as one of the best attended and most impeccably executed of the seventeen so far."
@austeni
on an event that emphasized fraternity, ecology, and synodality:
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"Public compulsory health insurance.” That was Fr. John A. Ryan's proposed solution to the "evil" of the millions of working people who could not afford health care...in 1943
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"What’s new are the guns in the hands of a people being trained to set their sights on liberals and the various seats of our liberal, democratic government."
Randy R. Potts reviews
@jeffsharlet
's bleak tour of the Evangelical Far Right:
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The legendary Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor is our era's greatest theorist of community and solidarity.
For Commonweal, he discusses Pope Francis' exhortation to emerge from our cramped, fear-driven lives:
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"The resurgence of an anti–Vatican II agenda in the last few years, and not just on the fringes of Catholicism, must be viewed as part of Benedict’s legacy." —
@MassimoFaggioli
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13
56
Instead of behaving ecclesially, the USCCB has been behaving politically, ignoring fraternal relationships between bishops and fighting against the pope.
From
@MassimoFaggioli
:
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"Our rancid political culture is, quite literally, killing our nation."
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"Thompson listed all of the ways he as a black Catholic priest, as well as black lay Catholics, were treated as second-class Catholics in the US."
During Black Catholic History Month, remember the life of civil rights campaigner Fr. August Thompson:
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.
@MassimoFaggioli
: Priestly formation and academic theology are increasingly cut off from the real lives of Catholics. That poses a real problem, one that theologians must address.
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Remembering the deceased is an act of hope. Sharing our faith and experiences together can pull us out of the darkness and into the beauty of Jesus’ life.
@AvilaCosnahan
offers a reflection for the second Sunday of Lent:
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Alice McDermott: The all-male priesthood of the Catholic Church has become an outward sign of inner corruption.
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12
54
"There remains in Brandon Taylor’s work the ghost of belief: the hope, often thwarted but still existent, that coldness might become warmth."
@tony_domestico
reviews
@blgtylr
's novel of finish and style:
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In this fascinating interview from 1938, Commonweal sat down with Jacques Maritain, one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, to discuss the war in Spain, the state of American philosophy, and whether Maritain is a freemason (he's not).
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"If the blessings of same-sex unions were akin to an act of public disobedience, they were also an act of pastoral responsibility."
@MassimoFaggioli
: Where is the German Church headed?
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You can’t be sensitive to the LGBT community if you only issue documents about them without knowing them
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"My hope and prayer is that 'synodality' becomes the lasting Franciscan contribution to our Catholic vocabulary."
@BpStowe
on Pope Francis' vision for the Church:
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"Memoirs are written by survivors, and survival imposes a retrospective sense of resolution on a person’s depression that the actual experience of it entirely lacks." 5/5
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Commonweal has written extensively on the upcoming election. The bottom line is: we must elect Joe Biden; Donald Trump is unfit for office by every measure.
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The loudest Catholic voices speak incessantly of opposition to abortion and gay marriage. This is an enormous problem, writes
@EJDionne
, both for our politics and for the future of the Church
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Dorothy Day — the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism — died today, 40 years ago.
The theologian Michael Baxter on the many paradoxes of her life:
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How many of us can live under the severe commandments of the gospel like the early Christians? Who can imitate that obstinacy and perversity?
David Bentley Hart: The first Christians were not like us.
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New from
@MassimoFaggioli
: At no time in the post-conciliar period has opposition to Rome looked like this.
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Now on our homepage, the most exhaustive analysis of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church published to date.
Peter Steinfels deems the report "inaccurate, unfair, and misleading."
We urge you to read it.
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"What we share most of all is our vulnerability to cruelty and chance, unexpected ruin or sudden defeat."
One of our most popular stories this year was
@MatthewSitman
's gorgeous essay on left politics, human frailty and a depression memoir like no other.
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"As a convert, I never expected much of the bishops” — Dorothy Day, 1968
If United States bishops are truly interested in Eucharistic coherence, they must start with humility and mercy:
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"Trump’s presidential campaign was racist. His administration is racist. His ongoing campaign to win the next election is racist. Standing with Trump is racist."
@MollieOReilly
urges Catholics to follow Bishop Stowe on calling out racism where it exists
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"These are very challenging times for journalism, and especially for little journals of opinion." A note of gratitude from outgoing Editor (now Senior Writer) Paul Baumann to Commonweal's dedicated readers
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.
@gehringdc
with an intimate portrait of his mother's death in a hospice room...
...and a moving analysis of death as the advent of freedom
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Happy Birthday
@MatthewSitman
!!!! They say 37 is the new 21...so we’re gathering for a brief celebration in the office with appropriate refreshments
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Watching ‘The Mission’ thirty years on: Is there something new to learn?
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"I decided that I might as well join the Catholic Church because someone somewhere was pulling me toward that end."
Commonweal talks with jazz great Dave Brubeck about music, Catholicism, and liturgy.
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"There are members of the Catholic hierarchy who have subordinated themselves to Trumpism and the aims of his campaign."
@MassimoFaggioli
on the corruption of the word — in American politics and Church life.
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Today in 1989, 6 Jesuit priests were murdered for their involvement with El Salvador's poorest, under the allegation of subversive activity. But as Herbert McCabe wrote, "the likeliest model for the Christian minister...is the revolutionary leader." More:
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Thanks to the president's recent tweets, many Americans are wondering: Who is Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò? Well, we at Commonweal have got you covered!
Read
@MassimoFaggioli
on Viganò's latest efforts to undermine the Francis papacy:
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The Evangelical Martyr Complex in Song: Jesus Freaks & Donald Trump
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