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In September 1988, Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the archbishop of Detroit, announced via a closed-circuit television broadcast that the archdiocese would close dozens of inner-city parishes in Detroit within a year. Churches on the city’s predominantly Black east side would be disproportionately affected.
The announcement triggered an immediate outcry: parishioners met at Sacred Heart, Detroit's Black Catholic “mother church,” and held vigils outside locked churches; the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance became the organizing hub of resistance; protestors marched up and down Woodward Avenue; and a few local residents planted mums outside the cardinal’s residence, one for each parish the archdiocese eventually closed.
In the second episode of "The City and the Cross," host and Commonweal Centennial Fellow Aaron Robertson chronicles the community organizers who coordinated these efforts, a journalist who covered the story, the Catholic priests caught between their vows of obedience and their commitment to Black parishioners, and the prominent Black Catholic leader—a former Black Panther—who had to deliver the news of the parish closures to the communities he faithfully tried to serve.
Featured Voices:
Walter Hurley, Cardinal Szoka's chief of staff, who oversaw the implementation of the closures;
Patricia Montemurri, a Detroit Free Press reporter who covered the Catholic Church in Detroit for decades;
Father Norm Thomas, the Lebanese American pastor of Sacred Heart Church and a co-founder of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance (DCPA), who became the public face of the fight against the closures (archival);
Cathey DeSantis, a former nun who became one of the lead organizers of the DCPA;
Eric Blount, a Sacred Heart parishioner and minister who became an outspoken public voice against the archdiocese's plan
Frances May, a Black laywoman who co-led the Alliance for Detroit Churches and directly challenged Cardinal Szoka's authority (archival);
Wyatt Jones III, whose father Wyatt Jones Jr. delivered the news of the closures to the communities he had devoted his life to serving;
Michelle McKinney and her mother Jackie Mahome, who watched St. Agnes—the church where Jackie had built pioneering Black history programs—be merged out of existence. -
What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope?
These questions, originally formulated by philosopher Immanuel Kant, are some of the most essential ones that we ask. Attempting to answer them can take a lifetime, if we can answer them at all.
On this episode, we’re featuring an interview with Christopher Beha, the novelist and former editor of Harper’s Magazine whose new book, Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, offers an account of how he has grappled with these same questions.
Beha grew up Catholic, but became a committed atheist in college after his twin brother was nearly killed in a car accident, and he himself was diagnosed with a serious illness.
Beha’s journey through rival forms of atheism—scientific materialism and romantic idealism—and the experience of falling in love ultimately led him back to Catholicism.
Here, shares why he believes Catholicism offers a complete and coherent picture of reality.
For further reading:
Costica Bradatan on the emotional history of atheism
Rand Richards Cooper speaks with Beha about his novels
George Scialabba on the romantic poets -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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In the first episode of Commonweal's new podcast series, The City and the Cross, host and inaugural Centennial Fellow Aaron Robertson traces the origins and flowering of Black Catholic Detroit throughout the twentieth century—from the era of Jim Crow, when Black Catholics were regularly excluded from white parishes, through the 1960s and 1970s, when the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council coincided with the civil-rights and Black Power movements.
Robertson speaks with the musicians who transformed Catholic liturgy by bringing gospel into the sanctuary, the parishioners who built Black Catholic communities from scratch, and the activists who compelled the local Church to recognize Black leadership.
For more information about the episode, click here. To learn more about Commonweal's Centennial Fellowship, click here. -
In Commonweal's first narrative podcast series, inaugural Centennial Fellow Aaron Robertson chronicles the rise, erosion, and defiant survival of Black Catholic Detroit—a community that led its own spiritual renaissance in the 1960s and 1970s only to watch the institutional Church fail to sustain it over subsequent decades.
The three-part series premieres Wednesday, June 10. -
For as long as humans have been able to write, they’ve made maps.
Sometimes maps show paths to the sacred. More often, they depict borders and boundaries, becoming tools of exclusion and control.
Not so for Sandy Rodriguez, a third-generation Chicana artist based in Los Angeles.
Her work, made with traditional indigenous paper and pigments, offers a pointed alternative to the map of the United States of America as we know it.
On this episode, Rodriguez speaks with Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan and Griffin Oleynick.
She shows how the land—la tierra insurgente—can rise up and resist the violence carried out by ICE and the Trump administration against our immigrant neighbors.
Plus, Commonweal Senior Correspondent Heidi Schlumpf delivers a roundup of the latest Catholic news.
For further reading:
Claudia Avila Cosnahan on the siege of Los Angeles
Nicole-Ann Lobo on Chicana artist-activist Yolanda López
Alejandro Anreus on the Hispanic Society Museum and Library -
As bad as things have gotten for democracy in America, it no longer suffices to simply denounce those in power. Nor is it enough to march, call members of Congress, or vote, important though all of those things are.
Instead we have to find new ways of building power—a process that begins with grassroots community organizing. But what exactly does that look like?
On this episode, Commonweal Mission and Partnerships director Claudia Avila Cosnahan is joined by two organizers: Nicholas Hayes-Mota, a public theologian and professor at Santa Clara University, and Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, co-founder of the Chicago-based Coalition for Spiritual and Public Life and the author of a new book on organizing.
Besides explaining the history of organizing in America, and arguing for its necessity, Hayes-Mota and Okinczyc-Cruz share how organizing can also help the Catholic Church advocate for justice and peace throughout the world.
For further reading:
Claudia Avila Cosnahan on the Chavez revelations
Heidi Sclumpf on CSPL’s Mass outside an ICE facility
Joanna Arellano on the spiritual solace of organizing -
Catholics have been thinking about vocations for a long time—and not only in terms of becoming a priest or member of a religious order.
The Church teaches that every person is called by God to do something particular, to play some unique role in the ongoing creation and salvation of the world.
But what happens when our working lives don't align with our true vocations? What should we do when we find ourselves stuck doing jobs we don’t like?
Fr. James Martin knows something about that, having spent his teenage summers and most of his twenties doing a variety of odd jobs.
It’s the subject of his new book, Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest.
On this episode, Fr. Martin joins associate editor Griffin Oleynick to speak about what that work has meant to him, and how he still draws from its lessons in humility and grace.
Plus: Heidi Schlumpf reports on the latest developments in American Catholicism, including the Trump administration’s conflict with the Vatican, the recent rise in Catholic conversions, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Women’s Ordination Conference.
For further reading:
Ryan Burge on the “great sort” in American religion
Heidi Schlumpf on the Women’s Ordination Conference
Massimo Faggioli on “cool” Catholicism and new baptisms -
Too many of us spend too much time on our phones.
We know by now—through whistleblower reports, congressional hearings, and our daily lived experience—that these devices, neutral in themselves, can and often do cause serious harm.
Can we learn to live without them again? Would we even want to?
On this episode, D. Graham Burnett, a professor of the history of science at Princeton and co-author, with the Friends of Attention, of the new book Attensity: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement, speaks with associate editor Regina Munch about how we got into this predicament, and where we should go.
Burnett argues that before we can answer questions like those, we first need to understand how major tech firms have used “human fracking” to amass billions of dollars in profit.
Resistance, Burnett says, is indeed possible: we can take back our brains, and our lives, but only if we’re willing to fight for the human activities and habits of mind that nourish real connections with ourselves and others.
For further reading:
Alexander Stern on AI and the crisis of meaning
Antonio Spadaro on Pope Leo’s critique of Silicon Valley
Antón Barba-Kay on how the concept of attention has evolved -
When he was missioned to Beirut last fall, Fr. Doug Jones, a recently ordained Jesuit priest, expected to spend his time conducting research and administering sacraments.
But since the beginning of Israel’s war with Hezbollah on March 2, Fr. Jones finds himself scanning social media for air strike warnings and handing out towels to migrants and other displaced people living in his parish church.
Israel has been intensifying its attacks on Lebanon for more than one month, and has made no secret of its ambitions to invade and eventually annex the southern part of the country.
Meanwhile more than twelve hundred Lebanese have been killed and one million have been displaced—a growing humanitarian catastrophe with no end in sight.
On this episode, Fr. Jones speaks from Beirut with associate editor Griffin Oleynick about the war in Lebanon, and how he and the Church there have responded.
For further reading:
The editors condemn Trump’s war on Iran
Joseph Amar on Christianity in the Middle East
Zeead Yaghi explains the economic toll of Lebanese sectarianism -
Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor chat with Gary Dorrien, professor at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, about the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson and the Black social gospel tradition. They explore Dorrien's own intellectual journey from rural Michigan to the academy, his groundbreaking trilogy on the Black social gospel, Jackson's relationship with Martin Luther King Jr., the Rainbow Coalition presidential campaigns of the 1980s, and what Jackson's career reveals about the enduring ties between the Black church and progressive politics.Episode production and original music by Joel Myers.
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Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor chat with Jonathan Sheehan, professor of European history at UC Berkeley, about his new book, On the Altar: A History of Sacrifice from the Sacred to the Secular (Princeton University Press). Together, they explore the long, contested history of Christian sacrifice, from the early church and the cult of the martyrs through the Reformation and into the secular modern world—and discuss what the language of sacrifice still offers us today.
Episode production and original music by Joel Myers. -
Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor chat with reporter Daniel Silliman about his tenure at Christianity Today, his bombshell reporting on Ravi Zacharias, the current state of Evangelicals—and more.
Episode production and original music by Joel Myers. -
Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor discuss Spellbound : How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump with author Molly Worthen, professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Episode production and original music by Joel Myers. -
Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor introduce the podcast and discuss the book Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular by David Hollinger, the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Editor Dominic Preziosi updates listeners of The Commonweal Podcast.
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A central tenet of the MAGA movement is the Trump administration's "America First" foreign-policy agenda. To fulfill this agenda, it has slashed foreign aid, launched a trade war with the United States’ most reliable trading partners, and threatened to abandon NATO and our most trusted allies.
Informed by Trump’s transactional approach to international relations, such actions flout the existing liberal world order, which has worked to promote democracy, human rights, free trade, and the freedom of movement since the end of World War II.
They also betray the very idea of a shared humanity, which is profoundly antithetical to Catholic Social Teaching.
On this fourth, and final, episode of "The Counterweight," associate editor Griffin Oleynick speaks with Loyola Chicago's Miguel Diaz, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See under President Barack Obama, about the Trump administration's foreign policy, Diaz's experiences as a diplomat, and what the “America First” agenda means for the international community—and for the United States.
Diaz also discusses how Catholic Social Teaching can counter this agenda by championing foreign policies that recognize the existing liberal order, support human rights, and act in service of the common good.
For further reading:
Andrew J. Bachevich on Biden's foreign policy
William Pfaff on the limits and dangers of American power abroad
The Editors on Pacem in Terris -
A little more than eight months into the second Trump presidency, many Americans today find the United States increasingly unrecognizable: a volatile and inflationary economy, rising political violence, and brazen corruption at all levels of government don’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
So how did we get here? What lessons can we learn from the histories of other countries, especially ones that experienced radical destabilization and an authoritarian turn?
To answer these questions, on this episode we’re speaking with Hille Haker, a professor of Catholic Moral Theology at Loyola University Chicago.
A native German, Haker points out how the current situation in the United States evinces disturbing parallels with the rise of Nazism in Germany.
She also details the intellectual developments that have given rise to the new right wing anti-democratic comfort with authoritarianism—and how Catholic Social Teaching can counter it.
For further reading:
Eugene McCarraher on the perils of Christian post-liberalism
A Commonweal symposium on the work of Patrick Deneen
Philip Jeffery on leaving behind the new right -
One of the most prominent features of the second Trump administration has been its bluntly racist actions and policymaking.
Recent examples abound, from the suspension of asylum for migrants and refugees, the all-out war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in federal agencies and higher education, and the ongoing and increasingly militarized efforts at mass deportation, which have terrorized Latino, Haitian, and other communities across the country.
This second episode in our series The Counterweight: Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching in a Time of Crisis features Fr. Bryan Massingale.
He’s a professor in Fordham University’s theology department and a priest of the archdiocese of Milwaukee. He joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi to examine the ideology that in his view undergirds so many of the Trump administration’s actions: white Christian nationalism.
Fr. Massingale’s remarks are followed by discussion between him and three other experts, Fordham’s Cristina Traina and Loyola Chicago’s Miguel Diaz and Hille Haker. -
Since becoming pope, Leo XIV has reminded us that the Catholic Church “offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching.” That tradition is especially salient now, amid the rise of Christian nationalism and of alternative interpretations of Catholicism among some high-profile politicians in the United States.
As we confront the political, social, and spiritual challenges brought on by the second Trump administration, the moment seems right for a clear examination of Catholic social teaching by leading scholarly voices deeply rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition, especially its ethics, political philosophy, and theology.
In this special four-episode series, a collaboration between Commonweal and senior members of the theology departments at Fordham University and Loyola University Chicago, we present four conversations, each providing a provocative, informative analysis of key political and social issues rooted in the understanding of Catholic social teaching.
We’re calling it ‘The Counterweight: Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching in a Time of Crisis.’
Our participants are Christina Traina and Bryan Massingale of Fordham University, and Hille Haker and Miguel Diaz of Loyola University Chicago. Each episode will have a featured presenter, followed by a conversation among all the participants.
Today’s episode, our first, takes up the purpose of government, an especially urgent topic given the radical departure from the principles and conventions of liberal democracy by the Trump administration. Fordham’s Christina Traina is here to explain how that departure is also a departure from Catholic social teaching’s more expansive and communal understanding of government—not just as a guarantor of rights, but a steward of the common good. -
For decades, public support for the death penalty in the United States has been declining. But in recent years, the number of executions has risen sharply—and a majority of Americans still say they support capital punishment.
What’s needed, argues Atlantic staff writer Elizabeth Bruenig, is not just a deeper understanding of forgiveness, but the actual practice of mercy. Bruenig has written extensively on the death penalty in a series of articles and essays.
On this episode, she reflects on how witnessing executions—some botched, all harrowing—has shaped her thinking about capital punishment.
For further reading:
Elizabeth Bruenig’s July cover story for The Atlantic
David Bentley Hart on Christianity and the death penalty
The Editors on Pope Francis’s declaration on capital punishment - Visa fler
