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 ...
Jul 08, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 153
It’s often remarked that America has become less religious, especially during recent decades. But what if that religiosity hasn’t disappeared, but just taken less visible forms? That’s exactly what was happening in the arts in 1980s NYC, argues Paul Elie, author of The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s. As Elie tells it, the era wasn’t just marked by the ascendance of the moral majority and the authority of tradition—figures like Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan. It a...
Jun 06, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 152
The swift elevation to the papacy of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost—known simply as ‘Bob’ among his fellow Augustinian friars—defied pundits’ predictions even as it was met with joy by Catholics around the world. It’s impossible to say just how Leo XIV’s papacy will unfold, though in his early Masses and remarks the pope has already voiced strong support for the continuation of Francis’s project of synodality. Leo’s chosen name signals his commitment to the advancement of Catholic ...
May 20, 2025•24 min•Season 1Ep. 151
Three theologians—Massimo Faggioli, Susan Bigelow Reynolds, and Terence Sweeney—reflect with Commonweal editors on the pope’s legacy. More coverage of the death of Pope Francis: Isabella Simon on Let Us Dream César J. Baldelomar on Laudato Si’ Griffin Oleynick on Evangelii gaudium
Apr 24, 2025•47 min•Season 1Ep. 150
Catholics listen to snippets of the Bible read every Sunday, but how many of them actually sit with and ponder the text? It’s long been a truism that Catholics don’t actually read the Bible — at least not as much or in the same way as their Protestant brethren. But that doesn’t mean Catholics don’t encounter it, whether in books, films, plays, or popular culture. On this episode, Fordham theology professor and frequent Commonweal contributor Michael Peppard, author of the new book How Catholics ...
Mar 27, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 149
What should great fiction do for us? That’s the question asked by Edwin Frank, editorial director of New York Review Books and author of Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel. Good books—and there were many written during the past hundred years—can entertain, just as they can give us pleasure. But great ones have the ‘power to breach,’ that is, to upset and provoke us, shattering our illusions about the world. On this episode, Frank speaks with Commonweal contributor and li...
Mar 06, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 148
In his first month back in office, Donald Trump has made cruelty toward migrants and refugees central to his agenda, while J. D. Vance has used his flawed understanding of Catholic social teaching to justify the administration’s plans for mass deportation. Their actions and remarks have alarmed many in the Church. On this episode, three guests tell us how and why. Massimo Faggioli, Commonweal contributor and Villanova University professor addresses the challenges for Catholicism in the second Tr...
Feb 18, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 147
Fights over federal spending usually follow a predictable pattern, with Republicans attempting to cut entitlement programs as Democrats seek to expand the social safety net. One thing that’s rarely threatened, though, is Social Security, a testament to the political clout of “older people”—formerly known as “senior citizens” in America. How did things get that way? On this episode, historian James Chappel speaks about his recent book Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, w...
Feb 06, 2025•42 min•Season 1Ep. 146
For as long as humans beings have existed, we have had a knack for forgetting—not only when memory proves difficult, but when it becomes inconvenient. We need only look at Donald Trump’s pardoning of the January 6 “hostages” for the latest, most egregious example. Why do humans long to forget? Why do we hide the truth from ourselves? What is the function of memory in democratic societies? On this episode, senior editor Matt Boudway speaks with Mark Lilla, professor of humanities at Columbia Univ...
Jan 24, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 145
As you probably know by now, 2024 was a big year for Commonweal, marking one hundred years of continuous publication. It was also an important one for the podcast, which for five years—and nearly one hundred and fifty episodes—has been bringing you reflective conversations with inspiring writers, thinkers, artists, and political and religious leaders. On this episode, we’re revisiting four of our favorite episodes from the past year: Marilynne Robinson and Christian Wiman on Genesis Anastasia Be...
Dec 27, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 144
What does it mean to “have hope,” especially during challenging times? Is it something we can possess, like a talisman to ward off despair? No, argues Norman Wirzba, distinguished professor of Christian theology at Duke and author of the new book Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis. Instead, “hope” is a verb—an action we have to do. On this episode Wirzba explains how he manages to hope, even in the face of some of our most intractable problems—including war, migration, and the climat...
Dec 12, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 143
In the wake of the 2024 election, many are wondering how to make sense of the results—including how a capable, qualified woman could lose to a man like Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist whose campaign regularly celebrated a version of masculinity that many find offensively misogynistic. On this episode, Commonweal editor-at-large Mollie Wilson O’Reilly and Natalia Imperatori Lee, professor of religious studies at Manhattan University, reflect on what just happened. They also parse what the sec...
Nov 26, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 142
The invitation-only Catholic prelature known as Opus Dei, founded in Spain in 1927 by the recently canonized priest Josemaría Escrivá, currently counts just around 3,000 members in the United States. Yet its influence, especially among rightwing Catholics who occupy significant posts in Washington, is vast. On this episode, editor Dominic Preziosi speaks with financial journalist Gareth Gore, author of the new book Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside...
Nov 14, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 141
It’s no secret that there’s a mental health crisis affecting young people in the United States. Rates of anxiety, symptoms of depression, and even suicide attempts have hit record highs. That’s partly what motivated Anna Moreland and Thomas Smith to write The Young Adult Playbook, a kind of “self-help” book intended to help high school and college students think through the deep questions of life, love, and vocation. On this episode, Moreland and Smith speak with associate editor Regina Munch ab...
Oct 24, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 140
The Trump campaign has made us all too familiar with the ideology of Christian Nationalism, with its violent rhetoric and racist undertones. Far less well-known, though, is the tradition of Black Christian Nationalism, a radical social and religious movement founded by Rev. Albert Cleage, Jr., in civil-rights-era Detroit. On this episode, associate editor Griffin Oleynick speaks with writer Aaron Robertson, author of The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America. Bl...
Oct 10, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 139
Corporate boosters of artificial intelligence promise that the technology will vastly improve efficiency in the world of work. But is that actually desirable? On this episode, associate editor Regina Munch speaks with University of Virginia sociologist Allison Pugh, whose new book The Last Human Job explores the concept of what she calls “connective labor”—interpersonal work that relies on empathy, human contact, and mutual recognition. In fields like medicine, teaching, and even chaplaincy, suc...
Sep 26, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Garth Greenwell’s latest novel, Small Rain, is set in a midwestern ICU during the early days of the pandemic, as its unnamed narrator, a writer, experiences a health crisis and lies confined to his bed in excruciating pain. In long pauses between visits with nurses and doctors, amid the weird dilations of ‘hospital time,’ the narrator muses on his suffering and disappointments, but also the nature of art and the ‘adventure’ of domestic life. On this episode, Greenwell joins Commonweal contributo...
Sep 12, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 137
As the fall semester begins, colleges and universities are bracing for fresh controversies over free speech, affordability, and the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence. On this episode, Tania Tetlow, the first layperson and first woman to serve as the president of Fordham University, joins editor Dominic Preziosi to weigh in on what Catholic colleges and universities can do differently. If entering students increasingly hail from diverse religious backgrounds—or sometimes no faith ba...
Aug 29, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 136
Religious disaffiliation, the drifting away of Americans from their churches, isn’t a new story. But it’s certainly a true one. And yet it’s also not the whole story, as veteran New Yorker journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold argues in her new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church. Griswold’s is a work of ‘immersion journalism,’ reported by embedding for four years with a progressive evangelical community in Philadelphia. She stuck w...
Aug 08, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 135
The 2024 Paris Olympics have brought massive investment to the City of Light, including the construction of new housing, sports facilities, and public transportation. Yet we shouldn’t let that obscure a more sinister phenomenon: gentrification, which has rapidly transformed many of the city’s former immigrant and working-class strongholds into expensive quarters for the newly affluent. On this episode, Commonweal senior editor Matt Boudway speaks with journalist Cole Stangler, author of Paris Is...
Jul 25, 2024•25 min•Season 1Ep. 134
Alim Braxton, a convicted murderer who admits his guilt, has been incarcerated in North Carolina prison for more than thirty years, spending seven years in solitary confinement and many more on death row. He was once hopeless, but after his conversion to Islam many years ago, he began working for redemption by advocating for prison reform and the exoneration of innocent inmates. Braxton is also a rapper, and just released his first album, along with a book, Rap and Redemption on Death Row, co-wr...
Jul 11, 2024•34 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Egalitarianism remains one of the core tenets of most liberals and progressives. But does the idea that everyone ought to be equal in the sphere of political economy also hold true for the realm of culture? Absolutely not, argues Becca Rothfeld, nonfiction book critic at the Washington Post and author of the debut collection All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess. The modern insistence that all cultural objects are “equal” is actually a symptom of our failure to create a society in...
Jun 27, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 132
In the past, having kids was simply taken for granted. It was just a thing a person did, like going to college or getting a job. But now, in the face of rising costs and environmental degradation, more and more millennials and zoomers are questioning whether they should become parents at all. On this episode, Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi is joined by Rachel Wiseman and Anastasia Berg, editors at The Point and co-authors of What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice. They explain (and...
Jun 13, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Can trees ‘hear’? Can flowers ‘see’? Are shrubs ‘intelligent’? A decade ago, these questions might have seemed absurd. But an emerging scientific consensus posits that plants are much more like animals than previously thought. On this episode, managing editor Isa Simon speaks with Zoë Schlanger, a staff writer and science reporter at The Atlantic and author of The Light Eaters. Schlanger shows how the study of plants—and the wonder their behaviors inspire—can offer a welcome alternative to the d...
May 30, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 130
One of the misconceptions about Judaism is that the religion is concerned primarily with justice and the law, not love and grace. That’s precisely backward, argues Rabbi Shai Held, president and dean of the Hadar Institute in New York and author of the new book Judaism Is About Love. Jewish theology, spirituality, and ethics emerge as free responses to a generous, loving God. On this episode, Held speaks with associate editor Griffin Oleynick about how recovering this more accurate view of Judai...
May 02, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 129
For decades, discussions of poverty and inequality in America have tended to focus on cities. That’s understandable—cities are often the places where income disparities are most visible. But as poverty researchers Kathryn Edin, H. Luke Schaefer, and Timothy Nelson argue in their recent book The Injustice of Place, traditional income-based indicators of poverty can mask the “deep disadvantage” faced by rural communities across the country. On this episode, they join associate editor Regina Munch ...
Apr 18, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 128
Vinson Cunningham is one of the most dynamic critics working today. Best known as the New Yorker’s theater critic and co-host of the weekly podcast Critics at Large, he’s also the author of the novel Great Expectations, based on his experience working for the Obama campaign in 2008. On this episode, Cunningham joins Commonweal contributing writer Anthony Domestico for a discussion about criticism—engaging deeply with a work of art on a personal level, and then responding in writing and speech—as...
Apr 04, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 127
We’re all familiar with the tired stereotype of the “God of the Old Testament,” a capricious creator Who subjects His chosen people to endless cycles of punishment and retribution. But in her reading of the Book of Genesis, novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson describes a God of gentleness, one wildly in love with creation and humanity. In this special episode of the Commonweal Podcast, moderated by senior editor Matt Boudway, poet and memoirist Christian Wiman joins Robinson for a conversat...
Mar 21, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 126
The past year or so hasn’t been the best one for higher education. Debates over affirmative action, free speech, and affordability, combined with recent cuts to the humanities, have led many to wonder what the future holds. Here to speak about all of this is Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and author of City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University. Dirks argues that we certainly need structural change. Even more important is that colleges ...
Mar 07, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Recent weeks have seen an intensification of the Republican campaign against Catholic groups that offer assistance to migrants and refugees along the southern border. Last month, Texas state attorney general Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit against Annunciation House, a network of houses of hospitality run by Catholic volunteers in El Paso, Texas. On this special episode, activist Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, speaks with associate editor Regina Munch about the recent controversy—a...
Mar 04, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 124
