The Commonweal Podcast

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Ep. 49 - Capitalism Can’t Save Us Jan 14, 2021

Show notes

Can private corporations provide public goods? Can capitalism contribute to movements for social justice?

In her book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Georgetown history professor Marcia Chatelain notes that big companies like McDonald's historically have failed to deliver the social benefits they’d promised.

And as racism and white supremacy remain potent forces in American life—and in the Catholic Church—we should harness our power to care for one another, rather than our power as consumers, to bring real change.

For further reading:

· Three Cheers for Socialism, David Bentley Hart

· Authentically Black, Truly Catholic, Tia Noelle Pratt

· Many and One, Vinson Cunningham

Ep. 48 - How We Found Hope in 2020 Dec 23, 2020

Show notes

In an interview with Commonweal last spring, Pope Francis called on Catholics to meet “this time of great uncertainty” with creativity and grace.

On this special end-of-year episode, we’re revisiting four of our favorite conversations with Catholics who’ve inspired us to do just that:

- Susan Bigelow Reynolds on changing parish realities

- Stephen Hough on accepting his own sexuality

- Fr. Bryan Massingale on racism and white supremacy

- Ellen Koneck on the spiritual lives of Gen Z

We hope you’ll enjoy hearing from them again as much as we have.

Ep. 47 - The Hidden Cruelty of U.S. Immigration Law Dec 11, 2020

Show notes

Among the things Donald Trump’s presidency will be remembered for is the cruelty of its policies and actions on immigration.

While the incoming Biden administration intends to reverse these measures, we should hardly be complacent. The U.S. immigration system is expressly designed to keep people out.

On this episode, Commonweal contributing writer Paul Moses speaks with attorney and law professor Michael Kagan, author of The Battle to Stay in America: Immigration’s Hidden Front Line, about the illogic of U.S. immigration law, the need for solidarity, and the prospects for reform.

For further reading:

- Collateral Damage, by Paul Moses

- Trapped at the Border, by Joseph Sorrentino

- Progressives Have an Immigration Problem, by Tom Deignan

Ep. 46 - Broken Open Nov 27, 2020

Show notes

Sr. Simone Campbell, best known as the executive director of the NETWORK social justice lobby and organizer of the Nuns on the Bus tours, has been involved in political advocacy on behalf of the poor and marginalized for decades.

Less familiar, though, are the contemplative practices that ground Sr. Simone’s work—and that she describes in her new book, Hunger for Hope: Prophetic Communities, Contemplation, and the Common Good.

Speaking with Commonweal assistant editor Regina Munch, Sr. Simone talks about how the courage to confront our own brokenness can bring about personal and political healing in this fractured moment.

For further reading:

- Is There a Religious Left? by Kaya Oakes

- American Politics and Social Catholicism by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

- Griever-in-Chief by Paul Moses & Michael Connor

Ep. 45 - The Kids Are All Right Nov 17, 2020

Show notes

We all know the story of the “nones,” and the dire statistics about the decline of religious affiliation among young people. But these data hardly tell the whole story.

On this episode, managing editor Katie Daniels speaks with Ellen Koneck, herself a former Commonweal staffer and now head writer and editor at Springtide Research Institute. Their new report, The State of Religion and Young People, invites us to think differently about the religious practices and spiritual aspirations of Gen Z.

Sure, young people are skeptical of institutions and have lower levels of trust in traditional kinds of authority. But they’re also more open than ever to relationships that offer wisdom and support—and that’s exactly where religious leaders can meet them.

For further reading

- Further Adrift, Peter Steinfels

- Finding Our Way, Ellen Koneck

- Under Pressure, John Thornton, Jr.

Ep. 44 - Local People Oct 29, 2020

Show notes

Could rural America become a hotbed of progressive politics?

Luke Mayville, co-founder of the grassroots movement Reclaim Idaho and a lecturer of political philosophy at Boise State University’s Honors College, certainly thinks so.

His conviction comes from firsthand experience. In 2018, Mayville helped Idaho become the only predominantly rural state in America to approve Medicaid expansion in a statewide referendum.

On this episode, he talks withassociate editor Matt Sitman about that campaign, arguing that if we want to pass more progressive legislation, we should put our energies into on-the-ground organizing and local persuasion.

For further reading

· Do Something Big, Luke Mayville

· Drinking Alone, Jonathan Malesic

· Democracy in America?, The Commonweal Editors

Ep. 43 - The Election & Social Catholicism Oct 15, 2020

Show notes

We are at a perilous moment in American history, and public Catholicism must rise to the task.

So says E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post columnist and Commonweal contributor.

He joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi to discuss why American Catholicism needs to put aside culture-war rhetoric and return to its rich tradition of social thought—characterized by what he calls “radical moderation”—and how such ideas could play out in the upcoming election and beyond.

Suggestions for further reading:

· Radical, Moderate, and Necessary, E.J. Dionne Jr.

· The Faith of Amy Coney Barrett, Matthew Sitman

· Canons & the Candidate, Nicholas P. Cafardi

Ep. 42 - Killing Machines Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

Modern warfare has become an intensely scattered, depersonalized affair. Violence still rages and traumas proliferate, but often remotely, the carnage hidden from public view. So what’s the best way to write about it? How to convey the horror of armed conflict today?

Few writers do that as well as Phil Klay, who won the National Book Award for his 2014 short story collection, Redeployment, which is based on his experiences as a marine during the Iraq War. His debut novel, Missionaries, expands those insights through the interlocking stories of four characters living in Colombia, Yemen, and the United States.

In conversation with Commonweal critic Anthony Domestico, Klay shares insights into the ways that globalization, capitalism, and technological advances have made warfare both more deadly and less noticeable. A committed Catholic, Klay also discusses the sacramental worldview that undergirds his fiction, in which even death is “charged with the grandeur of God.”

Ep. 41 - White Churches & White Supremacy Sep 11, 2020

Show notes

For years, Black churches have worked tirelessly to advance the cause of racial justice in America. In many ways, their white counterparts have done the opposite.

White Christians are not simply complicit in racism and white supremacy, argues scholar Robert P. Jones. They’re actually culpable. Without their deliberate consent, white supremacy in America could never have been built.

That’s a shocking assertion. But citing historical evidence and contemporary survey data, Jones, in conversation with assistant editor Regina Munch, maps the long road white Christians must travel if they hope to ever atone for their sins.

Ep. 40 - El Paso: One Year Later (Part 2) Aug 03, 2020

Show notes

On August third one year ago, a 21-year-old white man from Allen, Texas, drove across the state to a Wal-Mart in El Paso, alongside the Mexican border, where he shot and killed 23 people and injured 23 others, the majority of them Mexican and Mexican-Americans.

The El Paso matanza, or massacre, is considered to be the deadliest anti-Latino attack in U.S. history, and one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

On this two-part episode, we talk with several people from El Paso about that day, about what has transpired in the year that has passed, about how life has and hasn’t changed along the border—politically, culturally, and spiritually.

In part two, we’re joined by Dylan Corbett and Marisa Limón Garza of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, and by Bishop Mark Seitz of the El Paso Diocese.

For further reading:

Night Will Be No More, Bishop Mark Seitz
Confronting White Supremacy, John Gehring
Injustice at the Border, a collection of Commonweal pieces

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