The Commonweal Podcast

Each day we find ourselves awash in a sea of information. Our social media feeds, newspapers, and cable news bring stories of fresh catastrophe, clouding our memory and our judgment. Fake news might be easy to spot, but where can real wisdom be found? In this episode, we speak with award-winning author Barry Lopez, whose magisterial new book, Horizon, came out earlier this year. A longtime travel writer, Lopez has spent decades living with indigenous peoples. He issues a cautionary word about the dangers of capitalism and climate change, but also points toward the powers of human cooperation and communion with the divine as authentic sources of hope. Plus, our staff explains big changes coming to your mailbox: we've redesigned the print magazine, we're excited to tell you all about what you can look forward to in the new sleeker, longer, monthly Commonweal.

Summer's closing days are upon us. As temperatures cool and the days grow shorter, it's also the best time to hit the beach (or a nice shady grove) with a stack of books. In this episode, Commonweal editors and writers discuss what they've been reading this summer, touching on everything from David Hockney and Robert Caro to Jia Tolentino and Rick Steves. Plus, we speak with Mexican actress Gabriela Cartol, the star of one of this summer's best films, "The Chambermaid." It’s set entirely in a sleek high-rise hotel, and Cartol’s performance is a revelation, lending emotional poignancy and spiritual warmth to the cold world of capitalist exploitation in modern-day Mexico City.

There are some things we'd rather not remember: old wounds, moral lapses, humiliating failures. But there are also things we have a duty to never forget, like historical traumas and present injustices. Cultural critic Lewis Hyde explores this tension—how the hard work of "forgetting" can pave the way to healing and regeneration, touching on Buddhist philosophy, St. Augustine, and Marcel Proust. Plus, the editors challenge the US Bishops to stop mincing words and take concrete action on immigration.

We all want change: in our inner lives, in our friendships, in our politics. But what's the best way to get there? Less, as they say, is often more. In this episode, we introduce a new, leaner format. The editors weigh in on the crowded 2020 Democratic primary field. And California-based writer, teacher, and digital artist Jenny Odell explains the merits of doing nothing, arguing that contemplative leisure holds the key to meaningful activity.

This month, we delve into courtroom dramas and sanctuary spaces. Writer Casey Cep explores our growing fascination with true crime, and reveals Harper Lee's struggle with writer's block. Activist Felix Cepeda roots the sanctuary church movement in the history of Catholic civil disobedience. Plus, the editors discuss HBO's Chernobyl.

Novelist Alice McDermott, a self-described “contrarian Catholic,” speaks about her forays into op-ed writing. Pulitzer-prize winning author Paul Harding expatiates on his love of Karl Barth and the literary qualities of the Bible. Mockingbird Ministries’ David Zahl diagnoses our modern spiritual malaise and our foolhardy quest for “enoughness.”

Alice Quinn is the executive director of the Poetry Society of America, and is on the faculty of the graduate school of Columbia University. She was also the longtime poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine. Here she speaks with our associate editor Matthew Sitman about her work and her life in poetry, including her instrumental role in the beloved program that brought poetry to the New York City subways.

The poet Carolyn Forche is also an editor, translator and human-rights activist. Her most recent book is What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance. Nicole-Ann Lobo, the Commonweal Garvey Writing Fellow, recently spoke with Carolyn about the memoir, about her experiences during the war in El Salvador, and about what it was like to meet, and receive Communion from, St. Oscar Romero. You can read Nicole-Ann and Carolyn's full interview here.

On this episode, we’re marking National Poetry month by featuring conversations with three wonderful writers. Our associate editor Matthew Sitman talks with Alice Quinn about her work and her time as poetry editor with the New Yorker magazine. Our literary editor Anthony Domestico speaks with Shane McCrae, whose collection "The Gilded Auction Block" has just been published. And Nicole-Ann Lobo, our Garvey Writing Fellow, sits down with the poet and human rights activist Carolyn Forché, to discuss her most recent book "What You Have heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness & Resistance". And make sure to stick around until the end, when our senior editor Matthew Boudway steps in with a special reading of a poem by Les Murray.

Eula Biss is artist-in-residence in the English Department at Northwestern University, where she also teaches creative writing. She’s the author of On Immunity: An Inoculation, which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and of Notes from No Man's Land, a collection of essays that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 2010. Eula spoke with Commonweal’s assistant editor Griffin Oleynick about the spiritual challenges of racism, the meaning of “whiteness,” and the craft of non-fiction writing.

On this episode, Catholic journalist and papal biographer Austen Ivereigh talks with senior editor Matthew Boudway about the Vatican’s February summit on clerical sex abuse. Eula Biss, author of On Immunity: An Inoculation and No Man’s Land: American Essays, speaks with assistant editor Griffin Oleynick about the spiritual challenges of racism, the meaning of “whiteness,” and the craft of non-fiction writing. Boston College professor Hosffman Ospino explains how new generations of Latino Americans are reshaping notions about “cultural Catholicism” in the U.S. And novelist Kathryn Davis talks with literary editor Anthony Domestico about metaphor, mystery, and pilgrimage in her novel, The Silk Road.

Last winter, we sat down for a conversation with Fran Lebowitz, the writer, speaker, wit, and archetypal New York personality. Here you'll hear an excerpt from that interview, which lasted for more than two hours, in which we discuss the Trump presidency, #MeToo, former President Obama, the contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and the rapidity of change in New York City.

Dominic Preziosi sat down with Commonweal contributor Massimo Faggioli to get his thoughts about the upcoming bishops’ summit on clerical sex abuse, which gets underway at the Vatican on February 21. Contributor, Paul Moses, speaks with Marie Collins, a former member of Pope Francis's papal commission on clergy sexual abuse, about her experiences and insights on the issue. Associate editor, Matthew Sitman, interviews New Yorker staff writer Vinson Cunningham, and associate publisher Meaghan Ritchey and assistant editor Griffin Oleynick discuss the paintings of Swedish abstractionist Hilma af Klint, whose work is now on exhibit at New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

Peter Steinfels discusses the PA Grand Jury Report, a document he contends is "inaccurate, unfair, and fundamentally misleading" in its characterization of how church officials handled allegations of abuse there. Allan Lichtman, author of The Embattled Vote in America, discusses the complicated history of voting rights in the United States and how the Constitution is actually responsible for many of our current problems. And Commonweal literary columnist Tony Domestico interviews poet Danielle Chapman about everything from metaphysics to John Ashbery to Tennessee and Chicago, with Danielle's poetry read throughout the conversation.

Senior editor Matthew Boudway introduces special feature "Why We Came. Why We Left. Why We Stayed" — with essays by converts, practicing cradle Catholics, and lapsed or ex-Catholics. We speak with three of our contributors: Ross Douthat, Helene Stapinski, and Dorothy Fortenberry. Four editors discuss the books they read in 2018 and recommend to you in our annual Christmas Critics roundup. Plus, a reading of Cassandra Nelson's new essay about the lifeline that the liturgical calendar provides.

Reporter Dan Barry spent more than a decade crisscrossing the United States, chronicling ordinary lives and extraordinary moments for his column in the New York Times, This Land. About a hundred of these standalone dispatches have now been collected in a hardcover book of the same name. Dominic Preziosi talked to Dan about the book and also about the importance of journalism, local and otherwise, and what it’s like to be called an “enemy of the people” by the president of the United States.

The poems in Katie Ford’s fourth collection, If You Have to Go, implore their audience—the divine and the human—for attention, for revelation, and, perhaps above all, for companionship. Our literary columnist Anthony Domestico spoke with Katie recently about the poems in the book, including the sonnet sequence at its heart. It’s a great conversation—and hearing Katie read her work, as you will—really provides a sense of what poetry can do.

Dominic Preziosi and John Gehring wrap-up November's US Bishop's meetings in Baltimore. Our literary columnist Anthony Domestico interviews poet Katie Ford about her new collection If You Have to Go. Dominic Preziosi chats with longtime New York Times writer Dan Barry about his collection of reported essays, This Land. And senior editor Matthew Boudway moderates an exchange on cultural appropriation between contributor Rand Richards Cooper and intern Nicole-Ann Lobo

Meghan O'Gieblyn is the author of Interior States, a new collection of essays on topics like living in what some call "flyover country," contemporary Christian music, and the concept of "hell" and how it is marketed to the masses. Her collection is being hailed by writers such as Lorrie Moore and Daphne Merken; here, Meghan talks about her work and background with managing editor Katherine Lucky.

Emily Ruskovich's debut novel Idaho received wide acclaim in 2017, named a New York Times Editor's Choice Book and The Idaho Book of the Year. Here, she talks with Commonweal contributor Tony Domestico, who described Idaho as "a wondrous novel about the enchanting and terrifying wonders of experience: unexplained and unexplainable actions, the ways in which love can pivot to hate and back again, the strangeness of memory and loss and mercy."

This episode features a conversation between Meghan O'Gieblyn and Katherine Lucky, a pair of young writers whose essays on the life of faith are already receiving acclaim. Editor Dominic Preziosi and Assistant Editor Griffin Oleynick discuss his coverage from the 2018 Synod on Young People at the Vatican. Contributor Anthony Domestico talks to Emily Ruskovich about her 2017 debut novel. And Derek Jeffreys discusses his new book, America's Jails: The Search for Human Dignity in an Age of Mass Incarceration.

Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi talks with managing editor Katherine Lucky about the power of female rage in this political moment.

Staffers Griffin Oleynick, Nicole-Ann Lobo, and Meaghan Ritchey chat about the recently closed David Wojnarowicz retrospective at The Whitney Museum. Wojnarowicz was a multi-media artist working in NYC from the 1970s through 1992 when he died of AIDS-related complications. According to the exhibition's catalog, his work "documents and illuminates a desperate period of American history...his rightful place is also among the raging and haunting iconoclastic voices."

Julian Revie is a composer of sacred at St. Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel at Yale University. His Composition "Kyrie"—which you can hear in the segment— won the Francesco Siciliani Prize in 2016. In this segment, you'll hear him and assistant editor Griffin Oleynick discuss the process of musical composition, sacred art-making as a vocation, and even the theology behind "Kyrie," the musical setting of the penitential rite at the beginning of the Catholic Mass.

Senior editor Matthew Boudway and Dr. Alan Jacobs discuss Jacobs' new book The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, in which he recounts how thinkers like Jacques Maritain, T.S. Eliot, Simone Weil, C.S. Lewis, and W.H. Auden understood that their soon-to-be victorious nations weren't culturally or morally prepared for their power and success. Their work sought to articulate a sober critique of their own culture and and outline a plan for spiritual regeneration in a post-war world.

Contributing Editor Paul Moses speaks with Donald Kerwin, the Director of the Center for Migration Studies, about the Trump administration's immigration policies. Moses and Kerwin reflect on these policies in light of Catholic teaching, contextualizing the Holy Family as a refugee family with migrant histories in scripture.

The editors discuss their editorial "Injudicious," on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, subsequent Senate Judiciary hearings with Dr. Ford, and Kavanaugh's conduct therein.

In our third episode, the editors of Commonweal discuss Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court and the subsequent hearing with Dr. Blasey Ford. Contributing writer Paul Moses chats about U.S. immigration policy with Donald Kerwin, Director of the Center for Migration Studies. Senior editor Matthew Boudway and Alan Jacobs discuss his new book, The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. Assistant editor Griffin Oleynick and Julian Revie, a composer of sacred music at St. Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel at Yale, have a wide-ranging conversation about liturgical music. And Commonweal staffers discuss the David Wojnarowicsz retrospective at The Whitney Museum of American Art.

In our second installment, the Commonweal staff discusses the shape of future podcasts. Matthew Boudway talks with theologian Paul J. Griffiths about Roger Scruton’s latest book and Brexit. Griffin Oleynick sits down with Christine Emba to talk about the issues raised in "A Moral Economy—Faith and the Free Market in an Age of Inequality," a conversation between Cardinal Tobin and Jeffrey Sachs. And Matthew Sitman speaks with Cole Stangler about the populist turn in French politics.

Matthew Sitman interviews Cole Stangler about the recent state of French politics, and what it might suggest about the American political situation.

Griffin Oleynick interviews Christine Emba of the Washington Post about ethics and economics in light of Catholic moral and social teachings.

Matthew Boudway interviews Paul Griffiths about his recent review of Roger Scruton's Where We Are: The State of Britain Now.

Commonweal editors Dominic Preziosi, Matthew Sitman, and Griffin Oleynick speak with Executive Producer Meaghan Ritchey about this new project - why we're doing it, and what we hope the experience will be for you, our listeners.

In our pilot episode, editor Dominic Preziosi interviews Massimo Faggioli and Kathleen Sprows Cummings about recent developments in the sex-abuse crisis, Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell discuss Jonah Goldberg's book Suicide of the West, Anthony Domestico interviews Micheal O'Siadhail about his book The Five Quintets, and several Commonweal staff discuss the recent Alberto Giacometti exhibit at The Guggenheim.

Commonweal staffers discuss the work of Alberto Giacometti, who was recently the subject of a major show at the Guggenheim Museum.

Anthony Domestico interviews poet Michael O'Siadhail, whose book The Five Quintets was published by Baylor University Press in 2018.

Associate Editor Matthew Sitman interviews Sam Adler-Bell, Senior Policy Associate at the Century Foundation, about Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy.

Editor Dominic Preziosi chats with Commonweal contributor and Villanova Prof. Massimo Faggioli about the controversy raised by the "testimony" of former Nuncio Carlo Mario Viganò and why Francis's response to his allegations is, perhaps, the right one.

Editor Dominic Preziosi talks with Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at Notre Dame, about revelations of sexual abuse and cover-up in six Pennsylvania dioceses and what meaningful reform would require.