Oh, look! There's a whole piece on this specific print (including the typography) over @commonweal.bsky.social 🤩 www.commonwealmagazine.org/paradoxes-en...

The January issue is here! Inside: - George Scialabba on the end of verbal literacy - Anne M. Carpenter on Balthasar and the Catholic right - Sharon Mesmer on Patti Smith - M. Anthony Mills on a MAGA attack on science And more! www.commonwealmagazine.org/issues/2025-...

"Fra Angelico found a new visual language to represent the Redemption as a story that encompasses both suffering and bliss." Susan Saccoccia on the Angelic Painter: www.commonwealmagazine.org/angelic-pain...

"Miscarriage is humbling. We relinquish control and say goodbye to a future we had envisioned for ourselves." Adrianna Smith Reig on pregnancy, miscarriage, and Advent: www.commonwealmagazine.org/watchful-wai...

"Crèches are not just cute holiday decorations. They call us to practice mercy and love for the most vulnerable in our world." @heidischlumpf.bsky.social on the controversy over anti-ICE nativity scenes: www.commonwealmagazine.org/ice-nativity...

New York governor Kathy Hochul has described herself as a “social-justice Catholic.” Social justice demands that she veto the state's bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide. www.commonwealmagazine.org/santiago-ram...

Trump feels entitled not only to his own “facts” but to a docile press corps that will repeat them uncritically. The Editors on a MAGA assault on independent media: www.commonwealmagazine.org/press-freedo...

My review of @lkatfield.bsky.social's S Tier new book "Furious Minds" on MAGA intellectuals is out with @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/big-ideas-no...

"The intimate business of reading, despite its many and increasing difficulties, is well worth it." @tonydomestico.bsky.social recommends some of his favorite releases of 2025: www.commonwealmagazine.org/books-domest...

Some of my favorite books of 2025, including criticism by A. S. Hamrah and the diaries of Helen Garner, for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/books-domest...

Lovely year-end notice from @tonydomestico.bsky.social in @commonweal.bsky.social of CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. "Sinykin and Winant convincingly argue that close reading isn’t just an intellectual but also a social and ethical practice" www.commonwealmagazine.org/books-domest...

"The age of gilded journalism was mostly smoke and mirrors, a magic show with no one behind the curtain." @kayaoakes.bsky.social recommends books on the ghosts of media past: www.commonwealmagazine.org/ghosts-media...

"Few novelists of any era offer as much perception, delight, and insight on every page." Happy 250th birthday to the incomparable Jane Austen! www.commonwealmagazine.org/nixon-emma-j...

"Fr. Justin began his homily with three words: 'I’m so sorry."' Max Foley-Keene reflects on a Gaudete Sunday Mass in the wake of a campus shooting: www.commonwealmagazine.org/brown-shooti...

"Just how should Leonine Christian Democrats think about AI, and what, if anything, can and should they do about it?" John J. DiIulio Jr. on Catholic social thought and the threat of AI: www.commonwealmagazine.org/faustian-bar...

In @commonweal.bsky.social: an article from a doctoral candidate in political theory at Brown who attended Mass at the campus’s Catholic center this morning. www.commonwealmagazine.org/brown-shooti...

A letter from Providence by Max Foley-Keene, now at @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/brown-shooti...

'The Catholic chaplain, Fr. Justin, had announced a Mass for the two students killed yesterday during a pre-exam review session.' Max Foley-Keene writes from Providence on a campus shooting—and a Gaudete Sunday Mass: www.commonwealmagazine.org/brown-shooti...

'Protests have always inspired me, but for most of my life, they’ve been for other people. Donald Trump changed that.' Michael Peppard: What it took to get this white suburban moderate off the sidelines. www.commonwealmagazine.org/peppard-no-k...

The latest decision on women deacons won’t help stop the exodus of young women from the Church. Commentary from @heidischlumpf.bsky.social: www.commonwealmagazine.org/heidi-schlum...

"There is no longer an audience for nostalgic celebrations, no time for a 'the way we were' kind of theology." @massimofaggioli.bsky.social insists that we need to find new ways to talk about Vatican II: www.commonwealmagazine.org/vatican-II-a...

"Saville brilliantly teases the illusion of psychological depth. But she also reminds us that in painting, we only ever see the surface." Jonathan Malesic writes on Jenny Saville's unsettling figures: www.commonwealmagazine.org/skin-deep

"I had become quietly discontent with the pieties of the academic life I had been leading, where religious belief tends to be openly dismissed as superstition." @dhananjayj.bsky.social: How sacred music led me to Christian faith. www.commonwealmagazine.org/preaching-ch...

"Vatican II will survive Trumpism and the collapse of the international liberal order." @massimofaggioli.bsky.social: 60 years later, it's time to talk about Vatican II in new ways. www.commonwealmagazine.org/vatican-II-a...

"Modern capitalism’s absurd concentration of wealth and power and its heedless pursuit of endless material progress were a snare and a delusion." Paul Baumann on the Christopher Lasch conservatives miss: www.commonwealmagazine.org/real-christo...

After attending a talk by Timothy Snyder and Rachel Maddow, I realized our faith says the same thing he did: keep doing the thing. (With thanks to Ann Garrido!)

Detroit—once a hub of Black Catholic theological innovation—now faces a new wave of parish closures. In a deeply-reported essay, Aaron Robertson asks: Can a smaller Church truly be a living one? www.commonwealmagazine.org/robertson-aa...

"The political dimension of the faith is nothing other than the church’s response to the demands made upon it by the real socio-political world in which it exists." From the archives — Saint Oscar Romero on the politics of Christian love: www.commonwealmagazine.org/political-di...

I’m delighted to have an essay in this month’s issue of @commonweal.bsky.social on faith and sacred music, a description in my part of my long journey from Oxbridge amateur chapel singer to practicing Christian as well as a meditation on the place of sacred music in our public culture.

For historian @timothysnyder.bsky.social, no one person, party, or tactic is going to save democracy. It's going to take all of us. @heidischlumpf.bsky.social: 'Keep Doing the Thing' www.commonwealmagazine.org/snyder-maddo...

By sending the National Guard to cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, Trump is trying to foment conflict, not diffuse it. We've seen this playbook before. Paul Baumann: 'Shades of Kent State' www.commonwealmagazine.org/baumann-paul...

"I guess I’m at the end of my life, of course, but am I at the end of the road in terms of faith? I have no idea." Martin Scorsese sits down with our own @alexwstern.bsky.social to discuss filmmaking, religion, and ‘The Saints’: www.commonwealmagazine.org/scorsese-int...

Thanks to the editors at @commonweal.bsky.social for asking me to be part of this year's Christmas Critics edition. This essay wound up being a Gen X anthem about the death of the gilded age of journalism. www.commonwealmagazine.org/ghosts-media...

"This Advent, to see means to grieve." Stephanie Saldaña on preparing for Christmas in a Bethlehem haunted by war: www.commonwealmagazine.org/we-must-cele...

"We have a secret weapon for making Advent real. It’s called a Jesse Tree." @mollieoreilly.bsky.social on a tradition that keeps Christmas overload at bay: www.commonwealmagazine.org/waiting-jess...

"By the end of the twentieth century, penance—rechristened reconciliation after Vatican II—had become a 'ghost sacrament.'" Bernard Prusak on the collapse of confession in America: www.commonwealmagazine.org/prusak-confe...

The December issue is here!🎄Inside: - @sohrabahmari.bsky.social calls for a Christian-democratic renewal—and four contributors respond - Aaron Robertson reports on Black Catholic life in Detroit - Editors and friends recommend Christmas reads And more! www.commonwealmagazine.org/issues/2025-...

The Christian- and social-democratic model represents the fullest expression of Catholic Social Teaching, inaugurated in the late 19th century by Leo XIII. My @commonweal.bsky.social essay on its prospects in time of Leo XIV, based on my Villanova lecture www.commonwealmagazine.org/future-chris...

I wrote about Thomas Pynchon's undead for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/more-more-more

"All of the most admirable tenets of Christian and social democracy could be traced back to the Leonine teaching." @sohrabahmari.bsky.social on recovering the wisdom of Christian democracy: www.commonwealmagazine.org/future-chris...

My piece with comments from @ordainwomen.bsky.social, Discerning Deacons and Phyllis Zagano.

"If we truly believe that the country is on the brink of a civil war or a fascist takeover, then a drastic plan of action is needed. We cannot wait for a war to solve our problems for us." — Wesleyan University professor @dsj2110.bsky.social in @commonweal.bsky.social

Is the Vatican shutting down synodal discussion of women deacons? Some worry about the latest ‘patriarchal stalling tactic.’ Reporting from @heidischlumpf.bsky.social: www.commonwealmagazine.org/schlumf-wome...

Amy Coney Barrett’s recent book ignores our national peril in favor of schooling readers on court and Constitution. Kevin M. Doyle reviews: www.commonwealmagazine.org/supreme-cour...

And I'll take this opportunity to resurface something I wrote years ago, also for @commonweal.bsky.social, about our family's #Advent tradition, the Jesse Tree. Ten years on, it's still the most important thing we do to prepare ourselves for Christmas. www.commonwealmagazine.org/waiting-jess...

"Globally, Advent calendars bring in $1.87 billion a year." @heidischlumpf.bsky.social: Can Advent calendars stuffed with hot sauce, stuffed animals, and panties still stir feelings of anticipation and mystery? www.commonwealmagazine.org/advent-calen...

"Cheever may well owe his daughter a belated apology. But admitting that doesn’t do much for those of us coming to this book hoping for new insights." Anthony Giardina on Susan Cheever's latest book for @commonweal.bsky.social www.commonwealmagazine.org/susan-john-c...

Mark your calendars! On Thursday, December 4, join us at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social's Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary for a conversation between Roosevelt Montás and Adam Kirsch on reading and the good life. RSVP here! www.commonwealmagazine.org/rootsdialogue

Extrajudicial executions, extortionate tariffs, multibillion-dollar bailouts: the editors of @commonweal.bsky.social on Trump's thuggish, self-aggrandizing, know-nothing actions in Latin America

Trump's approach to Latin America is characterized by lies, the use of extortive and illegal force, corrupt influences, and know-nothing leadership. The Editors: 'A Bully Abroad' www.commonwealmagazine.org/trump-editor...