The Commonweal Podcast

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 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 like Lorrie Moore and Daphne Merken, and 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 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 Jeffrey's discusses his new book

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 exhibition at The Whitney Museum. Wojnarowicz was a multi-media artist working in NYC from the 1970's through 1992 when he died of AIDS-related complications. According to the exhibitions 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 he and assistant editor Griffin Oleynick discuss the process of musical composition, sacred artmaking as a vocation, and event 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 Lear of Our Lord 1934: 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 spoke with Donald Kerwin, the director of the Center for Migration studies, about the Trump administration's immigration policies. Moses and Kerwin ask us to reflect on these policies in light of Catholic teaching on the Holy Family as a refugee family and migrant histories in scripture.

The editors discuss their editorial "Injudicious," on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, subsequent Senate Judiciary hearings with he and Dr. Ford, and his conduct therein. And editor Dominic talks with managing editor Katherine Lucky about the power of female rage in this political moment. 

Featuring interviews with Donald Kerwin, Alan Jacobs, and Julian Revie, as well as discussions of the recent Kavanaugh hearings and the exhibition of work by David Wojnarowicz

Featuring interviews with Paul Griffiths, Christine Emba, and Cole Stangler