Our economy is based largely on fantasy, a flight from reality that has led to a series of unsustainable economic choices and the crisis we are now experiencing. In contrast, the idea of the (...)

A review of John Allen's new book 'Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church'

Many a baby boomer was raised on tales of the Great Depression, tales of sharecroppers, breadlines, NRA parades, and sparing a dime for a brother in need. These often played a bigger part in our (...)

Beginning with founding editor Michael Williams (1924-38), Commonweal has enjoyed a great deal of continuity at the top of the masthead. Perhaps most remarkable in this regard was Edward S. (...)

The Informant! both gripped and frustrated me. This is Steven Soderbergh's semi-fictional adaptation of Kurt Eichenwald's factual account of the 1990s Archer Daniels Midland scandal, a conspiracy (...)

Eamon Duffy is perhaps best known to general readers as the author of Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (1997), a one-volume history of the papacy from St. Peter to John Paul II. But in (...)

It now seems clear that political pressures have transformed President Barack Obama's health-care reform plan into a health-insurance reform plan. Some commentators have protested that this (...)

The former editor of the Tablet on loyalty, independence & the Catholic press

Catholicism and modernity has proven to be a volatile mix. Illustrations are legion, and perhaps as tiresome as they are inescapable in the daily lives of Catholics. The two Vatican Councils (...)

The Catholic bishops of the United States have historically been a strong voice in favor of health-care reform. More than fifteen years ago, they issued a statement that began, "our (...)

Correction In the otherwise very fine piece by "Sister X" on the Vatican investigation of U.S. women religious, an argument was attributed to me which is a very serious (...)