Spirituality

Article

'The Habit of Gratitude and Hopefulness'

… of our own desires and longings is part of discernment, but, ultimately, a vocational … certain spiritual skills: to be capable of discernment means to possess interiority, to … attention and detachment. To be capable of discernment means to hunger for truth, no …

By Christopher C. Roberts

November 20, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Secularism and Modernity

Article

The ‘Raising Kids Catholic’ symposium continues

By Dominic Preziosi

November 20, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Secularism and Modernity

Article

'Grace Helps Them Through'

We are that family, the one with the very young, very active children who decided to come to your quiet, even somnolent Mass. We did not sit in the crying room.

By Liam Callanan

November 20, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Secularism and Modernity

Article

'Now and Then I Feel It's Working'

J. Peter Nixon in the first in our series: "I have tried to live my faith in a way that would make it attractive to my children. Now and then I feel it’s working."

By J. Peter Nixon

November 19, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Secularism and Modernity

Article

Getting Organized

These are days of hope for American Catholics, yet the Church in the United States and elsewhere is struggling to recover an effective voice in public affairs.

By Richard L. Wood - Brad Fulton - Christine Doby

November 4, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Article

A Mossy Graveyard

For Roger Scruton the church is England, an England he knew and loved in his youth and that he believes is dying.

By Selina O'Grady

November 4, 2013

Article

A Chat with Pope Francis

The transcript of the editors’ conversation with the pope has been translated from the original Italian into Latin, then English, then back into Italian ...

By The Editors

October 29, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI

Women in the Church

Article

Forgiven Sinner

By Dennis O'Brien

October 24, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Secularism and Modernity

Article

Faithless Generation?

For several years now, I’ve suspected that my entire generation had vanished from Catholicism.

By Kaya Oakes

October 10, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Article

A Sense of Mission

The papacy satisfies the sense of mission Francis has always had. Now his mission is to breathe spirit back into Catholicism.

By John Wilkins

October 2, 2013

Women in the Church

Article

“Mercy-ing”: A Starting Place for Vatican-Azhar Dialogue

By Jordan Denari Duffner

September 26, 2013

Muslim-Christian Relations

Pope Benedict XVI

Article

Our editors, and others, on 'the interview'

By Dominic Preziosi

September 23, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI

Article

The Current of Creation

The profound transformation of public life wrought by Christian charity did not come out of nowhere; it was an inheritance the church received from the synagogue.

By Gary A. Anderson

September 16, 2013

Jewish-Christian Relations

Article

Goaded by Doubt

In his new book, 'My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer,' Christian Wiman reflects on faith, death, poetry, and God.

By Paul K. Johnston

September 2, 2013

Article

The availability of prayer

By Michael O. Garvey

August 29, 2013

Article

A Scourge of Secularism

Do the essays by Leszek Kolakowski collected in 'Is God Happy?' have anything to say to twenty-first-century America?

By George Scialabba

August 20, 2013

Secularism and Modernity

Article

Mary Karr on prayer: "Just try it"

By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly

August 8, 2013

Article

An Act of Theology

Reflections on where American Catholic biblical scholarship has been and what direction it might profitably take in the years to come.

By Frank J. Matera

August 5, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Article

The First Encyclical of Francis?

In content, theological style, and pastoral voice, Lumen fidei belongs primarily to the pope emeritus, but not entirely and not decisively so.

By William L. Portier

July 22, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Article

Final Chapter, First Words

For Benedict, the theological virtues, prompted and assisted by grace, are the key to the church's renewal

By Robin Darling Young

July 11, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Article

Perspective and Spirituality

By unagidon

June 18, 2013

Death and Dying

Article

Featured on the homepage

By Dominic Preziosi

June 10, 2013

Domestic Affairs

From the Archives

Sexual-abuse Crisis

U.S. Catholicism

Article

'Catholics Are Different'

Over the course of six decades, Fr. Andrew M. Greeley—who died on May 30—wrote regularly for Commonweal. Here are excerpts from just some of his articles.

By The Editors

June 10, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Domestic Affairs

From the Archives

Pope John Paul II

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Loving Pugilist

You wanted Father Andrew Greeley as your friend and not your enemy. He was ready to do battle at the first signs of disrespect toward those he cared about.

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

June 3, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Native Daughters

By Kathleen Sprows Cummings

May 23, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Women in the Church

Article

‘Grave Ambiguities’

By Matthew Ashley

May 23, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Academic Freedom

Article

Nagel’s Untimely Idea

Assessing philosopher Thomas Nagel’s argument that "the Neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly wrong."

By Gary Gutting Kenneth R. Miller and Stephen M. Barr

May 23, 2013

Academic Freedom

Article

Behind the Tridentine Myth

By Thomas Noble

May 23, 2013

Article

Confidence v. Certainty

Many religious people feel a need for clarity. They need to have a sense that they are right, or at least on the right path and relatively sure of their direction.

By John Garvey

May 20, 2013

Article

Closing Testament

By Jerome Kramer

May 3, 2013

Secularism and Modernity

U.S. Catholicism

Women in the Church

Article

Readings for Writers

By Wayne Sheridan

April 22, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Redeemed from Death?

By Alice McDermott

April 22, 2013

Secularism and Modernity

Secularism and Modernity

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Claims of Conscience

By William Galston

April 19, 2013

Secularism and Modernity

Domestic Affairs

Secularism and Modernity

U.S. Catholicism

Article

Larger than Legend

By Michael W. Higgins

April 1, 2013

Secularism and Modernity

Article

A New Center of Gravity

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

March 13, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Secularism and Modernity

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Women in the Church

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Secularism and Modernity

Sexual-abuse Crisis

U.S. Catholicism

Women in the Church

Article

Letting Go

For Catholics and non-catholics alike, Pope Benedict's resignation—a gesture of relinquishing power—was done for the good of all

By John Garvey

March 6, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Women in the Church

Article

When in Rome...

By Thomas J. Reese

March 4, 2013

Article

Polarization, Church and Country

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

March 4, 2013

Article

Shock Therapy

Benedict's resignation forced the church to allow something that has been thought unacceptable for centuries, setting the stage for his predecessor to do likewise.

By Peter Steinfels

February 22, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Secularism and Modernity

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Women in the Church

Article

After Benedict

With the concentration of power in Rome, perhaps the responsibilities of the papacy are not simply too much for a person of Benedict's age, but for any one person.

By The Editors

February 20, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Women in the Church

Article

Benedict's Act of Humility

Benedict’s resignation was a self-denying act of personal humility. What we need now in Rome are acts of institutional humility and self-denial.

By Joseph Komonchak

February 19, 2013

U.S. Catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope John Paul II

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Women in the Church

Article

Looking Back

Four contributors, all of whom wrote for a previous series called "What Next?" which reflected on the start of Benedict's papacy, now reflect on its conclusion.

By The Editors

February 14, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Women in the Church

Article

The Paradoxes of Pope Benedict

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

February 11, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Pope Benedict XVI

Secularism and Modernity

Sexual-abuse Crisis

Article

Our Father

By Donald Senior

February 11, 2013

Article

A View from the Edge

By Bethe Dufresne

February 11, 2013

Muslim-Christian Relations

Muslim-Christian Relations

U.S. Catholicism

Women in the Church

Article

The Thorny Path

By Maria Kaplun

February 11, 2013

Jewish-Christian Relations

Domestic Affairs

Jewish-Christian Relations

U.S. Catholicism

Article

‘The Gospel Is Hard’

By Patrick Jordan

January 14, 2013

Women in the Church

U.S. Catholicism

Women in the Church

Article

After the Gun Show

By Jack Calhoun

January 14, 2013

Domestic Affairs

Article

Gained in Translation

By Elizabeth Kirkland Cahill

January 3, 2013

Jewish-Christian Relations

Jewish-Christian Relations

Article

Less, Please

By Gary Gutting

December 26, 2012

Domestic Affairs

Secularism and Modernity

Must Reads

Politics

More, or Else

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson offer a vision of a progressive future in which Democrats stop getting in their own way.

Bernard Prusak

March 24, 2025

Religion

Francis’s Church?

From an emphasis on the global church to synodality, Pope Francis brought an outsider's perspective to his twelve-year papacy.

Massimo Faggioli

April 21, 2025

Culture

‘The Church Is What We Do Next’

The final twist in 'Conclave' is hardly sensationalistic: it raises real questions about how the Church accommodates people outside binaries of sex and gender.

Mollie Wilson …

March 27, 2025

Books

Coming of Age in America

James Chappel’s new book offers a fundamentally optimistic guide to the shifting view and experience of aging in America.

Peter Quinn

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Collections

Francis and 'Commonweal'

Bringing together Commonweal's coverage of Francis's transformative papacy, from his inaugural Mass to a rebuke of J. D. Vance.

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