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Portrait of Pope Leo XIII by Franz von Lenbach, 1886.

The Heresy of Americanism

Jack Hanson on the new pope and his namesake.
by Jack Hanson via The Drift on June 10, 2025

The Other American ‘Popes’

Before Leo XIV, the weird, century-long history of Americans claiming to be pope.
by Daniel N. Gullotta via The Bulwark on May 30, 2025
Cardinals walking through the Vatican.
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Why Papal Conclaves Have Drawn the Attention of Spies

Intelligence agencies have long gathered information to help their governments get a sense of who the next pope might be.
by Yvonnick Denoël via Made By History on May 7, 2025
Catholic activists burn draft files to protest the Vietnam War in Catonsville, Maryland, 1968.

Resistance Reexamined

The complex, sometimes romanticized, but ultimately prophetic Catholic peace movement has critical lessons for today's America amid a genocidal war in Gaza.
by Arvin Alaigh via Commonweal on April 23, 2025
A preacher preaches to Union soldiers in the Civil War.

Confession Eclipsed

On the rise and fall of confession in American Catholicism, and what the demography of today's Catholics says about the future of the faith.
by James F. Keating via First Things on March 19, 2025
A group of U.S. Marines crossing a rice paddy in Vietnam.

‘Commonweal’ and the Vietnam War

In 1964, Commonweal supported the Vietnam War. In 1966, the magazine condemned it in blunt, theological terms. What changed?
by Peter Steinfels via Commonweal on February 22, 2025
A row of nuclear missiles aimed at a cloudy sky.

The Forgotten Epidemic

The bishops once used their influence to encourage nuclear disarmament. Can they do so again now?
by Alexander Stern via Commonweal on December 21, 2024
St. Francis on the Brazos church.

How a Mediterranean Spiritual Movement Went Global

From the ruins of the Spanish Civil War to air force bases in Texas.
by Philip Jenkins via Anxious Bench on October 17, 2024
Members of the Mason family, St. Inigoes, Maryland, circa 1890–1909.

How Bondage Built the Church

Swarns’s book about a sale of enslaved people by Jesuit priests to save Georgetown University reminds us that the legacy of slavery is the legacy of resistance.
by Tiya Miles via New York Review of Books on May 2, 2024
Max von Sydow and Jason Miller in ‘The Exorcist.’

‘The Exorcist’ & Catholicism

What explains the traditionalist Catholic infatuation with ‘The Exorcist’?
by Paul Baumann via Commonweal on October 31, 2023
A painting of Mother Cabrini.

Mother Cabrini, the First American Saint of the Catholic Church

Remembering Mother Cabrini's humanitarian work for Italian immigrants.
by Nick Ripatrazone via Humanities on April 6, 2023
American Catholic book cover

Americanism and the ‘Roman’ Catholic

Daniel James Sundahl reviews D. G. Hart’s American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War.
by Daniel James Sundahl via The Russell Kirk Center on February 27, 2022
Portrait of Dorothy Day in black and white in 1916

‘Don’t Call Me a Saint’

In her lifetime, Dorothy Day rejected canonization for herself. Now revived, this bad idea would only diminish the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement.
by Garry Wills via New York Review of Books on January 26, 2022
Close up image of a Catholic leader raising his hand.

The Untold Stories of AIDS and the Catholic Church

Amid all the suffering and death, friends and supporters arose in unexpected—often religious—places.
by Eric C. Miller, Michael J. O'Loughlin via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 18, 2022
Joe Biden walking in a church cemetery
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Joe Biden's Harshest Critics Are Likely To Be Some of His Fellow Catholics

The fight between Biden and conservative Catholics will be about more than policy.
by Theresa Keeley via Made By History on November 30, 2020
Interior of St Andrew's Catholic Church in Roanoke, Virginia

Roman Catholic Dioceses in North America

How mapping Roman Catholic dioceses illustrates key concepts of religious ecologies at a continental scale.
by Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media via American Religious Ecologies on May 20, 2019

We Saw Nuns Kill Children: The Ghosts of St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage

Millions of American children were placed in orphanages. Some didn’t make it out alive.
by Christine Kenneally via BuzzFeed News on August 27, 2018
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The Real Reason the Catholic Church Remains Plagued by Abuse Scandals

In the wake of abuse scandals, lay people, not priests, should have more power.
by William S. Cossen via Made By History on August 23, 2018
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A Group of Catholics Has Charged Pope Francis with Heresy. Here’s Why That Matters

It's not that they're attacking him. It's what they're attacking him for.
by Erin Bartram, William S. Cossen via Made By History on October 16, 2017
A naked woman bathes.

How the Hays Code Took the Sex Out of Hollywood

A group of early 20th-century Catholics sought to impose their standards of morality onto the growing and scandal-ridden Hollywood film industry.
by Michael Koresky via Literary Hub on June 24, 2025
Photos of William F. Buckley and James Baldwin.

When William F. Buckley Jr. Met James Baldwin

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.
by Sam Tanenhaus via The Atlantic on May 20, 2025
Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn.

Blacklists and Civil Liberties

On the Second Red Scare and the lessons that it can provide for us today.
by Clay Risen, Miguel Petrosky via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on May 13, 2025
Enslaved people crossing a river at night.

The Power of the Dead: BaKongo Inspiration and the Chesapeake Rebellion

Sensitivity to the influence of BaKongo cosmology on Kongo Christianity can help us better understand the choices made by leaders of the rebellion.
by Ryne Beddard via Commonplace on May 6, 2025
Collage of school children, church windows, and a map of Oklahoma territory.

Oklahoma Is Asking the Supreme Court to Ignore History

The Founders had disagreements about the role of religion in America’s public schools, but there was always one line they would not cross.
by Adam Laats via The Atlantic on April 25, 2025
The “Visscher Map of the New World” including North and South America, 1658.

The Impossibly Intertwined History of the Americas

A conversation with Greg Grandin about his groundbreaking new book "America, América: A New History of the New World."
by Greg Grandin, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on April 21, 2025

Opus Dei, Embezzlement, and Human Trafficking

The Catholic order has branches all over the world, and a deep history of unethical and illegal behavior.
by Mark Oppenheimer, Gareth Gore via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 21, 2025
A Public Health Services physician checking a woman immigrating into the United States for illness.

How the Irish Became Everything

Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.
by Tom Deignan via Commonweal on November 1, 2024
Billie Holiday singing in a recording studio.

Decades After Billie Holiday’s Death, ‘Strange Fruit’ is Still a Searing Testament to Injustice

Christian and Jewish themes influenced the world of art around one of jazz’s greatest singers.
by Tracy Fessenden via The Conversation on July 15, 2024
Pope Francis.

Whatever Happened to the Language of Peace?

Pope Francis is the only world leader who seems prepared to denounce war.
by Sohrab Ahmari via New Statesman on May 8, 2024
Karl I of Austria.

Feeling Blessed

At the Habsburg Convention in Plano.
by Christopher Hooks via The Baffler on May 8, 2024
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