What does it mean to “have hope,” especially during challenging times? Is it something we can possess, like a talisman to ward off despair?

No, argues Norman Wirzba, distinguished professor of Christian theology at Duke and author of the new book Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis. Instead, “hope” is a verb—an action we have to do.

On this episode Wirzba explains how he manages to hope, even in the face of some of our most intractable problems—including war, migration, and the climate crisis.

For further reading: 

• Oscar Romero on politics and Christian love
• Vincent Miller on Pope Francis’s ecological hope
• Eric Miller on the fiction of Wendell Berry

In the wake of the 2024 election, many are wondering how to make sense of the results—including how a capable, qualified woman could lose to a man like Donald Trump, an adjudicated rapist whose campaign regularly celebrated a version of masculinity that many find offensively misogynistic. 

On this episode, Commonweal editor-at-large Mollie Wilson O’Reilly and Natalia Imperatori Lee, professor of religious studies at Manhattan University, reflect on what just happened. They also parse what the second Trump administration might portend for Democrats, the Church, and especially women.

It’s long past time, they argue, not only for men to confront sexism and misogyny, but to work to articulate healthy versions of masculinity. Trump’s election may be a massive setback for feminism—but how the story ends depends on our response.

For further reading: 

• Mollie Wilson O’Reilly ponders Trump’s 2016 election
• Regina Munch on why we can’t disengage
• The editors on why the appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh

The invitation-only Catholic prelature known as Opus Dei, founded in Spain in 1927 by the recently canonized priest Josemaría Escrivá, currently counts just around 3,000 members in the United States. Yet its influence, especially among rightwing Catholics who occupy significant posts in Washington, is vast. 

On this episode, editor Dominic Preziosi speaks with financial journalist Gareth Gore, author of the new book Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church. 

Relying on bank records and the testimony of whistleblowers, Gore demystifies the secretive world of Opus Dei, showing how it has recruited powerful individuals and harmed vulnerable ones in its quest for political sway.

For further reading: 

• Daniele Palmer on Opus Dei’s ‘ordinary secularity’
• George Scialabba reviews Opus for The Baffler

It’s no secret that there’s a mental health crisis affecting young people in the United States. Rates of anxiety, symptoms of depression, and even suicide attempts have hit record highs. 

That’s partly what motivated Anna Moreland and Thomas Smith to write The Young Adult Playbook, a kind of “self-help” book intended to help high school and college students think through the deep questions of life, love, and vocation. 

On this episode, Moreland and Smith speak with associate editor Regina Munch about their book, explaining how young people can live rich, flourishing, and meaningful lives. 

For further reading: 

• Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko on the good life
• Regina Munch on the advantages of marriage
• Brenda Noriega on synodality, young people, and leadership

The Trump campaign has made us all too familiar with the ideology of Christian Nationalism, with its violent rhetoric and racist undertones. 

Far less well-known, though, is the tradition of Black Christian Nationalism, a radical social and religious movement founded by Rev. Albert Cleage, Jr., in civil-rights-era Detroit.

On this episode, associate editor Griffin Oleynick speaks with writer Aaron Robertson, author of The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America. 

Blending history and memoir, Robertson’s book traces the untold story of Black Christian Nationalism while grappling with a question: what does Utopia look like in black?

For further reading: 

• Tia Noelle Pratt on Black Catholic parishes
• Shannen Dee Williams on Black nuns in Baltimore
• Gary Dorrien on the theology of Sen. Raphael Warnock

Corporate boosters of artificial intelligence promise that the technology will vastly improve efficiency in the world of work. But is that actually desirable? 

On this episode, associate editor Regina Munch speaks with University of Virginia sociologist Allison Pugh, whose new book The Last Human Job explores the concept of what she calls “connective labor”—interpersonal work that relies on empathy, human contact, and mutual recognition. 

In fields like medicine, teaching, and even chaplaincy, such connective labor is increasingly performed by machines. Pugh challenges us to resist this trend, both by deprioritizing efficiency and by returning to authentic human relationships. 

For further reading: 

• Miles Doyle on efforts to regulate AI in congress
• A symposium on our posthuman future
• The editors call for a moratorium on AI development

Garth Greenwell’s latest novel, Small Rain, is set in a midwestern ICU during the early days of the pandemic, as its unnamed narrator, a writer, experiences a health crisis and lies confined to his bed in excruciating pain. 

In long pauses between visits with nurses and doctors, amid the weird dilations of ‘hospital time,’ the narrator muses on his suffering and disappointments, but also the nature of art and the ‘adventure’ of domestic life.

On this episode, Greenwell joins Commonweal contributor Tony Domestico to talk about the novel.

For further reading:

• A review of Garth Greenwell’s Cleanness
• Another interview with Garth Greenwell

As the fall semester begins, colleges and universities are bracing for fresh controversies over free speech, affordability, and the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence. 

On this episode, Tania Tetlow, the first layperson and first woman to serve as the president of Fordham University, joins editor Dominic Preziosi to weigh in on what Catholic colleges and universities can do differently. 

If entering students increasingly hail from diverse religious backgrounds—or sometimes no faith background at all—that’s an opportunity for “mission,” pursued with openness, inclusivity, and a willingness to be proven wrong. 

For further reading: 

• Nancy Dallavalle on whether Catholic colleges have a future
• Susan Bigelow Reynolds on public scholarship
• An interview with former UC Chancellor Nicholas Dirks

Religious disaffiliation, the drifting away of Americans from their churches, isn’t a new story. But it’s certainly a true one. 

And yet it’s also not the whole story, as veteran New Yorker journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold argues in her new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church. 

Griswold’s is a work of ‘immersion journalism,’ reported by embedding for four years with a progressive evangelical community in Philadelphia. She stuck with the story even as heated conflicts over race, gender, and power threatened the church’s survival. 

On this episode, Griswold speaks about the book and the future of American Christianity, with Commonweal associate editor Griffin Oleynick. 

For further reading: 

• Brett Hoover on young Catholics’ waning religiosity
• Kate Lucky on the ‘ex-vangelicals’
• Julia Marley on the ‘Jesus Freaks’

The 2024 Paris Olympics have brought massive investment to the City of Light, including the construction of new housing, sports facilities, and public transportation. 

Yet we shouldn’t let that obscure a more sinister phenomenon: gentrification, which has rapidly transformed many of the city’s former immigrant and working-class strongholds into expensive quarters for the newly affluent. 

On this episode, Commonweal senior editor Matt Boudway speaks with journalist Cole Stangler, author of Paris Is Not Dead: Surviving Hypergentrification in the City of Light.

Stangler, who lives in France, explains Paris’s historical transformation, as well as more recent developments in French politics. 

For further reading:

• Cole Stangler’s writing for Commonweal
• Fran Quigley on social housing
• Max Holleran on gentrification and the YIMBYs

Alim Braxton, a convicted murderer who admits his guilt, has been incarcerated in North Carolina prison for more than thirty years, spending seven years in solitary confinement and many more on death row.

He was once hopeless, but after his conversion to Islam many years ago, he began working for redemption by advocating for prison reform and the exoneration of innocent inmates. 

Braxton is also a rapper, and just released his first album, along with a book, Rap and Redemption on Death Row, co-written with UNC Chapel Hill musicologist Mark Katz. 

On this special episode, Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan speaks with both Braxton and Katz about Braxton’s spiritual and artistic journey.

For further reading: 

• Dominic Preziosi on Biden’s broken death penalty promise
• David Bentley Hart on Christians and capital punishment
• Burke Nixon on the Texas prison system