Pros: Well informed religious, political and cultural writing from liberal Catholics
Cons:
Squishy, unreliable Catholicism.
The Bottom Line: Commonweal is a magazine of liberal Catholic religious, political and cultural views. Though the writing is informed and punchy, for the the Catholic reader its religious views are unreliable.
Commonweal is an approximately bi-weekly magazine (about twenty a year) of Roman Catholic opinion from a liberal perspective. A newsstand copy costs $3.00 and one-year and two-year subscriptions are $49.00 and $79.00. The magazine touches on a wide range of religious, political, and cultural issues with a particular focus on critical issues facing the Roman Catholic Church, religious orders and laity. The magazine is published by Catholic laity and is not affiliated with any religious order.
Each issue is generally thirty-two pages long, including advertisements for books, the Knights of Columbus, and such like. It begins with two or three pages of letters that are usually written in response to previous articles. Several one page articles from the editors, columnists, or selected guests (e.g. William Pfaff, Don Wycliff) follow. There are two or three longer pieces, including the cover story, each three to five pages in length, generally on religious, political or economic issues. The last ten or twelve pages are primarily devoted to book reviews with the occasional film review. The last page is an column of open interest entitled "The Last Word", written on a wide variety of topics.
The writing in Commonweal is what one would expect from highly educated Catholic laity and religious: erudite, informed and cultured. Writers include Fr. Richard McBrien, arguably the most prominent Catholic theologian in America and numerous other Catholic academics Given its leftward bent, the magazine reminds me of a Catholic The New Republic in its tone and writing quality. Readers of that magazine will find themselves reasonably comfortable in Commonweal, even if its Catholicity perspective occasionally finds them adrift.
Also as one might expect from a left-leaning publication, Commonweal's views on politics and economics are steadfastly in union with those of the Democratic party. A recent issue, for example, had a lengthy article on why Catholics can vote for Barack Obama despite his pro-abortion views, the gist of it being that his other policies have more in common Catholic teaching than do McCain's and the Republicans. Feature articles have also included defenses of homosexual marriage and women's ordination, topics that are central to "liberal" Catholicism (more on that later), and has criticized the Pope and Curia for its emphasis on central authority as opposed to a more collegial, less authoritative approach. The magazine is opposed to the war on Iraq, favors a living wage, and is otherwise consonant with the Democratic left. On the other hand, it has been known for sometimes striking defenses of Catholicism, as in a recent review of Christopher Hitchens' diatribe God Is Not Great, calling it "bullying and shallow" and " a haute middlebrow tirade, a stale venting of outrage and ridicule". Ringing prose, that,
I can recommend Commonweal to those of the Catholic left and those who support it. It is competitively priced, well-informed, and punchy. It's probably worth $49 a year to those who subscribe to these views.
However, the magazine's views are not reliably Roman Catholic, and indeed one writer had to admit as such when she wrote that she "attends a very Commonweal parish-and it's very orthodox, no matter what anybody says". I'll bet it is. In particular, the magazine has defended such issues as women's ordination and homosexual marriage, treating them as if they are both open to debate when they are, in fact, heterodox and off the table completely as a matter of Roman Catholic teaching. And as far as Humanae Vitae goes, fuhgedaboutit. It also continues to perpetuate the falsehood that there are two brands of Catholicism, liberal and conservative, when in fact there is but one brand of Catholicism, i.e., authentic Catholicism, and Commonweal's positions too often stray from acceptable orthodox Catholicism.
As a Catholic, while I encourage debate on many issues, there is no point to discussing issues that are closed if not heretical. Hence, I cannot recommend Commonweal to Catholic readers unless they want to spend a good deal of time and effort sorting the wheat from the chaff.
22 issues - Commonweal Magazine is an independent journal of opinion that has been edited and produced by lay Catholics since 1924.More at SpeedyMags.com
22 issues - Commonweal Magazine is an independent journal of opinion that has been edited and produced by lay Catholics since 1924.More at SuperMagDeals.com
22 issues - Commonweal Magazine is an independent journal of opinion that has been edited and produced by lay Catholics since 1924.More at Subscription Addiction
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.