Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor discuss Spellbound : How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump with author Molly Worthen, professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Episode production and original music by Joel Myers.

Hosts and Commonweal contributors Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and Nick Tabor introduce the podcast and discuss the book Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular by David Hollinger, the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Editor Dominic Preziosi updates listeners of The Commonweal Podcast.

A central tenet of the MAGA movement is the Trump administration's "America First" foreign-policy agenda. To fulfill this agenda, it has slashed foreign aid, launched a trade war with the United States’ most reliable trading partners, and threatened to abandon NATO and our most trusted allies. 

Informed by Trump’s transactional approach to international relations, such actions flout the existing liberal world order, which has worked to promote democracy, human rights, free trade, and the freedom of movement since the end of World War II. 

They also betray the very idea of a shared humanity, which is profoundly antithetical to Catholic Social Teaching.

On this fourth, and final, episode of "The Counterweight," associate editor Griffin Oleynick speaks with Loyola Chicago's Miguel Diaz, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See under President Barack Obama, about the Trump administration's foreign policy, Diaz's experiences as a diplomat, and what the “America First” agenda means for the international community—and for the United States. 

Diaz also discusses how Catholic Social Teaching can counter this agenda by championing foreign policies that recognize the existing liberal order, support human rights, and act in service of the common good. 

For further reading: 

A little more than eight months into the second Trump presidency, many Americans today find the United States increasingly unrecognizable: a volatile and inflationary economy, rising political violence, and brazen corruption at all levels of government don’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

So how did we get here? What lessons can we learn from the histories of other countries, especially ones that experienced radical destabilization and an authoritarian turn?

To answer these questions, on this episode we’re speaking with Hille Haker, a professor of Catholic Moral Theology at Loyola University Chicago. 

A native German, Haker points out how the current situation in the United States evinces disturbing parallels with the rise of Nazism in Germany. 

She also details the intellectual developments that have given rise to the new right wing anti-democratic comfort with authoritarianism—and how Catholic Social Teaching can counter it.

For further reading: 

One of the most prominent features of the second Trump administration has been its bluntly racist actions and policymaking. 

Recent examples abound, from the suspension of asylum for migrants and refugees, the all-out war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in federal agencies and higher education, and the ongoing and increasingly militarized efforts at mass deportation, which have terrorized Latino, Haitian, and other communities across the country.  

This second episode in our series The Counterweight: Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching in a Time of Crisis features Fr. Bryan Massingale. 

He’s a professor in Fordham University’s theology department and a priest of the archdiocese of Milwaukee. He joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi to examine the ideology that in his view undergirds so many of the Trump administration’s actions: white Christian nationalism. 

Fr. Massingale’s remarks are followed by discussion between him and three other experts, Fordham’s Cristina Traina and Loyola Chicago’s Miguel Diaz and Hille Haker. 

Since becoming pope, Leo XIV has reminded us that the Catholic Church “offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching.” That tradition is especially salient now, amid the rise of Christian nationalism and of alternative interpretations of Catholicism among some high-profile  politicians in the United States.

As we confront the political, social, and spiritual challenges brought on by the second Trump administration, the moment seems right for a clear examination of Catholic social teaching by leading scholarly voices deeply rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition, especially its ethics, political philosophy, and theology. 

In this special four-episode series, a collaboration between Commonweal and senior members of the theology departments at Fordham University and Loyola University Chicago, we present four conversations, each providing a provocative, informative analysis of key political and social issues rooted in the understanding of Catholic social teaching. 

We’re calling it ‘The Counterweight: Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching in a Time of Crisis.’ 

Our participants are Christina Traina and Bryan Massingale of Fordham University, and Hille Haker and Miguel Diaz of Loyola University Chicago. Each episode will have a featured presenter, followed by a conversation among all the participants. 

Today’s episode, our first, takes up the purpose of government, an especially urgent topic given the radical departure from the principles and conventions of liberal democracy by the Trump administration. Fordham’s Christina Traina is here to explain how that departure is also a departure from Catholic social teaching’s more expansive and communal understanding of government—not just as a guarantor of rights, but a steward of the common good.

For decades, public support for the death penalty in the United States has been declining. But in recent years, the number of executions has risen sharply—and a majority of Americans still say they support capital punishment.

What’s needed, argues Atlantic staff writer Elizabeth Bruenig, is not just a deeper understanding of forgiveness, but the actual practice of mercy. Bruenig has written extensively on the death penalty in a series of articles and essays.

On this episode, she reflects on how witnessing executions—some botched, all harrowing—has shaped her thinking about capital punishment.

For further reading: 

It’s often remarked that America has become less religious, especially during recent decades. But what if that religiosity hasn’t disappeared, but just taken less visible forms?

That’s exactly what was happening in the arts in 1980s NYC, argues Paul Elie, author of The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s. 

As Elie tells it, the era wasn’t just marked by the ascendance of the moral majority and the authority of tradition—figures like Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan. 

It also featured subtle engagement with spiritual themes by the likes of figures like Leonard Cohen, Andy Warhol, Madonna, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, and Martin Scorcese, and provides a template for understanding where Catholicism stands today. 

For further reading: 

The swift elevation to the papacy of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost—known simply as ‘Bob’ among his fellow Augustinian friars—defied pundits’ predictions even as it was met with joy by Catholics around the world. 

It’s impossible to say just how Leo XIV’s papacy will unfold, though in his early Masses and remarks the pope has already voiced strong support for the continuation of Francis’s project of synodality. Leo’s chosen name signals his commitment to the advancement of Catholic social teaching.

On this episode, Commonweal contributors Natalia Imperatori-Lee and Mollie Wilson O’Reilly and editor Dominic Preziosi reflect on Pope Leo’s first week on the chair of Peter. 

For further reading: