Podcasts

Father James Martin and Andrew Sullivan on the difficulty of describing religious experience

 by James Martin, S.J. April 27, 2026

In our conversation on “The Spiritual Life” this week, the author and social commentator Andrew Sullivan describes a moment of grace that he experienced on a beach during a moment of personal crisis.

I just felt something I’ve never felt before, which is not that God did not exist, though I was struggling with that, given so much horrible stuff had happened to so many good, innocent people around me. But it occurred to me for 15 minutes, [as] I knelt there in the sand, that God was evil. That’s the real alternative. And that was a dark night…. And all I can tell you, Jim, is that I got up after that and walked to the beach, and I did not get up of my own accord. I promise you that. I was picked up and told, “No, not evil.”

I was honored that Mr. Sullivan shared this personal moment of grace. But the words that caught my attention were “all I can tell you.” It was a reminder that no matter how articulate we are (and Mr. Sullivan, a former magazine editor, is probably one of the most well-known masters of the English language), in the end our spiritual experiences are mainly incommunicable.

 

Faith and Reason

Cardinal McElroy: Why the Catholic Church can and should judge the morality of the Iran war

by Robert W. McElroy April 28, 2026

A man carries a cross ahead of the caskets of Pierre Moawad, an official of the Christian Lebanese Forces Party, and his wife, Flavia, as mourners arrive in a funeral procession at St. Simon Church in Yahchouch, Lebanon, April 7, 2026. The couple was killed in an Israeli strike on an apartment east of Beirut late on April 5. Credit: OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters

In recent weeks there has been a vibrant and robust debate within the United States about the morality of launching and sustaining war against Iran.

Catholic moral teaching has been at the center of this national dialogue, and the statements of Pope Leo XIV on the war with Iran have been welcomed by many Catholics, recast by some and totally rejected by others. Because the war is a highly volatile issue in our polarized society, it is particularly important that Catholic teaching be clear and well understood as we seek to move forward to peace. For this reason, it is essential to identify and reject three major distortions of Catholic teaching on war and peace that have crept into our national dialogue.

 

Pope and President, at Odds Again?

Coincidental announcements on capital punishment underscore fundamental differences between Leo and Trump.

Heidi Schlumpf

April 28, 2026

Donald Trump

Pope Leo XIV

Religion

Politics

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

Pope Leo XIV appears in a recorded video address to participants at a DePaul University event in Chicago that day marking the 15th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois (OSV News screen shot/Catholic Mobilizing Network, YouTube).

The subject was the same, but the timing was purely coincidental. Last Friday afternoon, the U.S. Justice Department announced an expansion of the federal death penalty, just hours before Pope Leo delivered a video statement urging U.S. Catholics to work for the abolition of capital punishment. Nevertheless, the dueling messages were inevitably seen in light of the ongoing contretemps between the Trump administration and the pope, underscored by the stark difference in the tone and content of the two announcements.  

The 7 deadly sins offer a warning to religious influencers — and their followers

 

Opinion

The 7 deadly sins offer a warning to religious influencers — and their followers

Cathleen Kaveny  ncr

Calming Our Fears

 

 

 

Do Not Be Afraid 

Calming Our Fears

Monday, April 27, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

 

 

Father Richard responds to the question, “Why was Jesus not afraid?”:

Jesus seemed to know from an early age that we cannot build on fear. We can build only on life; only life leads to life. Jesus went to the deepest source of life. He gazed long and hard into God’s eyes; there, somehow, but most assuredly, he overcame fear. He did not find assurance that he would “win,” because humanly speaking, he didn’t. And I don’t believe that he found assurance that he was right, either, although we tend to think he knew it all.

Pew: In US and other countries, Catholicism loses more members than it gains

by Gina Christian - OSV News April 27, 2026

A file photo shows people praying inside Santa Ana Ixtlahuatzingo Catholic Church in Tenancingo, Mexico. Religious switching has affected Christianity's two largest subgroups, Catholicism and Protestantism, in 24 countries across Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America and sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new Pew analysis. Credit: OSV News photo/David Maung, file

(OSV News) — A new analysis from Pew Research Center has found that Catholicism has lost more members than it has gained in most of the 24 countries surveyed, while Protestantism has seen net gains in several nations, especially Latin America.

The shifts are due to religious switching, or leaving one’s childhood religious identity for another in adulthood.

Pew published its findings April 23, based on data from its surveys of 24 countries spanning Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.

The center’s 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study provided the data for the U.S., while international data was drawn from surveys conducted during the spring of 2024.

Writing in the Age of AI

 

Humanity on the Page

Writing in the Age of AI

Rand Richards Cooper

April 26, 2026

Culture

Books

Artificial Intelligence

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

Will “Certified Human” writing become an expensive, niche product, like artisanal cheese? (Lawreyantsis/Dreamtimes.com, edited by David Sankey)

In the long history of workplace automation and its displacement of humans, people have typically started really paying attention only when it’s their job on the chopping block. Up until about two years ago, AI’s intrusion into the writing world had barely registered on my radar. A columnist who had AI write her column (not terrible, but no Pulitzer prizewinner); the 2023 screenwriters’ strike demanding protection from bots; Google developing an AI-driven tool that could generate news stories, and pitching it to major newspapers: these developments were weird but not unduly worrisome. In August 2024, The New York Times undertook a fascinating literary experiment, inviting pop novelist Curtis Sittenfeld to write a “beach read”—a short story centering on a romance in a summer setting—while simultaneously instructing ChatGPT to write a summer romance “in the style of Curtis Sittenfeld.” Sittenfeld welcomed the challenge. “I thought going head-to-head with the machine would give us real answers about what A.I. is and isn’t currently capable of,” she observed—“and, of course, how big a threat it is to human writers.” I decided to use the moment to take stock as well.

German Church defends blessings document after Pope voices concerns

Natalie K. Watson

28 April 2026, The Table

Cardinal Reinhard Marx recommended the use of the blessings document in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Hubert Burda Media

When asked about the German guidance, Pope Leo emphasised that ‘we do not agree with the formalised blessing of couples’.

Church leaders in Germany defended a document on blessings for couples in “irregular” situations after Pope Leo appeared to criticise it.

Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of Lay Catholics (ZdK) said that there was no reason to retract the text Segen gibt der Liebe Kraft (“Blessing gives strength to love”) because it merely recommended offering blessings to couples who did not wish to enter into a sacramental marriage or to whom this was not available.

“Nothing more and nothing less. There is no possibility of confusion with the sacrament of marriage,” she said, insisting that the German Church would continue its reform process but maintain communications with the Holy See.