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Catholic social teaching

The problem with J.D. Vance’s Catholicism

John Fea   |  February 11, 2025

Here is Elizabeth Bruenig at The Atlantic: Late last month, hundreds of leaders from Catholic relief and aid organizations met for the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, D.C. What ensued was “a scene of real panic,” Stephen Schneck, […]

Pope Francis: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are “against life”

John Fea   |  September 13, 2024

On a recent flight from Singapore to Rome, Anna Matranga of CBS News had a question for Pope Francis: Your Holiness, you have always spoken in defence of the dignity of life. In Timor-Leste, which has a high birth rate, […]

Pope Francis on Texas immigration policy: “That is madness. Sheer madness”

John Fea   |  May 21, 2024

Over at Religion News Service, Claire GiangravĂ© reports on Nora O’Donnell’s 60 Minutes interview with Pope Francis. Here is a taste: Conservative opposition to this pontificate by bishops in the United States is “a suicidal attitude” that clings to the […]

Episode 54: “Respecting life, but not all costs”

John Fea   |  April 4, 2023

A Catholic expert on right-to-die cases testifies at the Terri Schiavo trial. Episode 54: “Respecting life, but not at all costs’ dropped today. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above have access to new episodes of this narrative history podcast. To listen […]

“It’s the Gospel, stupid”

John Fea   |  March 8, 2023

Here is Oxford church historian, journalist, and Pope Francis biographer Austen Ivereigh at Commonweal on why the pontiff focuses so much on migration: Yet neither the current scale of the problem nor Francis’s own background is sufficient to grasp why […]

Catholic social teaching as an alternative to neoliberalism

John Fea   |  January 5, 2022

Anthony Annett of Fordham University articulates the differences between neoliberalism and Catholic social teaching. Here are some of those differences: Neoliberalism defines human motivation in terms of self-interest. Catholic social teaching defines human motivation in terms of “solidarity, reciprocity, and […]

Pope Francis addresses “social poets”

John Fea   |  October 19, 2021

Francis takes on credit institutions, pharmaceutical companies, mining, agribusiness, food corporations, arms manufacturers, technology and telecommunications giants who promote fake news, and neo-colonialism. Here is a taste of the text of the Pope’s latest video message “for the popular movements”: […]

Commonweal writer slams the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops

John Fea   |  June 29, 2021

Molly Wilson O’Reilly, a practicing Catholic, pulls very few punches in this piece at The Atlantic. The context, of course, is the bishops’ efforts to ban Joe Biden from communion for his views on abortion. Here is a taste: It […]