Cleveland Commonweal Local Community Network

  DECEMBER 2020 COMMONWEAL FROM THE EDITORS Biden’s first challenge COMMENT Georgia’s runoff elections (Isabella Simon) A new foreign policy (Griffin Oleynick) A climate president? (Dominic Preziosi) COLUMN Trump can run again (Matt Mazewski) SHORT TAKES The unjustifiable bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki   (John Schwenkler and Mark Souva) New life for cystic fibrosis patients (Roberto J. De La Noval ) How McCarrick got away with it for so long (David Gibson) ARTICLES A symposium on Fratelli tutti (Charles Taylor, William T. Cavanaugh, Vinson Cunningham, Neomi De Anda ) Bishop John England’s complicated legacy (Paul Lakeland) W. H. Auden and the postChristmas blues (Jeff Reimer) INTERVIEW Frank Pasquale(with Lawrence Joseph) ARTS Vida Americana (Griffin Oleynick) CHRISTMAS CRITICS (Kirstin Valdez Quade, Burke Nixon , Katie Daniels, Dominic Preziosi) BOOKS Hotly in Pursuit of the Real by Ron Hansen (Reviewed by Gerald J. Russello) ...

NOVEMBER 2020 COMMONWEAL   FROM THE EDITORS Democracy in America? COMMENT Nagorno-Karabakh  ( Griffin Oleynick) Saving New START  (Regina Munch) Mass in the orange zone (Paul Moses) COLUMN The soundtrack of ‘Fratelli tutti’  (Susan Bigelow Reynolds) SHORT TAKES The moral meaning of a vote for Donald Trump (Timothy Snyder) Sr. Thea Bowman’s challenge to the Catholic Church (Tia Noelle Pratt) Convicting Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano (Martha Doggett ) ARTICLES The controversy over Pius XII (Kevin Madigan) Riding with the hourlies (Jay Neugeboren) The new integralism (Timothy Troutner) BOOKS One Billion Americans by Matthew Yglesias (Reviewed by Matt Mazewski) Jack by Marilynne Robinson (Reviewed by Valerie Sayers) The Math Campers by Dan Chiasson (Reviewed by Anthony Domestico) In Search of the Soul by John Cottingham (Reviewed by Bernard G. Prusak) Charter School City by Douglas N. Harris (Reviewed by Mercedes K. Schneider) ...

 Reimagining U.S. Catholicism Today. On Mondays during October, Commonweal had a series called that were available live through Zoom, . Each topic had a panel of four people and a moderator for a discussion that lasted about an hour long. They are all available now on the  Commonweal YouTube Site The following, the final and best one, was on the pandemic, community, and parish life.  Below I give an outline of the conversation with brief phrases that may help you through the hour, and also help you to comment on the discussion.  The Future of Community & Sacramental Life |  Claudia Avila Cosnahan (moderator):  Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles  Question: what  has the pandemic revealed  about  the role of the parish in the mission of the church? Darius Villatobos  National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry 1. how fragile parish life is (gave example of deacon who had to take over responsibility when prie...

  OCTOBER 2020 COMMONWEAL FROM THE EDITORS The worst president COMMENT Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Dominic Preziosi) Vaccine politics (Katie Daniels) Russia’s toxic behavior (Dominic Preziosi) COLUMN Reopening Catholic schools (Mollie Wilson O’Reilly) SHORT TAKES Idolatry at the RNC (Michael Peppard) Griever-in-Chief (Paul Moses & Michael Connor) How progressives win in rural America (Luke Mayville) The crisis in Amazonia (Bryan P. Galligan, SJ) The West Coast wildfires (Katherine Lucky) ARTICLES Social Catholicism and the 2020 election( E. J. Dionne Jr.) The case against Myanmar (Paul C. Saunders) Adrian Vermeule’s integralism (Jason Blakely) Savers and unloaders (Rand Richards Cooper) INTERVIEW Robert P. Jones (with Regina Munch) BOOKS The Bad Side of Books by D. H. Lawrence (Reviewed by George Scialabba) State of War by William Wheeler (Reviewed by César J. Baldelomar) A Woman Called Moses by Jean-Christophe Attias (Reviewed by Mahri ...

  SEPTEMBER 2020 COMMONWEAL FROM THE EDITORS Voting as an act of faith COMMENT HEROES & cheapskates (Regina Munch) Beirut’s agony (Griffin Oleynick) Mosque or museum? (George E. Demacopoulos)   COLUMN John Paul II on social sin(Rita Ferrone) SHORT TAKES The “canceling” of Flannery O’Connor? (Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Cathleen Kaveny) Federal immigration officers in Portland (Paul Moses) Poland’s complacent majority (Piotr H. Kosick)i The unrevised Ephrem (Joseph Amar)  ARTICLES   Protest and reform in Chile (Santiago Ramos, Joseph S. Flipper) Religion in American politics (Kenneth L. Woodward) Why the Left must work with liberals (James T. Kloppenberg)  INTERVIEW   Louise Erdrich with Anthony Domestico  SCREEN   ‘Hunters’ & ‘Come and See’ (Robert Rubsam) BOOKS   Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz (Reviewed by Charles McNamara) American Prophets by Jack Jenkins    (Reviewed by Kaya Oakes) Catholic Social Teaching edited by Gerard V....

In early July, The Pew Research organization did a study of worship during the pandemic. For full lengthy report see here:    Pew Study of Worship During the Pandemic Pew Research Center conducted this survey to help understand how the coronavirus outbreak has impacted the worship habits of Americans. They surveyed 10,211 U.S. adults from July 13 to 19, 2020. All respondents are part of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through national random sampling of residential addresses. Thus Pew had data from last year on these same respondents. Of people who had said in the 2019 survey that they attend religious services at least once a month, most (91%) indicated that their congregations were closed entirely during April. Most also reported their congregations open in July including 55% who said their congregations were open with certain coronavirus-related modifications in place and 6% who said their congregation were open and operat...

  JULY-AUGUST 2020 COMMONWEAL COLUMNS      Connected by coronavirus (Cathleen Kaveny)      The debate about lockdown measures (Matt Mazewski)       SHORT TAKES        Catholics and the 1918 influenza (Paul Moses)     What the experts can’t tell us (David Cloutier)    Moving toward racial justice (M. Shawn Copeland)      ARTICLES       Bad traditionalism(Tara Isabella Burton)     Drinking alone (Jonathan Malesic)     How to write about depression (Matthew Sitman)   INTERVIEW       Bryan Massingale(with Regina Munch)   FICTION   Patio(Valerie Sayers   BOOKS   On Not Being Someone Else by Andrew H. Miller (Reviewed by Morten Høi Jensen) The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick (Reviewed by Hannah Gold) Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty...

  JUNE 2020 COMMONWEAL ISSUE COLUMN     Reopening churches by Rita Ferrone SHORT TAKES      A gay priest’s vocation by James Alison     ‘The 1619 Project’ by Andrew Bacevich    COVID-19 in Mexico City by Joseph Sorrentino    ARTICLES      What are deacons for?  by Christopher Ruddy, Thomas Baker, William T. Ditewig      Theology in a neoliberal age by Paul Lakeland Martin Buber’s life of dialogue by Patrick Jordan INTERVIEW Jonathan Stevenson with Rand Richards Cooper ARTS Dorothea Lange’s humble gaze by Griffin Oleynick BOOKS The Thirty-Year Genocide by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi      Reviewed by Gabriel Said Reynolds Places I’ve Taken My Body by Molly McCully Brown       Reviewed by Katherine Lucky From the Underground Church to Freedom  by Tomáš Halík       Reviewed by Santiago Ramos Unbelievers by Alec Ryrie  ...

Talking Can Generate Coronavirus Droplets That Linger Up to 14 Minutes NYT: A new study shows how respiratory droplets produced during normal conversation may be just as important in transmitting disease, especially indoors. The research, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help explain how people with mild or no symptoms may infect others in close quarters such as offices, nursing homes, cruise ships and other confined spaces. The study’s experimental conditions will need to be replicated in more real-world circumstances, and researchers still don’t know how much virus has to be transmitted from one person to another to cause infection. But its findings strengthen the case for wearing masks and taking other precautions in such environments to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Various scientific studies have shown that singing  dramatically increases the transmission of viruses. A recent webinar to discuss these scien...

THE PROBLEM by  Jack Rakosky, PhD The State of Ohio began to reopen businesses on May 1st. Religious organizations have never been subject to the Stay at Home orders.  Almost all have complied. Catholic Bishops of Ohio have announced that they are planning for possible resumption at parish worship at the end of May on Pentecost Sunday. Why should parishes not reopen if most other businesses are opening?   Because many if not most of those who attend are the elderly. The State of Ohio recommends that the elderly and other vulnerable populations remain at home. These are the populations that the State of Ohio will be tracking through an expanded network of public health personnel. The elderly who come down with the virus will be asked about their contacts in the previous week. If many of these report they went to church, parishes are likely to be labeled as "hot spots" and the church will get a bad reputation for not protecting its elderly.  During my profe...

A friend sent this to a group of friends....seems thorough and sensible if the corona virus has reached your neighborhood. The original author and sender is James Robb, MD, a microbiologist according to various on-line listings. Last evening dining out with friends, one of their uncles, who's graduated with a master's degree and who worked in Shenzhen Hospital (Guangdong Province, China) sent him the following notes on Coronavirus for guidance: 1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold 2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. 3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun. 4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. 5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacteria...

 RESCHEDULED TO JUNE 29TH THEN CANCELLED BECAUSE OF VIRUS Gathering Topic: February 2020 Issue AMERICAN PAGANISM It’s not what the Religious Right thinks it is. By David Albertson will be the focus of our discussion. However we will also briefly vet the following articles from the February 2020 Issue as possible featured articles in future gatherings. SPEAKING LOVE TO POWER Theodore Roszak’s Visionary Commonwealth By Eugene McCarraher MORE THAN A SYMBOL Should liberal Catholics be alarmed at evidence that belief in the Real Presence is declining? By Peter Steinfels GIVING DOCTORS A SAY Futility and End-of-Life Ethics By Michael Redinger RESCHEDULED TO JUNE 29TH !!!! Place and Time:   Resurrection Room, Saint Noel Parish  6:30 pm to 7:00 pm   We will begin with a general discussion of the February Issue, especially focusing upon the three articles above that might be featured articles in future gatherings. ...

Gathering Topic: Idolatry, Enchantment and Capitalism STRANGE GODS: IDOLATRY IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY by William T. Cavanaugh MISENCHANTMENT David Bentley Hart's review of The Enchantments of Mammon How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity by Eugene McCarraher Place and Time:   Resurrection Room, Saint Noel Parish 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm  Opening comments about the January 2020 Issue and suggestions for a topic for the next meeting. 7:00 pm to 8:15 pm  Discussion of articles Cavanaugh claims the opposite of faith is not secularism but idolatry in new forms, e.g. the nation-state, money and material objects.   McCarraher likewise claims that capitalism is not the product of disenchantment from a religious world but another kind of religion. Both see what Hart labels as misenchantment in the midst of goods produced in highly rational ways in a supposedly rational marketplace: what we are really buying are the fake promises ...

Conversation Outline:    for  MONDAY JANUARY 27 2020 CLC GATHERING AT ST NOEL What do we mean by ‘religion’?     What is its relationship to nationality and culture? THE PARADOX OF PLURALISM Jack Miles Miles offers two definitions of religion. The first modern one where religion as we know it is “one human activity among many other kinds such as business, politics, warfare, art, law, sports, or science.“ Some contemporary people such as Jews, Hopi, and those from India do not experience religion in this way. “What you people call Hinduism is for me just part of being Indian.”   “Judaism is not a religion Judiasm is a way of life.” The second ancient definition given by Miles: “Throughout most on world history in most parts of the world what we are accustomed to call religion, ethnicity and culture have been inextricable parts of a single whole.” Miles argues Chri...