Cleveland Commonweal Local Community Network

  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...