Commonweal Confronts the Century: Liberal Convictions, Catholic Tradition

This book contains reprints of articles from COMMONWEAL magazine as a way of commemorating the 75th anniversary of the magazine and celebrating the new century and millennium. COMMONWEAL is an unapologetically liberal Catholic publication that seems to strike the right balance between being progressive while also being true to the tradition of the Church. The book does not contain anything startling or new, but this is not a flaw since it is a collection of "best of" articles. Some of the well known contributors include Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Evelyn Waugh, Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, and Daniel Berrigan as well as contemporary Catholics speaking out on issues today such as Elizabeth Johnson. Paul Elie, Margaret O'Brien Steinfels and Peter Steinfels. The book can be helpful for those who are interested in the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church, how many Catholics address important issues in contemporary society, as well as people who want to hear what some of the great thinkers of Catholicism had to say in their day and age.

When I discovered a while back that I am a Commonweal Catholic I decided, now that I could put a name on my malaise, to sit back and enjoy it and to purchase this book to deepen my knowledge of the intellecual tradition from which my illness springs. The book is published in celebration of Commonweal's 75th anniversary and offers reprints of important articles that have appeared in the magazine. The first is a chilling account by George Shuster of what the atmosphere in Austria was like as Hitler was smashing his way to power. The rest cover social, political, and religious issues that today are constantly in our faces but, back then, only drew the attention of such intellectuals as Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and others less famous but equally brilliant. Commonweal has always been interested in the arts and that area is well represented in this volume. The Editors are to be congratulated.

When many people think about the Catholic Church, they imaginethe pope, the bishops and the clergy. But the clergy are only part ofthe church. The church includes every member. Most of those members are lay people. Commonweal magazine is unique because for 75 years it has been edited and written by some of the most intelligent American lay people in the Catholic Church...The problem in editing this book was not trying to find interesting and thought provoking articles, but eliminating many that the editors would have liked to include but did not have space for.The first article is by George N. Shuster, an early editor of Commonweal and later President of Hunter College in New York and U.S. Representative to UNESCO. It describes Vienna on the eve of Hitler's takeover of Austria in 1938. It captures the ominous feeling that something terrible is descending on Austria and Europe.The last article is Richard Alleva's review of "Schindler's List." He asks the question, "Is the movie perfect?...It is splendid."The articles are not arranged in chronological order, but divided into five sections: .Encountering the twentieth century. .War and Peace. .Life, death and the dignity of persons. .Beliefs. .Art.Among the authors represented are E.J. Dionne, Eugene J. McCarthy, Dorothy Day, Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, Jacques Maritain, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan,George Weigel, Peter Steinfels, Daniel Callahan, Sidney Callahan, Michael Novak, Graham Greene, Reinhold Niebuhr, George A. Lindbeck, Willa Cather, Evelyn Waugh, Wilfrid Sheed, and many more. They are not all Catholic lay people, but most of them are. What they have in common is respect for the reader's intelligence and a sense of responsibility for the world we live in.If you want to know what intelligent Catholic lay people have been and are thinking and writing for the past 75 years in the U.S.A...Edmond Bliven END