[MUSIC]

Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Brian today. Like WNYC, Commonweal magazine is celebrating its centennial. In this week before Easter, we thought we'd make the magazine in the larger community of Roman Catholics in America number 85 in our centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. We're joined for this by the editor of Commonweal, Dominic Preziosi. Welcome to WNYC and congratulations on your magazine centennial.

Dominic Preziosi: Thanks, Brigid. It's great to be here and congratulations to you all as well.

Brigid Bergin: Well, we thank you very much. Dominic, I know that Commonweal is independent from the Church, is known for more of a liberal take on culture and politics, but how do you describe the magazine?

Dominic Preziosi: Well, I think that's a pretty fair assumption or summary description of us, Brigid. Since its founding in 1924, we've always believed that Catholicism and American democracy have a lot to say to each other and a lot to offer each other. One of our writers about 20 years ago believed that the virtues of democracy and Catholicism exist in a healthy and fruitful tension. Yes, I guess we do speak from the more liberal end of the spectrum. Traditionally and historically, we've welcomed voices from the entire spectrum. We think that healthy debate is the best kind of debate and we still try to honor that tradition.

Brigid Bergin: I was looking at your website earlier. For anyone who's unfamiliar with Commonweal magazine, this is not purely a magazine that is about reflections on faith or you have some pretty interesting pieces. The one that jumped off the page to me was about the need for deterrence. It talks about why, in an ideal world, we would not need nuclear weapons, but this is not an ideal world. Talk a little bit about, if you could, just that piece and how that fits into the types of things that Commonweal looks at.

Dominic Preziosi: Well, sure. Thanks, Brigid. I'm glad that you mentioned our April cover story on deterrence and disarmament. Like I said, we do try to feature pieces where complex issues are not reduced to oversimplification. I think certainly in our world, the debate over nuclear deterrence and nuclear disarmament still remains. Commonweal has always been, I would say, opposed to nuclear war.

That the kind of an obvious assessment but very concerned about the place of nuclear weapons in the world and what it could mean. I think the editors, even immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were aghast at the destruction and what it meant for the prospects of human civilization. I think this symposium that we're featuring in the April issue looks at it from a number of angles.

There is a belief within the Catholic Church that disarmament is necessary, that there is no need for nuclear weapons, and that the sheer fact of having them is madness. There are others who believe that, well, as long as nuclear weapons exist in the world that some factor of deterrence might be necessary. It's not a perfect world. We can't count on everybody who are beating their swords into plowshares overnight. These are the facts we have to confront in the world as it is.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to hear your stories of being Roman Catholic in America. Do you go to mass as often as maybe your parents or grandparents did? If your connection to the Church is stronger or weaker than your parents or grandparents, what do you think changed and how does your faith inform your politics, if at all? Call us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text us if you can't get through on the phone.

As those calls come in, Dominic, we found some stats put together by the Pew Research Center on Catholics in the US, starting with that 20% of Americans identify as Catholic, or that's about 53 million people, and that more than 40% of Catholics in the US are immigrants or the children of immigrants. I'm wondering, how is immigration entwined with American Catholicism and how has it been entwined over the past century?

Dominic Preziosi: I'm glad you raised that statistic, Brigid, because I was just looking at that this morning. I'm always continuously re-amazed at the contributions of immigrants to the Catholic Church in America and the historical representation of immigrants in the Catholic Church in America. Commonweal itself, when it was founded in 1924, was the product of the great Irish wave of migration in the 19th and early 20th century, along, of course, with Europeans from other countries like Italians and Poland as well. That trend obviously continues today.

For most of the 20th-century history of the Church in the United States, it was a Eurocentric population largely, as I said, from Ireland, from Italy, from other countries in Southern Europe, from Eastern Europe. Of course, as we see today, that has shifted. Certainly, the composition of the Church is much more represented now by Hispanic Catholics from Latin America. Also, I think something interesting to think about too if we're breaking this down is the number of Asian Catholics too. Mostly, I suppose, on the West Coast. We think of Vietnamese Catholics and Filipino Catholics. There is still this immigrant vibrancy that characterizes the Catholic Church in the United States.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to our callers. Julie in Hastings-on-Hudson. You're on WNYC.

Julie: Thanks, Brigid. Thanks for the topic. In terms of my belief, I was at mass today. I wanted to spotlight the two Catholic New Yorkers that Pope Francis spotlighted in his historic address to Congress. Catholic Worker leader Dorothy Day and the Trappist monk and spiritual best-selling author Thomas Merton. Actually, my research on Day and Merton was instrumental in him spotlighting them. If I could just quickly explain.

Brigid Bergin: Please.

Julie: I suggested Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day as a speech topic to Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York. He suggested them as a speech topic to Pope Francis, but as Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton used to say, God writes straight with crooked lines. The reason I mentioned Day and Merton in the first place to Cardinal Dolan was I was frankly concerned about what he might focus on in his commencement address at my college.

Would he spotlight traditional marriage or something? I was stewing about this, so I wrote him a letter and said, asked him if he could focus in the commencement address on Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day and the call to love. That's exactly what the cardinal did and then he used that idea and gave it to Pope Francis. If I could just give one sentence on why them, why Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

Brigid Bergin: One sentence, sure.

Julie: Yes, from the conclusion of my book, what can I say? "Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day call us to bear witness to love as embodied in the divine and in that spark of the divine in every person, but especially present in the destitute, the ostracized, the attacked, whether by hatred or by war." Of course, they were channeling the greatest commandment of Jesus.

Brigid Bergin: Julie, thank you so much for your call and for sharing that. Julie did such a nice job introducing some people who are very pivotal to both Catholic issues but also to Commonweal magazine. Dorothy Day wrote for the magazine and founded the Catholic Worker. Can you talk a little bit about what liberal Catholicism meant in the 1920s and '30s?

Dominic Preziosi: [chuckles] I will do my best. Not having been around at that time, but certainly, yes, I'm glad that the caller mentioned Dorothy Day. She did write for Commonweal as you mentioned. She was a freelance writer for many years. Actually, there's a Commonweal connection to how she helped found the Catholic Worker. Commonweal introduced her to a man named Peter Maurin to get the Catholic Worker started.

For listeners who may not know what the Catholic Worker is, it started as a newspaper in 1933, but it developed into this whole network of Catholic Worker communities. I think today, there are maybe more than 100, maybe more than 150 Catholic Worker communities around the country committed to non-violence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, for the forsaken, for the vulnerable. I think those are values that certainly square with values among Commonweal's readership and among a lot of the pieces that we commission and the writers who write for us.

I think, though, back in the 1920s, a lot of Catholics were still not really-- even though there was a massive Catholic population, growing Catholic population in the United States, and there were a lot of Catholics who were devotional and dutifully attended mass and took all the sacraments and everything else, I wouldn't necessarily characterize the situation as a broad knowledge with Catholic doctrine and Catholic history or even the way the Vatican works or the way that treatises or doctrine are promulgated.

There's a famous quote from Al Smith, who was a Catholic who ran for president, a New Yorker. There was something called an encyclical that the pope at the time had released. I guess this may be apocryphal, but he had to say to one of his advisors, "Can somebody please tell me what a damn encyclical is?" I would say that that was the state of Catholicism at the time without trying to draw too much of a generalization.

Brigid Bergin: Sure.

Dominic Preziosi: I think what Commonweal was seeking was a way to represent the voice of those Catholics who are now entering society at different levels that their predecessors to the United States had arrived at. More Catholics moving into law, into finance, into politics, into media, into academia, into other professional jobs and occupations and pursuits. The founders of Commonweal said, "Well, these other demographics, these other groups and organizations have a voice. They have magazines like The Atlantic or The New Republic or whatever. Why don't we create a publication that can speak to the well-read, concerned, and worldly Catholic who is now beginning to be more represented here in the population of the United States?"

Brigid Bergin: Interesting. We're starting to get into some of the politics. Pew says, now, just over half of Catholics are actually Republicans and just under half are Democrats. We've seen that change certainly with President Kennedy in 1960, the first Catholic president. President Biden, the second. The contrast between how much of an issue that is, but I want to bring in another caller. Another Dominic actually. Dominic in the Bronx, thanks for calling WNYC.

Dominic: Hi, Brigid. Ciao, Domenico.

Dominic Preziosi: Ciao.

[laughter]

Dominic: I was brought up Catholic all my life and I'm an atheist, which means I'm a lapsed Catholic. We cannot shed ourselves of the instruction. I started going back to church with my mother and my partner ever since my father died last year as an act of support from my mom. I'm listening much more closely now. I keep waiting for the priest. We have two of them who deliver the mass on Saturday, the two of them to speak forcefully about what it means to be a Catholic.

To my estimation, what it means is you feed the hungry, you clothe the naked, and you heal the sick to the best of your ability. It's good to see the current pope emphasize that. I have to remind us that the prior popes did not. The more I learned about the dogma of the Catholic Church, the Christianity, basically, the teachings of that wise young Jew, I thought these are not bad ideas.

I could live in a world like this. I would love to see the Roman Catholic Church emphasize that. By supporting Donald Trump in any way, shape, or form, I can't. I can't make sense of that juxtaposition. I know humans are full of contradictions, but heavens, can we at least point out the most dangerous ones? Again, I'm a lapsed Catholic atheist on a good day. I just wanted to share that. Thank you for this conversation. It's intriguing. Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Dominic, thank you for that call. Dominic, [chuckles] I think what the caller was reflecting is something I'm seeing show up in other callers who want to share their stories. This idea of the contradiction. Can you speak a little bit to the politics of the current moment in the Catholic Church?

Dominic Preziosi: Well, I think for a number of us like your caller and I think probably for a lot of readers of Commonweal, "disappointment" is far too soft a word to describe how we feel about some of the decisions of our fellow Catholics to support policies of this administration that do seem to run counter to what we understand to be gospel values, about treating your neighbor as you would yourself, about welcoming the vulnerable, about keeping in mind the poor.

I think it's curious too to see, especially when it comes to the policies that Donald Trump promised regarding immigration, that most of America, even in spite of what we're seeing in these past several weeks and certainly since the inauguration, most of America still has a largely favorable view to the Trump administration's immigration policies. This, unfortunately, in my opinion, includes far too many Catholics. I would dispute Dominic's characterization as the previous two popes of not paying attention at all to these issues.

I think Francis is certainly much more vocal and much more prominent and far more out in front in terms of making that the emphasis of his papacy. The Catholic Church has always made concern for the poor and the vulnerable really a prominent feature of what it's about. Sometimes it's tough to look at statistics like the Pew statistics and showing the number of people who voted for a president who I don't think necessarily represents what is best and what appeals to me most about Catholic tradition and the Catholic Church.

Brigid Bergin: If you're just joining us, I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian today. I'm talking to Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi for our centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things. This is number 85, 100 years of American Catholicism. Dominic, looking at that century of time, a couple of events really stand out to me. Vatican II being a major one, which moved the Church to the left if I can put it that way. What was its effect then and now?

Dominic Preziosi: Well, that's a really good question. There are a number of church historians and theologians who are still debating whether or not the ideas advanced Vatican II have actually been put into place. There's this notion, of course, and maybe some of your listeners are familiar with it. You can't think about the Catholic Church in terms of years. It moves at the speed of centuries.

We're, what, close to 60 years or so since Vatican II. There's still significant debate over how it has been received within the Catholic Church, not only in the US but globally. I think, certainly, the idea that John XXIII had in convening the council and opening the Church to the world and forcing it to confront modernity was a good idea. I think, certainly, that came to fruition in some degree.

There was the idea of recognizing the pluralism of religion worldwide that, in fact, Catholicism is but one religion among many world religions. Acknowledging the value of liberal democracy when, prior to Vatican II, the Catholic Church, especially in Europe, was not necessarily identified with the principles of the kind of American democracy we believe ourselves to have.

In that sense, there was, I guess, a turn to modernity. I think, obviously, the changing of the liturgy from being in Latin to being in the vernacular, the language of whatever country you might be in, was certainly helpful and opened the Church much more to the people of the Church. I think the idea of trying to de-emphasize, to some degree, the control of priests and clerics and the hierarchy is a good one and the effort to welcome laypeople more into the life of the Church and helping the Church globally.

Brigid Bergin: We could talk for a long time about both of the next two questions, but there was also the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Pew says a majority of Catholics think abortion should be legal. The push for that decision seem to galvanize those who don't think it should be legal and has absolutely had an impact on American politics, correct?

Dominic Preziosi: Sure, yes, that's definitely correct. Although, obviously, a lot of Catholics at the time, I believe, were opposed to Roe v. Wade, I think a lot also in the years to follow became somewhat troubled by the fact that became a cause for single-issue voting. I think as well some Catholics and you could say particularly maybe on the mid-to-leftish end of the spectrum were concerned about the alliance that developed between aggressively pro-life Catholics with fundamentalist evangelicalism or the moral majority. I think that that did cause some concern among Catholics who like to look at life issues on a much broader context, including, as we discussed at the outset, nuclear weapons. Including today, climate change is seen to some degree as a life issue.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Of course, there is the sexual abuse scandal. Of course, not that the abuse happened but the Church's attempts to bury it. What's been the long-term impact of that on American Catholics?

Dominic Preziosi: I would say long-term, it's still continuing. I think fairly devastating. I think when you talk to a lot of people like your previous caller, Dominic, the lapsed Catholic, and certainly among a lot of the lapsed Catholics I know, almost all of them talk about the abuse crisis. Not only the abuse crisis, but I think, obviously, what they might rightfully and justifiably see as the inability of the Church to address it in a meaningful way that not only recognizes the harm to the victims but acknowledges its own role and its own shortcomings in confronting that crisis.

Brigid Bergin: Dominic, what else would you point to in terms of major moments of the past 100 years that have shaped the American Catholicism?

Dominic Preziosi: [chuckles] Well, let me think. Certainly, just historically, I think the fact that in 1960, the idea that there would ever be a Catholic president seemed as far-fetched as anything. The fact that, at the time, John F. Kennedy had to go out and make a number of speeches and appeal to the people to say that he wouldn't be controlled by the Vatican if he were elected president.

I would say that the shift by the time we got around to Joseph Biden, as you mentioned earlier, he's being the second Catholic president, barely raised a ripple really. In fact, many Catholics voted against Joseph Biden, who was somewhat publicly an observant Catholic. I found that interesting to observe the lack of impression that that made generally. I think in the US and just to get back to what we were talking about a moment ago, I think the debate over Roe v. Wade was a really dominated discussion from the ruling in 1973 to its overturning of the Dobbs decision a couple of years ago.

Obviously, certainly, events like the March for Life still occur in Washington, DC, the largely Catholic-led March for Life. I'm curious to see what transpires in this situation post-Dobbs. Yes, I think another big thing or at least something that we're paying attention to at Commonweal as well is the politicization of the American Church along lines that reflect the deeper polarization and politicization of our political system.

I think you start seeing some of that culture war stuff and some of the hard-line positions coming into discussions even about what Pope Francis represents or what he might think. I've had some people ask me like, "Well, is the--" Pope Francis, as some of your listeners might know, is relatively old and recently had a very significant health scare. We're talking about the inevitability of who is his successor might be. A lot of people have asked me, "Well, is it going to be somebody who favors Donald Trump or is against Donald Trump?" I think this is not ideal for Catholicism in the United States to be impacted and influenced along such, I don't know, really secular political lines.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Dominic, before I let you go, I want to get in one more caller.

Dominic Preziosi: Sure.

Brigid Bergin: Tegan in Nyack. Tegan, thanks for calling.

Tegan: Hi there. I just wanted to mention, I'm part of the Grail, which is a women's empowerment in the Catholic Church-based organization, which 40 years before Vatican II was talking about empowering more laypeople. We had started this movement in the 1920s in the Netherlands, which is still active in 21 countries, to really get women more involved in how to be leaders around the goals of the Catholic Church.

Now, since we've become, especially in the US anyway, open to other religions as part of our movement, we focus on social transformation, spiritual search, environmental sustainability and women in the arts, global solidarity. We're really trying to be leaders, but there's still that one door that's closed, which is that we can't be official spiritual leaders in the Church. Do you ever see that the Catholic Church might, in the future, be open to the idea of women being priests as well?

Dominic Preziosi: I'm sorry to say that I don't see it happening in my lifetime. Obviously, there's, I think, always a lot of talk and there's always a lot of discussion around the topic. I'm glad we finally got to this. I wish I had mentioned it sooner, Brigid, when you were talking about issues affecting the way Catholics think in the United States. We actually did a symposium on women's ordination a year ago at this time. It feels like the topic of women's ordination has been a topic forever or at least since I was growing up in the immediate post-Vatican II world.

I think that even though the Pope has gathered people on a commission to speak about the possibility of expanding women's role in the Church, I don't think there is going to be any significant movement toward actually opening the priesthood to women. The Pope, in fact, has made that clear in a number of ways. Some explicit and some implicit. I think what we're seeing is he's trying to do his best to get around that by opening management positions and administrative roles for women to have a much greater participation. As far as being on the altar, I wish.

Brigid Bergin: Well, Dominic, we are going to leave it there for today on this Holy Week. This has been our latest installment of 100 Years of 100 Things, number 85, American Catholicism. Thank you to Dominic Preziosi, the editor of Commonweal, the liberal Catholic publication also celebrating its 100th year. Congratulations to Commonweal, Dominic, and thank you so much for your time.

Dominic Preziosi: Thanks again, Brigid. It was great to be here.

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.