This week on our podcast, the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, author of the "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot," discusses his new play, "The Little Flower of East Orange." Guirgis talks about moments of grace in his life, and the writers who have inspired him. Listen here.

"Little Flower," starring Ellen Burstyn and produced by the LAByrinth Theater Company, runs through Sunday May 4 at The Public Theater in New York. Click here for ticket information.

Tim Reidy

Dale Recinella has updated his article, "Ending the Death Penalty," from the April 28 issue, to include commentary on the Supreme Court's recent decision on the constitutionality of lethal injection. Read it here. You'll need to scroll to the end.

Tim Reidy

Matt Malone has just posted the final installment of his review of the fabulous "John Adams" miniseries on HBO. Read it here. For those of you who haven't seen the series, be sure to add it to your Netflix queue: it comes out on DVD on June 10.

You can find Matt's review, and other notable Web-only content, on our new "Editor's Picks" page, which can be accessed in the navigation bar to the right.

Tim Reidy

After a long week in Washington and New York covering Pope Benedict XVI, David Gibson generously agreed to come by America's offices this morning to record a special podcast on the pope's visit. Dave was a little tired, but still on top of his game. You can listen to our conversation here.

As some of you know, Dave has been blogging about the papal visit over at Benedictions, on Beliefnet. He's also a regular contributor to dotCommonweal, and the author of The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World.

For those of you new to our podcast, you can subscribe here. Every week (twice a month over the summer) we post an interview with a staff member, writer or friend of the magazine.

Tim Reidy

Matt Malone, S.J., is on assignment covering the papal visit to the United States. The final installments of his review of the HBO mini-series "John Adams" will appear next week on America Connects. You can catch up on his previous reviews here.

As Fr. Jim Martin noted last week, America's editors will be fanned out across New York this week to cover the pope's visit. To supplement their coverage, we're expanding our roster of bloggers to include more perspectives from both New York and DC. Also, thanks to Catholic News Service, we'll be posting pictures of the pope's visit to a special slide show. So bookmark "In All Things" on your browser, and check back daily for extended coverage.

Until then, here's something to keep you thinking: NY Times columnist Peter Steinfels previews the pope's visit on "The Brian Lehrer Show" on WNYC.

Tim Reidy

Even if you're not watching HBO's excellent "John Adams" miniseries, be sure to read Matt Malone's weekly commentary. Matt's essays go beyond the ordinary "thumbs up/thumbs down" criticism to explore what the series says about our nation's founding ideals, and our own political moment. In this week's dispatch, Matt traces the souring relationship between Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a man who was much changed by witnessing the bloody uprising in Paris in 1789.

In our popular history we tend to think of Jefferson as the great romantic idealist of the revolution. His public sentiments were no doubt noble and lofty. Yet his ownership of slaves and his near bloodlust, revealed in his views of the French revolution, reveal a man comfortable with moral ambiguities and harsh political or economic realities when it suited his interests.

Read all of Matt's reviews here.

Tim Reidy

In his column in this week's America, Fr. John Kavanaugh takes another look at the infamous speeches of Jeremiah Wright, and warns against dismissing his criticisms of U.S. society as the rantings of a crackpot. In Friday's Los Angeles Times, Michael Eric Dyson draws an intriguing comparison between Wright and Martin Luther King, who was killed 40 years ago this month:

Before 1965, King was upbeat and bright, his belief in white America's ability to change by moral suasion resilient and durable. That is the leader we have come to know during annual King commemorations. After 1965, King was darker and angrier; he grew more skeptical about the willingness of America to change without great social coercion. King's skepticism and anger were often muted when he spoke to white America, but they routinely resonated in black sanctuaries and meeting halls across the land.

[snip]

Perhaps nothing might surprise -- or shock -- white Americans more than to discover that King said in 1967: "I am sorry to have to say that the vast majority of white Americans are racist, either consciously or unconsciously." In a sermon to his congregation in 1968, King openly questioned whether blacks should celebrate the nation's 1976 bicentennial. "You know why?" King asked. "Because it [the Declaration of Independence] has never had any real meaning in terms of implementation in our lives."

As Prof. Dyson muses in an interview with EURweb, one wonders how these speeches would have played on YouTube.

Tim Reidy