Top reports from America’s “Dispatches” department include looks at conflict, migration and geopolitics through a Catholic filter.
Kevin Clarke
Kevin Clarke is America’s chief correspondent and the author of Oscar Romero: Love Must Win Out (Liturgical Press).
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Should you stand or kneel to receive communion? Cardinal Cupich stirs debate after weighing in
A recent missive from Cardinal Blase Cupich to parishioners in Chicago provoked an unusually vitriolic response after the cardinal addressed issues regarding proper liturgical practice on Communion lines.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
What will the fall of al-Assad mean for Syria’s ancient Christian community?
Many Syrians remain apprehensive about how religious minorities, including Christians, will be treated in a new political reality being established by a Sunni militia that is still listed as a terror organization by the U.S. State Department.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
In England and Wales, a bill to legalize assisted suicide faces Catholic opposition
U.K. faith leaders oppose the assisted dying bill: “We believe that a truly compassionate response to the end of life lies in the provision of high-quality palliative care services to all who need them.”
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
As foreign born numbers spike in Europe and America, xenophobia goes global
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
Strong climate commitments from the U.S. at COP29 may mean little in a second Trump administration
Looming on the geopolitical horizon this week is a significant threat to the multinational campaign on climate change that emerged far from Baku, when Donald Trump became president-elect of the United States.
Posted inFaith, Scripture Reflections
Will we reach out hands to help?
A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop, by Kevin Clarke
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
The Holy Land’s Christian leaders speak out against humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank
Joseph Hazboun, CNEWA’s regional director in Jerusalem, described expanding difficulties for the Christian Arab community on the West Bank but added that nothing, of course, compared to the complete humanitarian breakdown being experienced in Gaza.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Reporting from Hurricane Helene’s ground zero: No ‘safe havens’
Helene’s devastation is offering a hard lesson: No community or U.S. region can consider itself safe from the extreme weather events that global warming is seeding and supercharging.
Posted inFaith, Scripture Reflections
The reality of Satan: How the devil sows doubts
A Reflection for Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time, by Kevin Clarke