Alex Pretti “was known for his kindness and gentleness to the patients,” Father Tasto said. “So don’t pay any attention to the vilification from our national leaders.”
Dispatches
A former Irish president’s provocative argument: Is infant baptism a threat to human rights?
McAleese desribes baptism as a kind of recruitment tool that ignores how children, as they mature, should be able to freely decide their own religious identity, noting that canon law acknowledges no right to exit Catholicism.
Cardinals urge Trump to step back from threats on Greenland and Venezuela
In a rare direct rebuke to a U.S. president, three American cardinals urged the Trump administration to step back from foreign policy strategies and goals that threaten world peace.
Trump’s capture of Maduro has more support in Latin America than in the U.S.
More than a half dozen right-leaning, Latin American heads of state supported the U.S. intervention in Venezuela to depose Nicolás Maduro, including the pro-Trump leaders of Ecuador, Argentina and El Salvador.
In Beirut, viral ‘D.J.-priest’ almost blocked from performing by hardline Christians
The Rev. Guilherme Peixoto, the “D.J. Priest” or “Padre Guilherme,” is globally popular on the techno and house music scene but a lawsuit almost kept him from spinning records in Beirut.
Inside Venezuela’s capital after Trump administration captures Maduro
While members of the Venezuelan diaspora in Europe and the United States celebrated Mr. Maduro’s capture, in Caracas, residents contemplated the morning’s events in an eerie silence—neither public celebrations of Mr. Maduro’s arrest nor demonstrations demanding his release were evident in Caracas neighborhoods in the immediate aftermath of the American incursion.
At Christmas, a reminder of Ireland’s persistent homelessness crisis
“I know many homeless people who tell me they would love to fall asleep on the first of December and wake up on the first of January. Christmas is the most miserable time for them.”
Chicago Catholics seek to bring Communion to detained migrants on Christmas, ICE stays silent
Faith leaders plan to once again seek access to the processing center in Broadview, Ill., to bring the Eucharist to detainees on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
‘He’s just Catholic’: Joliet voices speak on new NY archbishop Hicks
“When it comes to the culture wars, I don’t think he is interested,” said Rev. Peter Wojcik. “He doesn’t have social media accounts. I think he’s just Catholic.”
Trump’s irresponsible talk about South Africa ‘white genocide’ stokes racial divisions
President Donald Trump’s promotion of a erroneous narrative of white farmers being “killed and slaughtered” in a genocide in South Africa is contributing to racial tensions there.
