A painful irony today is that Erbil—once a refuge for displaced Christian families—has become one of the Iraqi cities most frequently exposed to missile and drone attacks as war between U.S.-Israel and Iran continues.
The Weekly Dispatch
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A Catholic guide to understanding the war with Iran
The church’s just war tradition has been challenged by contemporary theologians as insufficient and outdated, yet it remains a worthy filter through which to judge the moral defensibility of a turn to war-making.
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A Pentagon showdown with Anthropic and the hazards of A.I. warfare
Even among the proponents of A.I. platforms can be found innovators who harbor deep misgivings about where A.I. may be leading.
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Why did the Vatican decline to join Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza?
Declining to join the Board of Peace, Vatican officials might point out that true peace can only be achieved through justice and reconciliation, avoiding the peace of the graveyard. How else to describe Gaza these days?
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Catholic democracy activist Jimmy Lai receives a ‘death sentence’ in Hong Kong
Jimmy Lai, at 78, faces what amounts to a death sentence because of his stubborn insistence on freedom of expression in Hong Kong. Political leaders and human rights activists around the world quickly condemned the 20-year sentence handed down by a Hong Kong court on Feb. 9.
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Jesuits struggle with fallout from Trump policies on aid, immigration and deportation
Trump administration policies on humanitarian aid, immigration and mass deportation “have human afterlives, and they end up affecting communities; they end up affecting lives,” says Marco Gómez, S.J., the country director of Fe y Alegría in Panama. “These decisions, taken far away, are affecting concrete and real people.”
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A Catholic guide to resisting the ICE crackdown
As the nation veers into policies on war-making and immigration that disturb many, average Catholics are stepping up into activist roles to voice their concerns and assist their neighbors.
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When Trump betrays our allies, America loses.
The nation’s withdrawal from multilateralism means the U.S. will cease being “in the room where it happens,” self-sabotaging a capacity to advance interests or resolve disputes in coordination with allied states.
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How Vatican diplomats tried to resolve the Trump-Maduro standoff
While the rest of the Catholic world enjoyed its Christmas Eve, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin met with Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, discussing a deal that would allow Venezuela’s President Nicholás Maduro to escape to a comfortable exile in Russia.
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Trump administration strikes Venezuela—while threatening to deport Venezuelans
President Trump’s newfound concern for Venezuelans has not translated into a reversal of Trump administration decisions to terminate Biden-era temporary protected status for Venezuelans already in the United States.