Smoky air from Canada forest fires triggered air-quality alerts across the U.S.—but for some First Nations people the fires represented an existential catastrophe.
International
Posted inDispatches
Venezuela’s Catholic Church leads post-earthquake humanitarian efforts
Despite the earthquake desolation all around him, Mr. Omaña has no intention of abandoning his community. “I love La Guaira,” he says. “I was raised here…. We have to start over again.”
Posted inDispatches
Argentine Catholic priests join hunger strike to protest Milei government
The week-long hunger strike was called to draw attention to growing political polarization and an increasing economic gap between rich and poor in Argentina.
Posted inDispatches
How churches can respond to Europe’s historic heatwave
Europe is heating up faster than any other region on the planet. As many as 150 million people have now been trapped under the “heat dome.” Adaptation to these changing climate circumstances will have to be rapid.
Posted inDispatches
Is the World Cup distracting Mexico from news of crimes and disappearance?
“I have to disguise myself as a duck, so the president looks at us,” read one sign held up by a demonstrator in a duck costume at a protest led by madres buscadoras, the “mothers who search.”
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
After Iran debacle, is the Trump admin ready to listen to the Vatican?
After the Iran debacle, are U.S. diplomats ready to accept that the path to the geopolitical good, if not to the perfect, lies through diplomacy and compromise, not threats and missile strikes?
Posted inDispatches
The unsung story behind the growth and impact of the Catholic Church in Africa
As the United States celebrates its 250th birthday in July 2026, Amecea marks 50 years since the region’s bishops made the formation of small Christian communities the key pastoral priority for eastern Africa.
Posted inDispatches
500 years later, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico still stirs controversy on both sides of the Atlantic
While many Mexicans consider Cortés a rapacious historical villain, Hispanophiles, both in Spain and across the Americas, lionize him for bringing Catholicism and Spanish culture to Mesoamerica.
Posted inDispatches
In Honduras, justice for Juan López and the community he fought to protect remains uncertain
Honduran prosecutors faced a major responsibility “to identify the intermediaries and masterminds behind a larger network of corruption and organized crime that involves the mining and political sectors.”
Posted inDispatches
‘Troubles’ 2.0 in Belfast? How anti-migrant violence connects to a more complicated history
The June riots were explicitly directed toward migrants, such that some public figures suggest a more accurate term for what happened would be “pogrom.”