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.
International
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Italy broadened its ban on surrogacy. Will other European states do the same?
Pope Francis has condemned surrogacy as a form of “false compassion.” Now, in Italy, engaging in surrogacy in another country, even where it may be legal, will be a criminal offense for Italian citizens.
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
The other border crisis: How Mexico is enforcing migration policies ahead of the U.S. election
While the candidates jousted through the end of the election season, migrant encounters along the U.S. southwestern border continued a sharp fall in fiscal year 2024. But why?
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Catholic ‘influencers’ are not evangelizers, according to research group in Brazil
The only way to counter the excessive impact that influencers have on the life of the church is to promote more critical thinking among the Catholic faithful, who must be able to recognize attempts to manipulate the faith for political and economic ends.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Mexico’s Catholic Church hopes for a better relationship with President Claudia Sheinbaum
Mexico’s bishops wished Ms. Sheinbaum well. They urged her to govern for all Mexicans, even though she has a congressional majority large enough to permit constitutional changes without seeking support from her political opposition.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
Winter is coming in Gaza. How much worse will the misery get?
Most families have been forced to move many times and with each new displacement, families lose or abandon more belongings. Not many of them by now have clothing appropriate for worsening weather conditions.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Catholic leaders in U.S. and Holy Land reflect on an anniversary of violence
The violence has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent victims, but it also “struck a profound blow to the common feeling of belonging to the Holy Land, to the consciousness of being part of a plan of Providence.”
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar suffering continues—but not on the front page
Focus on the fate of Israel, its hostages in Gaza and the people of Gaza and south Lebanon means that little attention is being paid to other continuing crises around the world—Sudan, Haiti, Myanmar among them.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
South African women feel left off the agenda at the synod—and they’re frustrated with Pope Francis.
One South African theologian described “a deep sense of disillusionment that the church, on the one hand, is saying we need to be a synodal listening church, and has yet again taken the diaconate for women off the table.”