“Tell me, how does climate change drive someone to hack a person to death with a machete?”
Religious Freedom
Posted inPolitics & Society
US bishops name top 5 threats to religious freedom ahead of 2024 election
Published on Religious Freedom Day, the first annual report from the bishops’ religious liberty committee states that attacks on houses of worship constitute “the largest threat to religious liberty in 2024.”
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
After Christmas attacks on Christians, Nigerian bishops raise concerns of Islamist agenda—and government complicity
As many as 295 people were killed in a series of apparently coordinated raids on some 30 villages in Nigeria’s Plateau State that began on Dec. 23 and continued through Christmas Day.
Posted inLast Take, Politics & Society
Saying no to slave labor: Younger consumers are demanding the truth
Education changed peoples’ hearts and minds and led to the abolition of the slave trade in the 18th century. Truth in labeling can help people of faith to oppose slave labor today.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Despite threats and government harassment, 11 Jesuits remain in Nicaragua
Those Jesuits who remain, he said, now face the “fundamental concern” of expulsion or detention if relations between the Society of Jesus and the government of former Sandinista comandante President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, grow any worse.
Posted inFaith, News Analysis
Christians are dying for their faith all around the world. Do U.S. Catholics care?
Pope Francis has announced a commission to identify new martyrs, and in its latest report, Open Doors International has identified 76 countries where Christians suffer “high and extreme levels of persecution.”
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Jesuit residence in Nicaragua seized by Ortega regime
Nicaraguan officials ratcheted up a harassment campaign targeting Jesuits in Managua over the weekend.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
The charter school model has not-so-hidden dangers for Catholic education
Oklahoma has approved public funding for what would be the nation’s first Catholic charter school. What could be the trade-offs in terms of autonomy and religious freedom?
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Jesuit university in Nicaragua shut down by Ortega government
A Nicaraguan judge described the Jesuit university as a “center of terrorism,” accusing its administrators and educators of “betraying the trust of the Nicaraguan people” and of “transgressing against the constitutional order.”
Posted inNews Analysis, Politics & Society
The Supreme Court got it right on free speech and accommodating our LGBT neighbors
In two recent cases, the Supreme Court seemed to protect religious belief, but in saying that a website developer cannot be compelled to endorse same-sex marriage, it relied on free speech principles.