As an Indian-American living in the US, I often feel like a sheep without a shepherd.
“We can no longer look the other way” from the ecological crisis threatening the world today, Pope Francis has warned.
On September 9, 2020, the Roman Catholic Bishops of California announced a year-long initiative to examine the impact of racism, particularly as it is felt in the African-American community.
In the cathedral of Como on Saturday morning, the funeral Mass took place for priest Roberto Malgesini, murdered on Tuesday by a homeless person.
A US bishop has decried racism as an “attack against the dignity and sanctity of human life”.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx has encouraged the world to “think beyond capitalism” post-COVID-19, echoing a question posed also by Pope Francis even before the pandemic: “How can we work for an economy that really serves people and is not only oriented towards material interests?”
On Saturday August 29 a centre for the Roma was inaugurated in Croatia, where Europe’s largest ethnic minority numbers over 35,000 people, mainly concentrated in the north.
In a message published today to the Forum of the European House-Ambrosetti, an encounter of politicians, representatives of European institutions and business leaders taking place in northern Italy this Friday and Saturday, Pope Francis urged an “ecological retooling” of the economy to counter what he called the “inhumane” pace of production and consumption today.
To the chagrin of many, Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan offered this Monday the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention.
“Too many people are leaving church with a clear conscience”, Spanish theologian José María Castillo has lamented.
In his Wednesday General Audience today, Pope Francis pleaded for a cure to the “virus” of “social injustice, inequality of opportunity, marginalisation and the lack of protection for the weakest”.
“People are worth more than things, they are more valuable than any riches we possess”, Pope Francis has stressed.
Fifteen leading organizations headed by “progressive feminist Catholics” have issued an Open Letter to Catholic Voters and All Voters for Justice, calling on voters to “stem the tide of injustice and usher in a new era of equality.”
Racism is a deep-seated vice, one that is ingrained in humans at a very early age and is generational. Power, social and economic structures benefit from and perpetuate inequity in order to confer unmerited privileges to a select few.
We are all invited to join an online prayer today, July 23 – promoted by religious around the world – for all those who are suffering from COVID-19 and from the injustice that may be preventing their adequate care.
Italian bishops are warning of a new “epidemic” of mafia-induced “slavery” amid COVID-19 need.
“We became priests to bless people, not to curse them”, a Spanish priest has explained of his LGBTQ outreach.
“Global inequality is scandalous”and political democracy is “not enough” to counter it, a liberation theologian pushing for economic democracy has written.
It is not surprising that social services and assistance projects of all sorts pop up at the beginning of summer in Italy in an effort to accompany the many elderly people left alone in the cities during the hot months of July and August when families go on holiday and support systems close.
A Vatican official has urged the world “to press the reset button” on the system post-COVID and to forge “a new path”.
Madrid LGBTI+H Christians have responded to ultra-Catholic, queerphobic attacks on their association’s premises with even more “love” and “forgiveness”.
This week saw the release of the book Cuarentena (“Quarantine”), a diary by journalist Alver Metalli on how people lived the coronavirus confinement in one of the shantytowns on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
The Council for World Mission, a global partnership of 32 member Churches, has called on Christians worldwide to “rise up” against the “pandemic” of racial injustice revealed by the George Floyd murder.
Two days after the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, knelt with a dozen other priests in a silent prayer for George Floyd holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign, he received a phone call from Pope Francis.
With an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, over 150 human rights and Church groups including the Jesuit Refugee Service Europe have accused Brussels of the “blatant denial” of police brutality and structural racism in Europe.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, visited a settlement just outside of the gates of Rome on Saturday evening.
“Time devoted to prayer can never become an alibi for neglecting our neighbour in need”, Pope Francis has clamoured in his message, presented today, for the Fourth World Day of the Poor November 15.
The Irish Bishops are calling on citizens to “examine our own consciences” on racism, saying that the discrimination and oppression of minorities “is not just an American phenomenon”.
“White supremacist business as usual is no longer acceptable”, the World Council of Churches has clamoured in a new statement on the wave of protests set off in the US and around the world by the murder in police custody of George Floyd and of dozens of other innocent black victims.
There are George Floyds in Europe too, in the opinion of a French bishop who has deplored the racism and “ghettoisation” suffered by minorities on the continent.