Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday and a surprising focus on geography. From prayers for immigrants in New Jersey and Atlanta, we move to a bishop’s personal journey from San Salvador to Washington, D.C. – and on to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for new immigrant faces and an age-old mosque. We begin with a Labor Day essay from Washington, D.C., and a “Cancer Alley” service from Louisiana.
Labor Day, living faith: Catholic Social Teaching and the work of justice
AUSCP friend Robert Stewart contributed his Labor Day commentary to the Catholic Standard in Washington, D.C. Bob writes, “As we commemorate Labor Day, a time to honor the dignity of labor and workers, the parades may be smaller and the speeches shorter, but the stakes for America’s workers have rarely been higher.”
‘Cancer Alley’ service today
Activist faith leaders will join former Vice President Al Gore this week in Southeast Louisiana for “Cancer Alley United: Rise for Our Lives Before We Die,” an event advocating for ecological justice in a region plagued by factory pollution. An information fair and revival service is planned today (Wednesday, Aug. 27), in St. James, Louisiana. From Black Catholic Messenger.
Immigration and location, location, location
Baltimore. Before being taken into custody by ICE agents Monday (Aug. 25), Kilmar Abrego García, a national flashpoint after he was illegally deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, addressed a crowd in Spanish. To other immigrants, he said, “God is with us, and God will never leave us.” Then he added: “God will bring justice to all of the injustice that we are suffering.”
At Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, the East Coast’s largest immigrant detention facility, families and volunteers say harsh conditions and shifting rules have urged the need for spiritual care. From Religion News Service.
On the streets in downtown Atlanta, Catholic sisters processed through downtown Atlanta in mid-August in a ‘Pilgrimage of Hope,’ praying for migrants, racial justice and action on climate change. From Religion News Service.
From El Salvador to D.C. — A bishop’s story. Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala of Washington, D.C. arrived in the United States as a teenager after fleeing violence in his native El Salvador, much of which targeted Catholics. He tried to immigrate three times; twice he was caught and put in jail, the third time he was released and crossed the border at Tijuana. His story unfolds in an interview with U.S. Catholic.
Remember American Gothic? It was in Cedar Rapids, surrounded by cornfields, where Iowa artist Grant Wood painted the iconic 1930 portrayal of a stern-looking woman and a man with a pitchfork in front of a white frame house. Religion News Service reports on the many different images following more than a century of international migration and faith-based resettlement efforts.
Who knew? The oldest surviving place of worship for Muslims in the United States is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is a white clapboard building on a grassy corner plot, as unassumingly Midwestern as its neighboring houses in Cedar Rapids – except for a dome. The story from the Associated Press.
Texas divided. Ten Commandments decision depends on districts
After a federal court ruling blocked enforcement of Senate Bill 10 in nearly a dozen independent school districts, Texas Attorney General Paxton’s office filed an appeal on Aug. 21, asserting that the law reflects Texas’ historical and moral foundation. From the National Catholic Register.
Cosmic geography
Suggested by the Care for Creation working group: Climate Ethics is a framework for examining the moral issues that have arisen within the global climate crisis, and the implications for what to do about it. It includes framing questions such as: How do we respond to the reality that communities hurt first and most intensely by the crisis are generally the least responsible for causing it? From Union Theological Seminary.
In its latest series, Caring for Our Common Home, UCA News features some communities that respond to the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” a phrase articulated by Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff in 1997, which has now become foundational to the self-understanding of Catholicism in the 21st century.
Around the World
Vatican City. Pope Leo XIV sent a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday (Aug. 24), the anniversary of its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, in which he expressed his concern for the war-torn country and its people. Religion News Service reports Leo also made an appeal for peace in Ukraine, entrusting the country to the Virgin Mary.
El-Fasher, Sudan. The last pastor in this blockaded Sudan city holds out for remaining Christians. As two militias fight over the city, an Anglican priest hangs on to serve a population slowly dying from hunger and stray bullets. From Religion News Service.
Washington, D.C. Where crime persists in Washington, the Christian Science Monitor reports that residents do not see federal troops as the answer. Residents and crime experts say targeted community engagement is a better anti-crime strategy.
Essays and Opinions
Former editor and executive editor of National Catholic Reporter Tom Roberts writes, “How I am quietly countering Trump’s DC takeover.” “We are all in this together,” he writes. “The soldiers are fellow citizens. A majority of those I encountered were people of color. This is not what they were trained to do. They are being used as props in the Trump/Miller follies.”
Writer Mark Silk says a Texas judge “enjoyably enjoins” the Ten Commandments. In blocking a statute requiring the Decalogue to be posted in public schools, a judge’s injunction is both solid jurisprudence and a good read. In a commentary for Religion News Service Silk says the judge’s “solid jurisprudence . . . is worth the price of admission as sheer entertainment.”
The end of Civil Rights (1964–2025): An American obituary. Writing for Baptist News Global, Edmond W. Davis offers a brutal examination of the last 60 years. ” . . . [I]n 2025, Civil Rights is dead. It was starved by court decisions, suffocated by voter suppression and stabbed in the back by a nation eager to pretend racism has been solved.”
Racism: The momentum fades. At a conference, five years after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a police officer, OneRace’s conference explored how the anti-racist momentum of 2020 has progressively faded. From Religion News Service.
“Catholic Churches Do Not Endorse Candidates.” William Droel, writing in Today’s American Catholic, says Catholic churches will not take advantage of a new provision in the US tax code.
‘Holiness is in the Ordinary.’ Antonia Acutis, the mother of soon-to-be-saint Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint, spoke with the National Catholic Register on Aug. 20 about her son’s holiness and vocational dream, plus other topics.
Surveys and data
Pew Research takes a measured look at “Spirituality and Religion: How Does the U.S. Compare With Other Countries?” About seven-in-ten Americans identify with a religion. Seven-in-ten Americans also believe in an afterlife. And about half of Americans say that parts of nature – such as mountains, rivers or trees – can have spirits or spiritual energies.
Where Is Catholicism Growing in the US? Out of the top 10 gainers, only one diocese — the Archdiocese of New York — is located outside of the South or the West. Of the 10, six are in Texas or California. From National Catholic Register.
According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), 61 conflicts were recorded in 36 countries last year — the highest number of state-based armed conflicts in more than seven decades. On Aug. 22 — the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary — Pope Leo XIV called for a day of prayer and fasting for peace, especially in Ukraine and the Holy Land. The Catholic Standard in Washington, D.C., reports on a message of “both resilient hope and prayerful action.”
Coffee and Catholicism
A new Coffee Shop in Archdiocese of Denver aims to be ‘Outpost of Evangelization.’ In a feature from the Catholic News Agency, published by the National Catholic Register, readers are invited: “Step into More Coffee and you’re immediately greeted by the smell of fresh ground coffee, quotes from Catholic saints on the chalkboard, and a crucifix hanging by the pickup counter.”
Justice Bulletin Board
“God is very concerned about God’s children who end up in prison,” says Barbara Molinari Quinby. “As Jesus begins his public life, he quotes from Isaiah 61:1, which records that the Spirit of God had anointed his servant “to proclaim liberty to the captives” and it is a recurring theme almost to the end of his ministry.” (Read more)
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