Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday with prayers for Pope Francis. In Rome, Jubilee 2025 events go on in the pope’s absence, for deacons and artists. Atlanta artists have produced a “Hip-Hop Mass.” Dominating U.S. news are church and state issues and moral disagreements over IVF, Immigration and the targeting of children who entered the U.S. alone. Shannen Dee Williams (a 20121 AUSCP keynoter) brings “a real sister act” to the history of the Catholic Church in America.
Praying for the pope
A light drizzle finally let up Monday night as hundreds of faithful headed to St. Peter’s Square to pray the rosary for Pope Francis on the 11th day of his hospitalization. It was the first day of public prayer. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, led the Rosary. The report comes from Catholic News Service and Our Sunday Visitor.
Vatican News continues to provide updates. The newsroom of the U.S. bishops’ conference is another source. Both services are free.
Church and State Issues
President Trump’s first month ended in friction with the U.S. bishops over immigration, IVF and the vice president’s comments. The report, from Our Sunday Visitor.
IVF: President Donald Trump issued an executive order Feb. 18 seeking to expand access to in vitro fertilization, opening a potentially controversial debate among his core constituency of evangelical Christians. The “pro-life” movement is divided on IVF, with some seeing it as a blessing to help infertile couples conceive and bear children and others warning the IVF process produces excess fertilized eggs which amounts to abortion. A report from Baptist News Global.
‘IVF Destroys Human Life.’ The U.S. Bishops urge ethical alternatives, according to a report from the bishops’ office of public affairs. “As pastors, we see the suffering of so many couples experiencing infertility and know their deep desire to have children is both good and admirable; yet the Administration’s push for IVF, which ends countless human lives and treats persons like property, cannot be the answer.”
OPINION: “You might think that an administration that has made ‘religious liberty’ a battle cry would respect the mission of the nation’s largest religious body,” said Mark Silk at Religion News Service. The USCCB is the largest non-governmental refugee-resettlement program in the country, welcoming 17% of all refugees with $65 million in contracts for this fiscal year, plus an additional $4 million from the USCCB itself.
OPINION from Jesuit Thomas Reese for Religion News Service. Regarding foreign aid, “Christian leaders need to be prophetic like Francis, John Paul and Jesus in calling us to see our brothers and sisters who need help.”
OPINION on J. D. Vance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the parable of the Good Samaritan. “The vice president’s mangling of the Christian ordo amoris is just a smokescreen for the largest deportation operation in American history,” writes Mac Loftin, at the Christian Century.
ICE barred from some sites. A federal judge on Monday barred immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations at houses of worship associated with Quakers and several other religious groups. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang ruled that the Trump administration’s policy might infringe on religious freedoms and should be suspended while a lawsuit challenging it is resolved. From Newsweek.
Tension among Evangelicals? Evangelical leaders did not jump to President Donald Trump’s defense when he declared Feb. 19 Ukraine provoked Russia’s invasion and ought to accede to Vladimir Putin. A Baptist News Global report finds that his most ardent evangelical supporters were mysteriously silent, and evangelical leaders who have called him out before said this claim was outrageous even for Trump.
ANALYSIS: The Trump administration is once again targeting and isolating children in its anti-immigration campaign, this time seeking to expedite the removal of thousands of unaccompanied children. Reuters and other national news outlets reported Feb. 23 on an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo that directs immigration agents to track down hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the United States without their parents. The new ICE memo outlines a plan to track them down, scrutinize the families they are living with and even use DNA testing to determine if the children’s U.S. sponsors are related to them. From Baptist News Global.
Church History: America’s real sister act
“When we narrate the history of the church from the perspective of Black nuns,” says historian Shannen Dee Williams, “myths about the Catholic past fall quickly and they fall hard.” (Williams was an AUSCP keynoter in 2021 at our Assembly in the Twin Cities.) From the Christian Century.
Care for Creation
The blanket firing of Department of Agriculture scientists has thrown a host of climate science and crop projects into chaos. Vital research is in disarray, according to former and current employees of the agency. Scientists were working to improve crops, defend against pests and disease, and understand the climate impact of farming practices. The layoffs also threaten to undermine billions of taxpayer dollars paid to farmers to support conservation practices, experts warn. By Matt Reynolds, WIRED Magazine.
The Jubilee Year 2025
During the Jubilee of Deacons at the Vatican 23 men from eight countries, including three from the United States, were ordained deacons in St. Peter’s Basilica. Catholic News Service reports the deacons were told they are “called to selflessness.”
Artists and cultural figures must be “custodians of the beatitudes,” embracing their vocation to create beauty, reveal truth and inspire hope in a troubled world, Pope Francis wrote to people participating in the Jubilee for Artists and the World of Culture. From the U.S. bishops’ newsroom.
‘Hip-Hop Mass’ brings African-American Catholic flair in Atlanta
The Black Catholic Messenger reports the new composition premiered this month in Georgia at the Lyke House Catholic Center, with a planned expansion due in the coming months.
The Death Sentence
The U.S. Supreme Court Feb. 24 considered the case of a Texas death-row inmate who is seeking to obtain post-conviction DNA testing on evidence that he claims would show he did not directly participate in a 1998 murder and lead to the repeal of his death sentence. Our Sunday Visitor provides the story.
World Issues
Child casualties in Ukraine in 2024 were up by 57 percent. As February 24 marked the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine, UNICEF decries that child casualties went up by 57 percent in 2024, and warns that in addition to countless child deaths and injuries, there is an education, mental health, and birth-rate crisis in the country.
German Church leaders call for constructive, fair solutions. Leading representatives of Catholic and Protestant Churches in Germany expressed their hopes for a swift and responsible formation of government following federal elections, while voicing concern about social cohesion. From Vatican News.
Pew Research
How Americans view Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg: More negative than positive.
How the COVID pandemic affected U.S. religious life. The coronavirus outbreak had an enormous impact on how religious communities gather for worship. Early in the pandemic, just 6% of Americans who regularly attend religious services said their house of worship was open to the public and holding services in the same way as before the pandemic.
US Catholics’ political attitudes: It’s complicated (but hopeful)
Researcher Maureen Day and two colleagues conducted a national survey of more than 1,500 Catholics and interviews with nearly 60 Catholic leaders. The findings, elaborated in Catholicism at a Crossroads: The Present and Future of America’s Largest Church, have much relevance as Catholics — especially Catholic leaders — seek to better integrate faith and politics in a way that leads to a more thriving church and nation. From National Catholic Reporter.
A vision of a new dawn
Racism and abuse have devastated U.S. Catholicism. Is there a way forward? Alessandra Harris surveys various eras of Church history where human dignity was cast aside, and envisions a new dawn where healing can flourish. From Black Catholic Messenger.
What is a hermit?
Hermits are rarely in the news. Not only are there relatively few people who seek to become hermits, but those who do embrace a solitary existence of prayer and quiet. US Catholic reports this longstanding trend was recently disrupted when Christian Matson, a diocesan hermit in Kentucky, came out as transgender. This created a stir but also raised the question: What is a hermit anyway?
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