Welcome to our post-Independence Day collection of news and views. It is Summertime for many, including Pope Leo XIV. We will search for wisdom in this time of hot weather and high water, and uncertainty about the climate. Be certain that all items collected are the responsibility of their authors and publishers.
Pope Leo XIV
On July 4th, Pope Leo asked the United States and Europe to consider the question: Who is your neighbor? Standing among the graves of migrants, Pope Leo turned America’s birthday into a pointed appeal for welcoming the stranger. From Religion News Service.
Pope Leo XIV receives Liberty Medal, urges Americans to live founding values amid 250th anniversary. Black Catholic Messenger reports the Holy Father delivered a live address to the nation, while also releasing a public letter on July 4 in honor of Independence Day.
Independence Day Party in Rome
This year’s Independence Day party at the private residence of the United States’ ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, was a brightly colored spectacle mixing the patriotic with the sacred. Religion News Service reports the first American-born pope may have brought Washington and Rome closer symbolically, but not necessarily politically.
National Eucharistic Pilgrimage marks nation’s 250th
Black Catholic Messenger reports a solemn procession capped off a six-week journey led by young adults up the East Coast to inspire faith and worship in the nation’s 250th year.
America’s Catholic Founding Father
US Catholic says Charles Carroll embodied the paradoxes of the new United States and its spirit of revolution.
‘A religion too wild to nationalize’
VIEWPOINT: After 250 years, US Christianity remains too diverse, splintered, and strange to be conscripted into any one political project. From the Christian Century.
Matthew 25 divides Washington
Religion News Service finds Bible verses dividing Washington: Matthew 25 became a political litmus test, as Senator Raphael Warnock disagrees with Speaker Mike Johnson. Is Matthew 25 about individuals or nations?
Immigration matters
Religion News Service reports on problems at the El Paso Diocese-run nonprofit. El Paso Matters, one of the largest providers of legal services for unaccompanied children, says the US is defying a court order, withholding funds.
OPINION: It’s time for churches to directly defy unjust immigration policies. By Will McCorkle, Baptist News Global.
Pope Leo XIV Wants a Missionary Church
What Does That Look Like Today? The National Catholic Register asks several Catholic voices to weigh in on the missionary vision of the current pontificate.
Testing Leo’s view of women in church
A Vatican ruling that bars laypeople, including women, from preaching the homily at Mass is testing the limits of Pope Leo XIV’s early signals of openness to women’s leadership in the Catholic Church. From Religion News Service.
U.S. bishops to SSPX: ‘Come home’
Catholic bishops with Society of St. Pius X locations in their areas are forbidding Catholics from attending SSPX services and urging attendees and SSPX priests to return to the Catholic Church. From National Catholic Register.
US megachurches report strong rebound from pandemic
A report, from Baptist News Global.
‘Remembering how much is hidden from us’
By Johnny Zokovitch, former executive director of Pax Christi USA. He currently serves on the board of the Pax Christi International Fund for Peace and is in pastoral leadership at St. Cronan Catholic Church in St. Louis. His personal story, from Pax Christi.
Seas are changing
As plastic chokes Vietnam’s seas, people of faith cast their nets for hope. When fisherman Huynh Ba Oa was a boy, his father taught him a simple lesson: “The sea feeds us, so we must protect the sea.” The sea is changing. From National Catholic Reporter.
War in Ukraine
COMMENTARY from National Catholic Register: “The Russians Will Never Bomb This Place” — Then They Did. A devastating Russian drone attack on Dormition Cathedral, one of the world’s most important religious sites, has further deepened Ukraine’s resolve to win the war.
New editor for Black Catholic Messenger
Nate Tinner-Williams, the co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger, has announced that Sheila Hodges, a board member of the Black Catholic Messenger Foundation, will become the nonprofit’s new leader, serving as president of the board and editor of BCM.
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