Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday, following Monday’s Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples’ Day. You might expect news items this week about faith-based aid to Gaza, some faith-related judgments about U.S. immigration actions, and recent writing from Pope Leo. Unexpected, perhaps, is a congressman’s comment that ICE actions rounding up children are “doing the Lord’s work.” And there is a “seismic growth” in the Indian-American component of our U.S. population as three states officially recognize Diwali as a holiday next Monday, October 20.
Gaza
With President Trump announcing “the war is over” on Monday (Oct. 13) and Israel and Hamas trading hostages for Palestinian prisoners, aid from the United Nations and faith-based agencies began to flow into the Gaza Strip, with hopes of stemming a humanitarian disaster. The report from Religion News Service.
A look at the living hostages released by Hamas under ceasefire deal, from the Associated Press. On Monday, Hamas released 20 hostages into the custody of the Red Cross, which then brought them to Israel as part of a new ceasefire deal that many hope will signal an end to two years of war in the devastated Gaza Strip.
Welcoming the (White) stranger
“Trump plans to slash refugee admissions and only let in whites,” says the headline of a report by Jeff Brumley, at Baptist News Global. President Donald Trump is expected to cut refugee admissions into the United States to 7,500 next year — a new low for the U.S. The administration also is expected to limit most of the 2026 admissions to white Afrikaners from South Africa, The New York Times reported.
ICE in Chicago: Who would Jesus deport?
In Chicago, clergy and faith-based protesters say ICE is threatening their religious freedom. Despite potential danger, religious leaders and faith activists have been a visible presence at Chicago-area ICE protests, some waving signs with slogans such as “Love thy neighbor” and “Who would Jesus deport?” From Religion News Service.
COMMENTARY: “This approach to immigration is morally grounded, theologically sound and capable of fostering genuine dialogue.” A Catholic Response to the Immigration and Deportation Debate from the National Catholic Register.
A first hand report: “When my editor called me Friday and asked if I’d like to fly to Chicago to cover what’s happening here, I, of course, said yes,” said Mara Richards Bim, for Baptist News Global. “News had just broken that a Presbyterian pastor had been shot in the head with a pepper-spray bullet and was suing the government, 500 National Guard troops . . . had been deployed to the area, and a U.S. District Judge had just blocked that deployment . . . .” What I witnessed in Chicago, day 1.
‘Doing the Lord’s work’
ICE agents who are violently rounding up children from playgrounds and parents from city streets are “doing the Lord’s work,” according to U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican from Ohio. His comments came three weeks after White House staffer Stephen Miller, architect of the Trump administration’s harsh immigrant deportation program, told a group of evangelicals, “We are on the side of God.” A news report from Baptist News Global.
Dilexi te: Pope Leo sides with the poor
The new apostolic exhortation calls out the “wealthy elite, living in a bubble of comfort and luxury, almost in another world compared to ordinary people.” Report from Religion News Service.
COMMENTARY At the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters writes, “It is odd — or is it? — that Pope Leo begins his apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te with the story of the woman who poured costly oil on Jesus’ head (Matthew 26:8-9,11), only to be upbraided by one of the disciples who fretted, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.”
PAPAL DOCUMENTS Are you familiar with papal documents on social justice going all the way back to 1891? Here are some of their blockbuster titles, from Barbara Molinari Quinby, with Justice Bulletin Board.
Stories of Church, State and Society
As of this week, three US states have codified Diwali (October 20) as a state holiday, offering a framework for excused absences or paid leave for students and employees who wish to celebrate. While it is a primarily symbolic designation that does not require schools and government offices to close, families in the diaspora say recognizing it signifies that South Asians belong in the American mainstream.
Context: Diwali, also called Deepavali or Deepawali, is the Hindu festival of lights, with variations celebrated in other Indian religions such as Jainism and Sikhism. It symbolises the spiritual victory of Dharma over Adharma, light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. According to Wikipedia.
Context: Several states recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day, with some replacing Columbus Day with it, while others offer it alongside. States that have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day include Maine, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Vermont.
Context: The Constantine context of church and state, from Wikipedia. During the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (306–337 AD), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire.
When it comes to going to church, Religion News Service reports a generational pattern is playing out in many households around the world: Grandparents never miss Sunday service; parents attend only on holidays; children, who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” rarely attend at all as adults. The new study maps secularization and religious change across more than 100 countries and major religious traditions.
The Christian Century analyzes new research: What do people in their 20s want from church? Churches try all kinds of tricks. But new research indicates that the answers are surprisingly traditional.
Structural Identity
Is it a church or a non-profit? One Nashville church offers no in-person worship services but accrues $40,000 per month from its two downtown parking lots. Baptist News Global examines court rulings related to historic churches in the city.
Church identity: As Willow Creek turns 50, the onetime “church of the future” redefines success. In the mid-1970s, a group of high schoolers and their former youth pastor started a church in a movie theater and named it Willow Creek. American religion hasn’t been the same since. The church celebrates its 50th anniversary Oct. 11-12. From Religion News Service.
OK to hate Mormons? “We talk a lot in this country about free speech. We don’t talk nearly as much about the link between hate speech and hate violence.” A day before a gunman’s attack on an LDS service in Michigan, Colorado students chanted “F*** the Mormons” during their game against Brigham Young University. As Utah Sen. Mike Lee pointed out, these anti-Mormon chants are all too common at away games. Religion News Service says the Michigan shooter’s motive was hatred.
News reports: What they said
‘Share the Arrows’ — In Dallas, 6,700 conservative Christian women rally for culture war battles after Kirk’s death. The ‘Share the Arrows’ conference founded by commentator Allie Beth Stuckey has emboldened women to carry on Charlie Kirk’s conservative fight.
A federal appeals court has tossed out its previous ruling that Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law is “plainly unconstitutional” and announced all 17 of its judges will now reconsider the case. From Baptist News Global.
President Donald Trump recently celebrated his role as “the most pro-faith and pro-religious liberty president in American history” by issuing a little-noticed list of his “Top 100 Victories for People of Faith,” many of them gifts to the evangelicals who helped elect him in 2016 and 2024. Baptist News Global reports Trump’s list did not mention his attacks on immigration, which have generated criticism from U.S. Catholic bishops and the pope, or his cuts to domestic and foreign aid that critics say are increasing illness and deaths here and abroad.
OPINION It’s time to wake up: The Catholic Church needs women deacons now. At the Black Catholic Messenger, Daryl Grigsby writes on the burning need for ordained female ministry to honor Christian tradition and enliven a stagnant, monolithic permanent diaconate.
Holy See Position
‘Ecological debt’ owed to developing countries must be rectified. Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, addressed the UN’s ‘Second Committee Debate on Item 18: Sustainable Development,’ and insists that ecological debt owed to developing countries must be rectified, biodiversity be protected, and there must be greater education for integral ecology.
Vatican News
A statement released by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announces that women and clerics from outside the former Holy Office and Roman Curia will serve on the panel judging the former Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik, accused of abuse by several religious sisters.
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