The word is defiance. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday, the last of October. What seems to be happening in the world of religion and society is an increasing willingness to speak out, even to fight back, against authoritarian structures. People of faith are speaking out against ICE. Some are insisting on free assembly even as federal agents shoot another minister with a pepper ball to the head. It’s not new, if you examine how women religious — those who take vows but aren’t ordained — turn out to be unafraid to defy both the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the secular courts. First, though, ponder the challenge of this week’s Justice Bulletin Board.
Justice Bulletin Board
Living a just and non-violent life is hard to do on a daily basis—it is difficult to be open, to actively listen, and be reflective with people who may not agree with you. Yet, to emulate Jesus, this is exactly what is required of us—to do the right, love goodness, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6: 8).
Pushback against ICE
After clergy arrests, religious pushback to ICE expands in Chicago, according to Religion News Service. More than 210 mostly Chicago-area clergy, representing a range of liberal and conservative traditions, have signed a letter criticizing ICE titled “Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview.”
Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled new conditions for the grants faith groups use to protect their communities. DHS now requires recipients to cooperate with immigration enforcement and refrain from promoting DEI and certain boycotts. Religion News Service reports that faith groups are pushing back.
For the second time in six weeks, a San Francisco Bay area pastor was struck in the head with a pepper round fired by a US immigration agent as faith leaders protested the arrival of more than 100 US Customs and Border Patrol agents. The report from Religion News Service.
Advice how to challenge authorities. “Honest Americans need a shorthand way of challenging President Donald Trump and his MAGA followers,” says Eddie Glaude Jr. of Princeton University. He suggests a simple phrase: “You’re lying.” Baptist News Global reports Glaude says “those who claim the mantle of Christianity as a justification . . . must be met with a forceful refutation . . . on Christian grounds.”
“DHS is lying about us” say some protestors, as reported by the Christian Century. “The protesters at the ICE facility outside Chicago are not an angry mob. We’re just people who believe in due process and free speech.”
“We can actually be the America of myth — a place where all sorts of people build worlds together — or we can be the America that eats itself,” says writer Phil Christman in the Christian Century. “In 2024, we voted to eat ourselves.” Christman calls for the abolition of ICE.
After saying he proudly voted for Donald Trump three times, the COO of the National Hispanic Evangelical Leadership Conference told a group of faith leaders Oct. 22 he was unaware Trump’s ICE agents had been physically attacking pastors in Chicago. From Baptist News Global.
International news
President Donald Trump’s abrupt elimination of USAID already has caused 400,000 deaths globally and will cause 14 million deaths by 2030, according to the president of the hunger advocacy group Bread for the World. From Baptist News Global.
A significant majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump is leading the nation in the wrong direction and disagree with his handling of the economy, immigration and foreign policy, according to a new annual survey by Public Religion Research Institute. From Baptist News Global.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday (October 24) toured a U.S.-led center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire, as the Trump administration worked to set up an international security force in the territory and shore up the tenuous truce between Israel and Hamas. From the Associated Press and Religion News Service.
The Rev. Franklin Graham confirmed Saturday (Oct. 25) that Samaritan’s Purse, the international humanitarian relief organization he heads, is ramping up its role in delivering aid to Gaza as the embattled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is being shut down.
Division among Catholic Priests
What a new survey of US Catholic priests does, and does not, tell us. The conclusion from Michael Sean Winters, National Catholic Reporter. “The findings largely confirm the narrative that older clergy are far more liberal than younger. But there are still issues, less political and more theological, for further studies of U.S. priests to explore.”
For decades, older priests have complained about conservative younger priests who have been coming out of seminaries in recent years, while those younger priests have complained about old liberal priests. Jesuit Thomas Reese writes for Religion News Service. “The views of younger priests are especially important because they are the future of the American church. Us old guys are dying off.”
Opinion
Michael Sean Winters: Loyola Marymount workers should take their case to a canonical tribunal. At National Catholic Reporter, Winters writes, “Last Wednesday, my colleague Brian Fraga reported on the decision by Loyola Marymount University’s board of trustees to withdraw its previous recognition of the union representing non-tenure track faculty. A Jesuit university busted a union.”
Andre Henry: “the fight against American authoritarianism requires an organized effort to shift this Christian consensus.” At Religion News Service, Henry says Charlie Kirk’s “rise as a Christian hero exposes the faith’s perilous path.”
Jacqueline Murray: “Nuns are earning a reputation for being defiant, but obedience has always had its limits.” Murray, in Religion News Service, says “Nuns have long defied assumptions that religious women are fundamentally passive and obedient.”
Book Review: ‘The Lost Mary’
A new book breaks from centuries of mythmaking around the Virgin Mary. Fiona André writes, at Religion News Service, that the book is the fruit of 20 years of research. The author says Mary’s real identity has been lost amid centuries-long attempts to paint her as an ever-virgin, quasi-divine woman.
At the Mount of Olives
Come October, monks and nuns are busy harvesting olives at the Mount of Olives and the Gethsemane garden — where, according to the Gospel, Jesus spent the last night before being taken up the other side of the valley into Jerusalem to be crucified. For two years, the Israel-Hamas war has cast a pall on the Holy Land. But this year’s harvest happened as a ceasefire agreement was reached, spreading a tenuous hope for peace. From National Catholic Reporter.
Anniversary: ‘Nostra Aetate’ at 60: A call for unity still relevant
In an era marked by religious and cultural tensions, this unity call amidst diversity is more essential than ever, says the Union of Catholic Asian News.
Israel’s war against Hamas has generated tensions, but Jewish leaders say both sides remain deeply committed to the path of reconciliation fostered by the Second Vatican Council document. From the National Catholic Register.
Care for Creation
World Youth Day 2027 in Seoul will focus on care for creation, ecological conversion. Organizers unveil final plans, which include setting up global youth networks dedicated to environmental stewardship. From the Union of Catholic Asian News.
CO2 levels in Earth’s atmosphere jumped by a record amount in 2024. The global average concentration of CO2 surged by 3.5 parts per million to reach 423.9 ppm last year, fuelling worries that the planet’s ability to soak up excess carbon is weakening. From the New Scientist.
Hindus and Catholics
The Union of Catholic Asian News reports that some Catholics see Diwali’s rituals as incompatible with their faith, choosing instead to retreat into quiet prayer while the world outside bursts into celebration. Others light their own lamps, not in worship of Hindu deities, but as a cultural embrace of the community around them. Both paths carry their own weight of conviction and consequence.
The Latin Mass
Thousands of faithful from all over the world took part in a solemn pontifical Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Burke on Saturday, the culmination of a traditional Rome pilgrimage that saw its best-ever attendance. Part of the annual international “Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage to the See of Peter,” which began in 2012, the pontifical Mass was suspended in 2022. From the National Catholic Register.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s Mass planned for San Francisco on Saturday, Nov. 1, is one of five traditional pontifical Latin liturgies scheduled for the next month. From the National Catholic Register.
Can Ken Burns Win the American Revolution?
Burns’s 12-hour documentary about our national origin story is landing in the middle of a culture war. Yes, it’s complicated. No, he does not want to talk about President Trump. From the New York Times.
Today’s American Catholic
Michael Centore examines the thinking of Emmanual Mounier, his philosophy of Personalism, and the language of Lumen Gentium from Vatican II. “To be conscious of the tree is to be over there, amongst its leaves and branches: it is even in some sense, as the Hindus and certain romantics have said, to be that tree, palpitating with it in the sweet fever of spring, feeling its century-old boughs in my own limbs, breaking out into joy with its budding—and yet to remain myself, distinct from it.”
These may be of interest
Each week, AUSCP friend Bob Stewart assembles a large collection of “Faith-inspired News, Reflections and Resources.” Bob provides images and links for easy access to a wide range of thought and action. If you are hungry, Bob has a feast for you.
Webinars
On Thursday, October 30, Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life will host a Public Dialogue to respond to Pope Leo’s powerful challenge to the Church to refocus on the poor and his questions regarding the moral and human impacts of artificial intelligence at this time of economic turmoil and transformation.
To stand in solidarity with the One Church, One Family campaign, Catholic Climate Covenant invites participation on Wednesday, November 5th at 12 p.m. (ET) for an online conversation on “Climate Change and Migration: Two Interconnected Crises.” Climate change is one of the driving push factors of global migration as weather related disasters (hurricanes, drought, flooding), and sea level rise make large swaths of land unusable and undermine the lives and dignity of small farmers and farmworkers and impact many national economies.
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