Joining this year are dozens of leaders from different Christian denominations, making the journey not only an expression of personal devotion but a public show of unity and spiritual leadership in a region challenged by political instability, poverty, and insecurity.
This issue of A Public Witness looks at what’s happening with U.S. refugee resettlement and the South African Christians pushing back against the apartheid theology propping up the Trump administration.
The 69-year-old Chicago-born missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and belongs to the Augustinian religious order caught the world by surprise when he was elected to be the 267th pope.
While Trump attended Francis’s funeral, he and JD Vance have clashed with U.S. bishops in general and Francis in particular over the administration’s hard line stance on immigration and its efforts to deport migrants en masse.
Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect God’s creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty, and oppression.
Modern churches still gather on the traditions and teachings of the generations who went before us. This is important to remember in a time when some ‘prophets’ invent new theologies and ways of interpreting the Bible.