Happy Friday! As always, your weekly roundup:
The mass murder of nine people who gathered Wednesday night for Bible study at a landmark black church in Charleston has shaken a city whose history from slavery to the Civil War to the present is inseparable from the nation’s anguished struggle with race, the New York Times reports. Esquire columnist Charles Pierce writes, “What happened in a church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday night is a lot of things, but one thing it’s not is ‘unthinkable’.”
Climate change is a mostly man-made phenomenon worsened by rich countries whose people keep feeding their “self-destructive vices,” Pope Francis says in his long-awaited papal encyclical, Laudato Si’, which was released Thursday. In the first papal letter dedicated to the environment, a key theme of Francis’ papacy, the pope uses a tone of prophetic urgency to describe climate change as “a global problem with grave implications” and one that requires a “bold cultural revolution” in humanity’s thinking.
The publication of a leaked draft, though not final text, of Pope Francis’ encyclical by the Italian weekly, L’Espresso, with an introduction by Sandro Magister—its long-time columnist on Vatican affairs—sparked uproar and strong reactions not only within the Vatican, but also among reporters accredited to the Holy See’s Press office.
Pope Francis, while urging swift action to curb the burning of fossil fuels, condemns the trading of carbon-emission credits, saying it merely creates new forms of financial speculation and does not bring about “radical change.” Carbon trading, however, is the policy most widely adopted by governments to combat climate change, and it has been endorsed by leading economists as a way to cut carbon pollution while sustaining economic growth.
For the first time in more than a century, a woman’s face will appear on an American bill. The Treasury Department announced Wednesday it will replace the main image of its own founder, Alexander Hamilton, on the $10 bill, with a woman as yet to be determined. Mr. Hamilton will remain on the bill in a diminished way.
Three New York postal workers were accused of writing phony letters to Santa via the Postal Service’s “Operation Santa” program to steal underprivileged kids’ gifts, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court earlier this month.
Pope Francis announced he will visit East and Central Africa in November, and Catholic bishops are greeting the visit as an opportunity to boost the faith in the region.
And, finally, the important stuff: summer church attire. In an instantly quotable column published last week, Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island took on one of the clergy’s long-standing laments and launched an impressive broadside against “the sloppy and even offensive way people dress while attending Mass” in the summertime, David Gibson writes.
And now for the papal rapid fire roundup
This week, Pope Francis:
- Tweeted a lot.
- Said caring for the poor isn’t communism.
- Might change the date of Easter.
- Met some athletes.
- Made room for friends in the popemobile.
