Terence Sweeney

"Love is as much shown in small acts of care and attention as it is in big words and bold deeds." americamagazine.org/faith/2023/03/…

The Pope is right. Up until WWII, indiscriminately bombing cities from a distance was considered clearly immoral and cowardly. Soldiers were expected to fight soldiers not citizens. Now we have leaders who brag about doing it.

My monday essay for @thedispatch

Breaking🚨: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, announces Holy Week cancellations due to war. Palm Sunday procession is canceled, Chrism Mass postponed. He urges the faithful to pray the rosary for all those impacted by the conflict.

This move comes after ProPublica and others’ reporting on kids’ experiences inside the center, as well as heightened attention from lawmakers and social media figures 2/ propublica.org/article/life-i…

'The abuse and manipulation of God’s name to justify this and any other war is the gravest sin we can commit at this time. War is first and foremost political and has very material interests, like most wars. We must do everything we can to leave no room for this pseudo-religious language, which speaks not of God, but of ourselves' Cardinal Pizzaballa

We cannot celebrate the legacy of immigrant saints and ancestors while remaining silent about the struggles of immigrants today. americamagazine.org/short-take/202…

Catholic novelist George Bernanos on Francisco Franco's Spain

Maher Khalifa, a Lebanese child, went to sleep in his football uniform, dreaming of his next match—he never woke up. Unarmed, innocent, and full of life, he is one of countless children killed by Israeli forces across Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon.

In a pastoral letter on March 15, Bishop Mark Seitz urged immigration enforcement agents not to follow illegal orders and denounced the "grave moral evil" of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign. americamagazine.org/politics-socie…

All men and women, especially Christians, are called to fix their gaze on those who suffer, on the pain of the lonely, and on those who are emarginated for various reasons, for without them we cannot build a just society. Only together can we build communities of solidarity capable of caring for everyone, in which wellbeing and peace can flourish for the benefit of all. Caring for the humanity of others helps us to live our own lives to the full.

If we started running a $1 trillion surplus next, it would still take 40 years to pay off the debt. To think that in the 1990s we were on track to start retiring the debt. This is the ultimate Boomer legacy.

Formation must be local, embodied, and relational. thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/03/100487/

Pope Benedict XVI identified the integralist desire to "use power to secure the faith" with Satan's third temptation of Jesus.

UPDATED: El Paso Bishop Robert J. Seitz/@BishopSeitz on Sunday denounced the #Trumpadministration’s campaign of mass detention and mass deportation of immigrants as “a grave moral evil, one which must be opposed, with #prayer, #peaceful action and acts of #solidarity with those affected.” Bishop Seitz, a vocal advocate for #immigrants for decades, delivered his sharp criticism of the policies in a #pastoralletter, which he signed at St. Patrick Cathedral in #ElPaso and directed to be read at all Sunday Masses in the El Paso Diocese’s 55 parishes. “To those of you affected by hatred and discrimination and afraid of what comes next, know that the Church stands with you,” Seitz wrote in the pastoral letter. “As your Bishop, I carry your pain daily in my heart and in my prayers. I stand with you.” Pope Leo XIX/@Pontifex employed those very words — “I stand with you.” — when speaking to Seitz and other members of a U.S. delegation of immigration advocates at the #Vatican in early October. At the meeting, the first U.S.-born pontiff told the delegation that he hoped the #USbishops would become “stronger in their own voice” on immigration issues. Little more than a month later, the @USCCB approved a rare pastoral message condemning the Trump administration’s “indiscriminate mass deportation” of immigrants as an affront to “God-given human dignity.” In his message, the 71-year-old Seitz wrote: “Our Holy Father, #PopeLeo XIV, told me personally to stand in solidarity with suffering #migrant families and not to remain silent. I will do everything I can to uphold the God-given dignity of every person in our borderlands community.” While acknowledging what he portrayed as the overdue need for “significant immigration reforms,” Seitz said in his message: “It is an injustice to make #families, #children and the #vulnerable pay the price of our inaction…. I must make clear, the current national campaign of #mass detention and deportations is a grave #moralevil, one which must be opposed, with prayer, peaceful action and acts of solidarity with those affected.” Seitz urged #immigrationenforcement officers to follow “the moral requirements of the Gospel at this moment with integrity and honesty,” adding: “No one has to obey an immoral order…. When we take off our masks and encounter each other as neighbors, we can reclaim our common dignity.”.... Dylan Corbett, executive director of the El Paso-based Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization that advocates for immigrants, praised Bishop Seitz’s pastoral letter. “This is an important message because it categorically calls out #massdeportations as a grave evil, one which, as the bishop says, must be opposed with acts of solidarity, peaceful protest and work to shape a more just system,” Corbett said in an email to The Catholic Observer. Corbett — who along with Seitz, led the delegation of U.S. immigrant advocates who visited with Pope Leo at the #Vatican in October — said it seemed fitting that the bishop issued his pastoral letter after a breakfast meeting with #immigrants, including some who had been detained at #CampEastMontana. Other immigrants who have been deported participated in the meeting remotely. “For Bishop Seitz,” Corbett said, “this isn’t a political issue…. It’s a letter grounded in an experience of encounter, and a strong sign of solidarity with all fearing the immigrant enforcement machine right now in our country.” Corbett noted the letter’s “strong denunciation of the immigrant detention system” after 11 deaths in ICE custody this year alone — and 32 last year, the highest in more than two decades. Read the full updated story in The Catholic Obsserver: thecatholicobserver.substack.com/p/updated-el-p… #BishopSeitz #HopeBorderInstitute #DylanCorbett #ElPasoDiocese #USCCB #immigration #PopeLeo #Vatican #USCCB #massdeportations #Catholic #CatholicChurch #TriciaMcLaughlin #KristiNoem #CoreyLewandowski #dhs #dhsscandal #SafeAmericaMedia #StrategyGroup #ICEkillings #DHS #Minneapolis #ReneeGood #AlexPretti #RubenRayMartinez #CampEastMontan #DonaldTrump #MarkwayneMullin

2000 years of uninterrupted Christianity. These were both the original Christians and the original Israelites. The original ones. The ones ethnically cleansed by the state that calls itself "Israel".

Please watch this. Don’t look away. Listen to his words. Understand what Israel is doing. What our government supports. What most Western governments defend.

Vatican Newspaper L'Osservatore Romano [Already 1,100 "collateral damage" "These are the children killed and injured in the war in the Middle East, where the humanitarian situation is out of control and a further escalation would affect 60 million people."]

UPDATE:  Last week ICE deported a 6-year-old deaf child WITHOUT allowing him to take his hearing devices. This week my staff flew to Colombia to return those devices. We gave him his sound.   He gave us that smile.

A Lebanese Maronite priest killed by Israeli tank fire while rushing to help wounded villagers has been remembered as a martyr. Father Pierre al-Rahi died after a second shell struck the home he ran to aid, and Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi called his death a “martyrdom" during the funeral. Pope Leo XIV also commemorated him in a personal way today, saying "Rahi" - the priest's last name - means "shepherd." Amazing how his village bid farewell to their pastor. Lebanese army commander flew by helicopter to be at his funeral. Dale Gavlak writes for @OSVNews osvnews.com/slain-lebanese…

BREAKING: This is Beirut right now. Israel is MASSIVELY bombing Lebanon’s capital in the middle of the night — deliberately wiping out apartment block after apartment block. Civilian homes. Residential buildings. No justification. Just pure terror.