The Chilean bishops’ have urged political leaders to step up to their responsibility to preserve the common good and deplored acts of anarchy and looting, most recently directed against church sites themselves. But is anyone listening to them?

On Nov. 12, the U.S. bishops elected Archbishop Gomez to be the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the first ballot.

Conditions in Lebanon have been so bad for so long that most people seemed to have come to accept a profound level of government dysfunction. But this summer a series of difficulties—from wildfires raging across the countryside to a national shortage in fuel—highlighted the costs of government mismanagement and financial ineptitude.

According to a new survey, a large share of U.S. Catholics still have doubts about the ability of religious leaders to admit and take responsibility for mistakes. But no one fares worse than members of Congress in terms of public trust.

The most important thing to emerge from the synod was the unequivocal commitment by the church to seek new ways to preach the Gospel and to promote justice and stand in solidarity with the Amazon’s 34 million inhabitants.

This is only the latest wave of Syrian refugees and internally displaced people from Iraq to seek safety in Iraqi-Kurdistan, which already hosts 38 camps. So far 12,000 Syrian civilians have taken refuge across the border.