“Slum priests” continue to play an important role in many villas in Buenos Aires, helping these marginalized communities organize for social services and reforms.

While the United States and Europe have quickly elevated Vladimir Putin to the role of primary wrongdoer, many leading Catholic theorists in Latin America are not willing to promote a simple vilification of the Russian side.

Members of one of his former communities said they doubt that he used incorrect formulas for sacraments while he worked there, and many of them recall him fondly as one of the most important priests in their lives.

The Rev. Júlio Lancellotti is São Paulo’s designated vicar for street people. He has been posting images of spikes and other elements of hostile architecture gathered from cell phone photos or video from all over Brazil.

New migrant caravans to the United States are always forming with large contingents of Central Americans, but there is a growing presence of Haitians, Venezuelans and Brazilians among them.

The current mischaracterization of Freire by the political right in Brazil has parallels with the campaign of the political right in the United States against critical race theory.

In a region of vast distances, weak infrastructure and a relatively small number of priests, religious and laywomen like Sister Laura are the mainstay of Catholic spirituality.

Guatemala’s historical social inequality has only worsened because of economic deterioration intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic and a political crisis created by President Giammattei’s increasing authoritarian tendencies.

The invasion of public land by big landowners and illegal miners at the expense of Indigenous groups and small growers has led to record numbers of violent conflicts in Brazil’s rural and forest areas.

“In every large city in Brazil, you can now see a greater number of kids begging for money or selling candy on the streets than before the pandemic.”