His appointment to the Mexico City Archdiocese comes as the city of nearly 9 million people recovers from a devastating earthquake, which killed more than 300 people.
The senator's own faith journey has taken him from the Catholicism of his early childhood to Mormonism, then to a Baptist megachurch, and back to the Catholic faith again.
Alvarez, a parishioner of Incarnation Sagrado Corazon in Minneapolis, traveled to Washington with a group of leaders from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to speak with congressional leaders, then stayed behind to carry out the fast.
Among Israel’s large non-Jewish population — the 19 percent that is predominantly Muslim but also includes Christians and Druze — the response was decidedly negative.