The humanitarian needs were already huge without Covid and without the aggression,” Bassam Nasser, who leads the Gaza office for Catholic Relief Services, told America on May 20. “You can imagine, when you add those two challenges, the crisis will become huge.”

The debt crisis in the developing world threatens a staggering impact on the world’s most vulnerable people. “We’re approaching the greatest wave of debt crises and debt restructurings the world has ever seen.”

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.

The good news is that “trends in women’s empowerment are heading in the right direction globally. Some 59 countries recorded significant progress since the first edition while only one country (Yemen) experienced major deterioration.”

The former president of Canadian Caritas believes that the scrutiny of Canada's Catholic bishops of the organization's structures are hurting its members and reputation.

The ecological restoration work here is locked in a race against deforestation as hard-pressed Malagasy turn to the forests to make charcoal, build homes or clear the forest for subsistence food production.