Our Dispatches contributors were kind enough to share some thoughts on what stories are likely to be important in 2022 as we cross off, in some relief, the concluding days of 2021.

Some derided the art as contemptuous of God and sacrilegious. What did artist Kelly Latimore intend to convey with the image? Is the picture meant to be a deification of George Floyd?

President Biden is playing the long game in trying to revitalize the economy after Covid. It may take a long time to figure out how to measure the results.

Patriarch Sabbah: “When you celebrate Christmas, remember that in Bethlehem, in Jerusalem, life is not a Christmas life. It is not the blessed life of the new redeemed humanity. The song of the Angels is far away.”

Cardinal O’Malley said polarization and opposition to Pope Francis includes some prelates in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, but he did not name anyone.

I never imagined my vocation as a Dominican sister would entail being arrested by the Secret Service and spending a night in the Washington, D.C., Central jail.