Top reports from America's “Dispatches” department include looks at conflict, migration and geopolitics through a Catholic filter.

A recent missive from Cardinal Blase Cupich to parishioners in Chicago provoked an unusually vitriolic response after the cardinal addressed issues regarding proper liturgical practice on Communion lines.

Many Syrians remain apprehensive about how religious minorities, including Christians, will be treated in a new political reality being established by a Sunni militia that is still listed as a terror organization by the U.S. State Department.

U.K. faith leaders oppose the assisted dying bill: “We believe that a truly compassionate response to the end of life lies in the provision of high-quality palliative care services to all who need them.”

Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.

Looming on the geopolitical horizon this week is a significant threat to the multinational campaign on climate change that emerged far from Baku, when Donald Trump became president-elect of the United States.

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop, by Kevin Clarke

Joseph Hazboun, CNEWA’s regional director in Jerusalem, described expanding difficulties for the Christian Arab community on the West Bank but added that nothing, of course, compared to the complete humanitarian breakdown being experienced in Gaza.

Helene’s devastation is offering a hard lesson: No community or U.S. region can consider itself safe from the extreme weather events that global warming is seeding and supercharging.

A Reflection for Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time, by Kevin Clarke