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When I was younger, a nun told me that if I only prayed when I was in trouble, then I was indeed in trouble. That maxim was filed away and revived when I began reading Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone by Jesuit Fr. James Martin. For many people, prayer is a 911 call to God, used in moments of emergencies and tragedies. Without judgment, Martin offers a road map that shows how prayer is for everyone — including those who are unsure if they believe in God at all —at all sorts of times and manners.

Martin explains what prayer is and is not. Spoiler alert, the field of prayer is vast and not reserved for a select few. The practices described are often simple and open to all but never shallow. If I found one undercurrent running through Learning to Pray, it is not that prayer alone is accessible, but God is accessible to all. The book, written for a diversity of readers, especially cries out to those on the margins. The book invites those who have been away from church or those rejected into prayerful worship spaces. All are welcome.

Intentionally or not, when church or worship means online activity, this book comes as Martin has developed an ever larger online following. Despite being in its way evangelizing, the book offers a way into prayer, not religion, that is neither forceful, judgmental nor discriminating.

Learning to Pray is dedicated to Jesuit Fr. William Barry, the recently deceased spiritual director and author, who also figures prominently in the book. Barry had a profound influence on the spiritual lives of many and certainly in Martin’s life as a Jesuit. His legacy runs like a river throughout the book, coursing through the numerous prayer and spiritual life options, offering life-giving water to support the invitation to worship.

Building from the introduction’s “everyone can pray,” Learning to Pray progresses chapter by chapter through various forms of prayer practices and experiences.

For many Christians, prayer means attending Mass or service and saying prescribed prayers such as the Our Father. While making clear that such things can be important in a life of faith, Martin writes that they are not the only way to pray. For me, this is where Learning to Pray seemed to shine the brightest, by encouraging everyone to open their hearts, minds and ears to God in a wide array of options.

One favorite chapter for me was the one on petitionary prayer. Martin aptly explores why this topic has a bad rap for some, and ways to approach asking for help. Remember, I learned that only praying when I was in trouble, was in and of itself trouble. A less mature version of me frequently felt too guilty to ask God for anything after a long silence on my part. What a relief that will be for many readers. We are reminded in this chapter that wanting to have God smite our enemies is not the best way to go, but that we can assuredly turn to God to pray for justice. The underlying direction is to become close enough to God to move beyond vengeance. After expressing our fury, praying for things like patience, wisdom or forgiveness can be nurtured through a relationship with the Divine.

Another revelatory gift among the many is the chapter about the Examen, a Jesuit prayer practice that, as its name suggests, is an examination of conscience typically prayed each night. Over time, people have adapted it to various circumstances. Still, the Examen is about recognizing God and seeing our behavior through a review of our day, along with a desire to improve tomorrow. In this chapter, Martin calls on his diverse priesthood and brings us deep into a troop of actors to set the stage for learning about this prayer. Talk about a way to make something that might be intimidating available to readers who might be unfamiliar with it or intimidated by it.

The many chapters in a book that might appear dauntingly large each offer many gifts and options of a life of prayer. Martin does an incredible job of clarifying that prayer is the medium of our relationship with God. Directing readers toward this relationship and encouraging a deepening of it is evident throughout. The author has a gift of writing with authority about topics grounded in solid theological and spiritual knowledge and then translating that into highly relatable and easy-to-read chapters. For all of its instructions, Learning to Pray is ultimately a conversation between Martin and the reader, pointing to the ultimate colloquy or prayer — communicating with God. This book deserves to be widely read by believers, skeptics and even unbelievers, if for no other reason than to broaden one’s horizon. Just prepare to be changed, full-on believer or not, as you read.

How do you know?” Depending on the inflection, the emphasis one puts on you, how and know, this question could be part of a shouting match between 9-year-olds or an essay question on Ph.D. exams. Eventually, most of us struggle with this question, especially when considering a key decision or forming an important opinion. The subject may be profoundly serious, as in, “How do I know if I should marry him?” or “How do I know if belief in God makes any sense?” These latter questions are vastly more important than any exam could pose.

Today, we hear a story about Abraham’s struggle with this question. How could he know if or why God really wanted him to sacrifice Isaac? There’s a hint hidden in the language of the story. As the scene opens, we hear that God put Abraham to the test, telling him to offer his son in sacrifice. Here, the Hebrew word for God is Elohim, a common Semitic name for the gods.

Later in the story, we hear that the “Lord’s” messenger called on Abraham and prevented him from taking Isaac’s life. From this point on, Lord is the word for God. Lord refers to the divine name written as YHWH, the name God revealed to Moses, a name so sacred that faithful Jews refuse to pronounce it.

There is a world of difference between the two concepts of God here. Elohim refers to gods who demand unflinching obedience, no matter the suffering it costs. These gods appear as absolute rulers, often capricious, sometimes as tyrants whose anger must be appeased. Abraham thought this way about God and accepted the demand to make a holocaust of his beloved only son. Abraham respected Elohim as a fearsome, self-centered God who prized authority and obedience over love.

Although this narrative rivets our attention on the relationship between Abraham and Isaac and the last-minute intervention, the real story has to do with Abraham’s understanding of God. The Lord who stopped Abraham from harming his son was YHWH, the Lord who had entered into a covenant with Abraham and promised him descendants. The Lord appreciated Abraham’s desire to be obedient, but went on to teach him that instead of sacrifice, the Lord simply desires loving relationship with all the creatures made in the divine image. This is the creator God who gives life in abundance, from beginning to end.

The Lord who stopped Abraham from completing his holocaust is the God Jesus knew and called his Abba. Abraham’s encounter with the Lord was a moment of revelation. Previous to this, in spite of encounters with God, Abraham related to God from his own theology, from human concepts that envisioned a God who was like humanity but to the supreme degree. The revelation on Mount Moriah introduced Abraham to the Lord who does not fit human categories; the Lord who would do anything to attract humanity into living in the divine image.

The God Abraham began to know on Mount Moriah is the God who, as Paul tells us, took flesh in Jesus and intercedes on our behalf. Abraham had conceived of God as one who demanded intercessors and sacrifice to make us acceptable to the divine. The God he met, the God of Jesus, is the God who wants only to draw us into divine life. This upends the concept of intercession. Instead of sending Jesus to talk God into accepting us weak creatures, the Lord took flesh in Jesus to intercede with us, inviting us to live as if love were the only thing that matters.

This is what the disciples began to comprehend on the mountain of the Transfiguration. For a brief moment, they perceived that Jesus was God’s ultimate messenger, the culmination of everything in their tradition: the God who created out of love and wants only love. Like Abraham, they couldn’t take it all in. On that mountain they perceived a truth that didn’t fit their categories, it couldn’t fit into their tents. That is why the divine voice told them to listen and Jesus told them not to speak — at least not yet.

How did they know that what they had seen was truly a revelation? One sign was that what they experienced was far beyond their wildest expectations. It was truly godly.

The God to whom Jesus introduced them blew open their categories and invited them to stop trying to be best or even worthy. As Paul would teach, the key to faith was to accept the fact that they were loved beyond measure. As they gradually comprehended that, the disciples became capable of being apostles, people capable of communicating the message. And the real proof was that the more they told the story, the more they knew it was true.

“Judas and the Black Messiah” has far too much in common with “The Departed.” Obviously, director Shaka King’s film centers on Black characters, while Martin Scorsese’s Boston-set entry does not. But the general concept — a crime thriller about a man covertly working with law enforcement who infiltrates a group considered to be their threat, to eviscerate its strongest force — is the same.

It’s an awkward comparison to make because, in actuality, these films shouldn’t have many similarities. “Judas and the Black Messiah” details the story of William O’Neal’s (LaKeith Stanfield) ascent through the Black Panther Party as an informant for a racist FBI that offers him an awful ultimatum: help them take down party chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) or go to jail. It’s 1966 Chicago, and William, a Black man and petty criminal, has just been busted for impersonating an FBI agent in an attempt to steal cars. Prison could mean death for him, but being a silent “Uncle Tom” for “the man” presents another kind of moral confinement.

There’s a specificity to these real-life events and people. Fred isn’t merely a powerful, somewhat imperious male figure who cops will stop at nothing to disable. He’s a vocal leader of an organization built on the mission of equality for Black people in a country that routinely stalks and oppresses them. William, mostly referred to as Bill throughout the film, is a man that is a bit on the peripheral of that movement, having to depend on crime to survive a system where white and mostly male law officials target Black bodies for any and no reason at all. He makes ill-fated decisions in a lose-lose situation.

But these nuances are lost in King’s efforts. It is already a peculiar choice to turn this story, which rarely gets the film treatment, into a caper movie. It’s not an entirely preposterous idea, though, considering the opposing nature of the male protagonists, the impending presence of cops and the surreptitious events that culminate with Fred’s assassination in 1969.

Still, Bill and Fred—and the landscape in which they live—are too wanly drawn even to produce the type of thrilling entertainment that could also be compelling in its politics.

That’s odd, since there is quite a bit of information available on the two individuals and especially the Black Panther Party, barring any inevitably classified FBI case files. And Fred’s son, Fred Hampton Jr., the president and chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee and the Black Panther Party Cubs, is credited as a cultural expert on “Judas and the Black Messiah.” But the film offers very little particularities when it comes to examining who Bill and Fred were and the world the former was especially fighting.

Bill certainly faced internal conflicts, effectively depicted through Stanfield’s unspoken dialogue, like a subtle wince, a nervous smile or a tremulous power fist at a usually nondescript rally. Because his narrative had to be insular, it would have helped if King, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Will Berson, included some information on his family or interior life — even if it was only a contrived encounter with a familiar face. But we’re left with a resounding question: Who was Bill O’Neal?

Fred is even more of an enigma in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” and he is arguably the more well-known figure between the two. His voice, one that also represents a generation, is reduced to soundbites like “I am … a revolutionary!” which roars in the movie trailer. Kaluuya has proven once again that he is a master of the manic yet quiet ferocity he showed us in both “Widows” and “Get Out,” which he duplicates in King’s film in a blur of frustratingly indistinct speeches at events and more frantic scenes opposite Stanfield. But we don’t learn much about Fred’s humanity. He put his body on the line every day for his people, even completing a prison sentence that is almost entirely glossed over in the film. Was he ever scared?

There’s only one time that the film dares even to approach this question. It’s through Dominique Fishback’s heartfelt portrayal of Deborah Johnson (now known as Akua Njeri), Fred’s girlfriend, who was nine months pregnant at the time of his murder. With a swollen belly, she asks him whether power to the people was worth the nights in jail or even potentially his death. His only response is: “When I dedicate my life to the people, I dedicate my life.”

Though Fishback, like her male counterparts in the film, rises above her uninspired characterization, especially in the film’s devastating final moments, the screenplay constrains her performance. As a result, Deborah comes dangerously close to being diminished as the trope of the concerned girlfriend in a male-driven crime thriller.

Despite impressive performances, “Judas and the Black Messiah” has very little to say. Like its character, Bill O’Neal, the film seems often to be at war with itself. Does it want to be a gripping Hollywood crime thriller that just so happens to center people either confronting or constricting the racial revolution of the 1960s? Or does it want to be a political drama that investigates the psychology of Judas and messiah figures within the Black community?

Regardless, it does neither very well.

The history of Black Christianity in America came to television screens this month in a documentary series based on a new book by Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., a Harvard University historian who is simultaneously an admirer and a critic of its influential role in American society.

Gates’ book, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, was released Feb. 16, the same day the four-hour documentary began a two-day run on PBS stations. (The documentary is available to stream for free on pbs.org.) Musicians John Legend and Yolanda Adams are featured in the series.

Gates, who describes himself as a “spiritual person,” said at a virtual news conference Feb. 5 that while he is a critic of the Black church’s history of male domination and homophobia, he has celebrated its culture and rejoiced in what it has overcome. 

Gates said that during his summer visits to Martha’s Vineyard, he attends services at Union Chapel, which features prominent Black preachers. “We all come together to experience that circle of warmth,” he told Religion News Service at the news conference.

When Black people come together for worship, he said, it is “a celebration of our culture, our history, of who we are, of how we got over, how we survived the madness, the claustrophobic madness of hundreds of years of slavery and then a century of Jim Crow and then anti-Black racism that we saw manifest itself at the Capitol.”

The series captures the broad sweep of this history in interviews with scholars and well-known Black clergy such as African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Vashti McKenzie, Bishop T.D. Jakes and the Rev. William J. Barber II. 

Stacey Holman, who produced and directed the series, spoke to Religion News Service recently about how she and Gates distilled centuries of history into the four-hour series, her thoughts on the Black church’s future and how Oprah Winfrey made the final call on the name of the documentary.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You have worked on films about the Freedom Riders and historically Black colleges and universities. What struck you most about the Black church history you helped present with Henry Louis Gates Jr.?

Holman: What struck me was that we did not come here empty-handed. There were Africans who were practicing Muslims who were brought here in the transatlantic slave trade. That connection still exists today. A religion that is very actively practiced among Black people was here when this country was first being formed. Also, just how rich the history is and just how there’s so much connective tissue to Africa, to our worship and to our praise.

Mixed in with the interviews with scholars and clergy are the personal stories of Black celebrities about the Black church. Whose stories did you find to be particularly worth telling?

I think Kirk Franklin’s story was quite moving. He talked about his friend that he lost, who was killed, and someone who was a good kid, and he was not, so — one of those situations where it’s like, wow, God, you spared my life. And I think even John Legend’s story, hearing how the church has really informed his career, but also how he was brought up and raised going to church and then becoming the choir director.

You’ve worked with Gates before. Was this series different because the subject matter related to him personally? At one point he breaks into song with Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and tells some of his faith story from the pulpit of the West Virginia Methodist church he joined at age 12. 

Yes, very much so. When he was giving, as we say, his testimony, my crew was crying. It was just beautiful, just seeing him coming back home. When I have traveled to my grandparents’ church in southern Ohio, it was like that welcome home. And to see that with Skip just brought fond memories to me.

John Legend, who was an executive producer, as well as Shirley Caesar and Yolanda Adams talk about the importance of music. How did you address its influence in the Black church?

I think having those voices that you just mentioned were important. These are individuals who have used the music — John is more contemporary and pop and R&B, but there’s definitely elements of the church in what he plays. Even Kirk Franklin, the crossover songs that they’ve had, it just speaks to the richness that music has played over the centuries of the Black church.

The series shows various forms of faithful fervor, from ring shout to speaking in tongues. Why was it important to delve into that aspect of Black American faith?

I think that people think that’s all that the Black church is: We go in and people are hooting and hollering and jumping around. I think even just talking about the Great Awakening says, yeah, there were white folks doing it, too. So this whole idea of this fervor in worship is nothing new, but I think [the documentary is] really breaking it down so that people can understand the history of it. And it’s not an act. It’s a feeling. It’s an emotion that people get.

The show makes a revelation about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspiration for the phrase ‘I have a dream.’

[Minister and civil rights activist] Prathia Hall was listed [as an influential preacher] by the pastors we asked — at least a good third or half of them would say Prathia Hall. And I didn’t really know that story until we sat with Reverend Senator [Raphael] Warnock. I was amazed. It just spoke to the testimony of just how influential Black women are in the church and were influencing major iconic speeches. We’re running churches; we are really the staples behind the everyday activity. Our series will really give her the limelight that she’s due.

Franklin and Legend talk about their anger with the Black church for rejecting changes in music and society. Can the Black church survive the rejection of some millennials and some Black Lives Matter activists?

I think it’s a case-by-case situation. It’s a denominational question as well. Certain stories that we left on the cutting room floor were really looking at that question. There are some churches that we spoke to that are really trying to engage that. I know Reverend [Otis] Moss III, his [Chicago] church is engaged in Black Lives Matter. I do believe there are churches that will need to kind of say, hey, we need to kind of catch up with the times and embrace this. But I think the church has always been evolving and will continue to evolve.

How did you distill Henry Louis Gates’ research, and that of so many others, into just a four-show series?

It was a privilege and it was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m telling 400 years in four hours.” Just to work with him was great. He gives you that freedom as a creator [where] you’re able to collaborate and talk with him about your ideas. We did argue about the title of the film. I wanted it to be “How I Got Over,” and he was like, “Oh, ‘Blessed Assurance’ [whose chorus begins ‘This is my story, this is my song’].” And then, who broke the tie but Oprah Winfrey. Skip gave her a list of names and she left a voicemail, singing, “This is our story. This is our song.” And so he’s like, “See? That’s the title.”

If you glanced at the recent headlines, you probably saw what appeared to be good news: The United States would finally stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia and end our involvement in the conflict in Yemen. But if you clicked through, you saw this quote from our new Catholic president, who is supposedly less supportive of Saudi Arabia’s war, and of war in general: Joe Biden announced that we were “ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” First question: “offensive,” according to whom?

Our military presence in Yemen covers a number of different roles, most but not all of which are predicated on assisting Saudi Arabia, the country that is technically at war. From the Saudis’ perspective, there have never been any “offensive operations” in Yemen. They view the Houthi occupation in Yemen as an existential threat and their role in the conflict as wholly defensive in nature.

The defensive framework is really important here, as they’ve continually used it to defend the bombing of schools, hospitals and residential areas as necessary defensive measures. With our assistance, they’ve killed thousands of civilians. According to 2018 reporting by The Associated Press, “coalition airstrikes and shelling killed at least 4,489 civilians since the beginning of 2016.” Almost a year later, The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project reported that the coalition and its allies were “responsible for the highest number of reported civilian fatalities from direct targeting, with over 8,000 since 2015.” The project estimated the total body count to be over 100,000 reported fatalities, “including over 12,000 civilians killed in direct attacks.”

Biden says we are ending the sale of “relevant arms” to Saudi Arabia, so which arms are those? Not all arms, obviously, but relevant arms, implementing a new prohibition on the kinds of weapons relevant to an undefined criteria for what does or does not constitute “offensive” operations.

To explicitly call their bombing campaigns “offensive operations” would be marginally closer in truth to what our military nominally refers to as “defensive measures.” But at no point does the president explicitly or even implicitly connect the “offensive operations” in question to our role in Saudi Arabia’s six-year bombing campaign in northern Yemen.

Then the president followed up with a disclaimer, saying “At the same time, Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV strikes, and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries. We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.” 

Statements like this have been the party line for the last six years. It’s always been the answer to the question of what exactly we are doing in Yemen. So, what’s actually changed?

Biden reversed the Trump administration’s decision to designate the Houthis as a terrorist group, which had been a major roadblock for humanitarian aid being able to reach Houthi occupied territory. He also called for renewed peace talks, appointing career diplomat Timothy Lenderking as U.S. envoy to the region, ostensibly to broker a new peace agreement.

Pursuing peaceful resolution to conflict is always commendable, especially after four years in which our diplomatic corps was so underutilized. But it’s worth keeping in mind the long list of peace agreements in the region, brokered by international governing bodies like the U.N. and the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, that have all, without exception, backfired catastrophically and have unintentionally made the conflict worse. It is also worth noting that one such power-sharing agreement is what sent the country into a civil war to begin with.

In 2011, the GCC brokered a deal to try and ensure the peaceful transition of power from president Ali Abdullah Saleh to his vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Saleh, who had served as president for 33 years, was accused of widespread corruption but was granted immunity in the deal. His immunity, among other things, allowed him to retain the loyalty of large factions within the Yemeni military, which he cajoled into a short-lived alliance with the Houthis.

This alliance allowed the Iran-backed Houthi movement to orchestrate a coup and capture Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, with very little resistance, sending the country spiraling into a civil war. Saleh was killed by Houthis while attempting to flee Sanaa in 2017, and Hadi is still the man we recognize as the president of Yemen despite running unopposed, overstaying a term that technically ended in 2014, and living in exile in Saudi Arabia. He spends most of his time in Riyadh.

The most recent peace deal was the Stockholm agreement in 2018, which imposed a ceasefire that allowed the Houthis to regroup and launch a major new offensive, significantly expanding the amount of territory they occupy in northern Yemen. There is no reason to believe they will respect a new ceasefire any more than they did the previous one. Especially now, when they have significantly more leverage and are one major holdout away from controlling all of northern Yemen.

I spoke about Biden’s announcement on Yemen with Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School and a research professor of international dispute resolution at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Widely recognized for her scholarship on the ethics of military intervention, she has been a vocal critic of America’s support for Saudi Arabia in the conflict, and remains adamant that “there is no legal right for the Saudis or the United States to be interfering in a civil war, and that kind of conflict should never involve aerial bombardment.”

“There isn’t, in reality, any bright line or clear category between offensive and defensive weapons,” she told me. “It will be up to us, in consultation with the Saudis, to decide what weapons we are willing to classify as defensive,” she said, adding that she hopes the U.S. takes a conservative approach in defining that distinction.

Of the Saudi-backed Hadi regime’s shaky claim to legitimacy, O’Connell notes, “If you can’t hold on to your own country against your own people, you’re not the government. The Houthis are in a better position now first and foremost because they have a lot more popular support. The Hadi regime crushed attempts at democracy in Yemen, and drove people who would not naturally be supportive of the Houthis right to them.”

Still, she’s optimistic about Biden’s renewed efforts for a peace agreement. “The Stockholm agreement gave too much standing to the Saudi-backed forces. They lacked the legitimacy legally, and the control on the ground, to deserve the position they got [from the international community,] but there was really no alternative with how firmly the U.S. was behind Saudi Arabia,” she said.

“If we no longer make common cause with the Saudis, there’s a real chance to create a new agreement that is respectful of what the Yemeni people themselves want, which leaders they are willing to back,” she said.

Even seeing the need for a new posture is an improvement over the last six years. Still, we are clinging to the same old rationale used to enter this proxy war in the first place: that as the world superpower, we can play referee for conflicts we have neither the tools to fix nor the authority, moral or otherwise, to mediate.

Again this year in his message on New Year’s Day, Pope Francis highlighted the terrible suffering in Yemen, as he has over and over. Biden similarly called the situation there a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe” and conditions “unendurable.” Yet he did not adequately acknowledge our role in those conditions.

And there is enough intentionally ambiguous phrasing and doublespeak in his talk of “relevant arms” and “offensive operations” to make us wonder how new this approach is from the course we’ve been on for the past six years. If we were halting all arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and withdrawing all support for operations in Yemen, he would have said so.

Both initiatives would have broad public support, and could even be one of those “bipartisan solutions” he’s always talking about. Instead, he gave a suspiciously complicated answer to a simple moral question: Are we going to continue to support a war that every day looks more like a genocide? 

Those who want to see him succeed, and hope to see him exert the moral leadership that he has made his brand, need to press him hardest on this point, and on how stringent our oversight of relevant arms and offensive weapons will really be. A more disapproving posture means very little in the face of a genocide.

Clinton, N.J. — The women housed at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, the only women’s prison in the state of New Jersey, seem to have the cards stacked against them.

Already facing isolation, suspended visitations and restricted gatherings — all to minimize the potential spread of the coronavirus and exposure to it — the women incarcerated there are facing another challenge: the fear of abuse.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 12, just nine months after the U.S. Justice Department issued a report denouncing past abuse at the prison, calling the abuse of the women there “severe and prevalent,” two women were reported to have been allegedly assaulted and several others were victims of abuse inflicted by corrections officers.

Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen, who has made regular past visits to the prison to meet and pray with the women there, called the situation “dire” and the offenses against the women “disgusting and shameful.”

In a letter shared with local media, Catholics of the diocese, the prison administrator and the chaplain supervisor, Checchio wrote that “no person, no matter their past offenses nor circumstance in life, should have to endure such abuse.”

The offenses, he wrote, “alleged to have been perpetrated by the prison officers, the very people charged with protecting the women in their custody, are terrible. This sad, ongoing situation calls to mind other failures and lack of responsibility by those in authority, even not unlike past failings by some of our own church’s leaders and members of clergy.”

“I pray that those in authority over the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, who bear the weight of caring for and protecting the lives of those imprisoned, will honestly assess any failings and implement the proper measures so that each person there is treated as a child of God, worthy of inherent dignity,” the bishop wrote.

Situated in the rolling hills of Hunterdon County, one of the four counties that make up the Diocese of Metuchen, the prison currently houses about 380 women in three compounds and has reportedly been plagued by violence and abuse for years.

One person in the Diocese of Metuchen knows the plight of the women there especially well, the bishop said in his letter: Anthony P. Kearns III, chancellor of the diocese.

Before he was named to the diocesan post, Kearns worked to combat abuse at the women’s prison as the Hunterdon County prosecutor for about nine years. He prosecuted claims of abuse at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. He said that while institutional change can take time, the abuse happening there cannot be tolerated.

With 10 jails and prisons in Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren counties, Checchio said the diocese is fortunate to have several prison ministries to tend to incarcerated people.

Yet, he said he is “mindful that each of us is commissioned to practice the corporal works of mercy, to care for the imprisoned and to protect all human life.”

“We have a shared responsibility — as Catholics, as Christians, and as brothers and sisters united in one human family — to defend the rights and dignity of all people,” the bishop wrote.

“It is on this very same foundation of our faith, by which we are emphatically reminded that we are all equally made in the image and likeness of God,” he continued, “that we advocate for the unborn, for those facing the injustice of racism, for those confronting a terminal illness who feel compelled to choose assisted suicide, and for so many others who all too often are excluded, marginalized, or are in any other way disenfranchised.

“Sadly, this respect for life seems to be lessening in our society.”

As the women await relief, as the prison awaits reform and as the public awaits answers, Checchio encouraged prayer — for those suffering from abuse and for those with the authority to prevent it.

“We cannot be indifferent to their pain and suffering. We must strive to see more clearly the face of God in each of our brothers and sisters, regardless of their origin, race, religion, vulnerability, or past choices,” he wrote.

“May we each be reminded of our Father’s unconditional and unfailing love for us and, in turn, offer that same love, without condition and without exception, to all whom we encounter,” he added.

Berlin — The German bishops’ conference elected a woman as general secretary during a virtual assembly that turned into a crisis meeting focused on the church’s handling of sex abuse.

Beate Gilles, a 50-year-old theologian, became the first noncleric and woman to head the bishops’ secretariat. She will take up her post July 1.

“Last year, there was still the debate of whether a woman could hold such an office here. Now we know it is possible,” she said Feb. 23 at the news conference after her election.

Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the bishops’ conference, said the appointment was a strong signal “that the bishops are honoring their agreement to promote women in leading positions.”

Yet Gilles’ election could not distract from the fact that the Catholic Church in Germany is under pressure and at a critical point. It has fallen into disrepute among its members after a litany of accusations of inadequate investigations into and cover-ups of past sexual abuse.

“As long as there is no honest, open and complete reappraisal of sexual abuse in all German dioceses set at a high scientific level and with the same standards for all, the reform efforts … will come to nothing,” said a statement from the Catholic Lay Alliance, representing seven lay organizations.

At the center of the storm is Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. After he commissioned a report to clear up past sexual abuse cases, especially how they were handled, in the Archdiocese of Cologne, he refused to make it public, saying it contained deficiencies. He ordered a new report, scheduled to be published March 18. Parish councils, priests and most recently the diocesan council have criticized the cardinal for his handling of the abuse investigation.

While other dioceses also are dealing with abuse allegations, Woelki is seen as a symbol for the cover-up in the Catholic Church, as more and more German Catholics are turning their backs on the church. Others, like the lay alliance, are calling for fundamental changes.

In Germany, church affiliations are registered with the government, which collects church tax on behalf of the churches. This normally amounts to 5%-8% of a church member’s income.

On Feb. 19, the Cologne District Court’s online appointment booking website for people leaving the church crashed after additional dates and time slots for March and April became available for appointments, the court told the German News Agency.

At a news conference Feb. 25, Bätzing admitted that people leaving the church would eventually affect church finances. He also admitted that troubles in the Cologne Archdiocese overshadowed the spring plenary.

He reiterated that he has openly called Woelki’s crisis management “a disaster. I have advised him to pursue a different course.” He said the bishops’ conference cannot make any decision on Woelki’s future; only the apostolic nuncio can.

In his formal, final 17-page statement after the plenary, Bätzing addressed the fact that public opinion at the moment focuses on the Archdiocese of Cologne.

“I would like to clarify: Yes, there are many people leaving the church, also because of the image that the church is currently projecting. And certainly, there are many things that need to be clarified in the Archdiocese of Cologne. But to focus solely on the Archbishop of Cologne would be too shortsighted. On the contrary: all bishops of all 27 dioceses bear a responsibility for the situation, and we all have to face the criticism.”

He said much progress has been made in the last decade, since the first cases of sexual abuse in the German Catholic Church became public in 2010, “but of course there is still a lot to do. The issue is in no way closed, nor will it ever be with a view to prevention. However, I reject the accusation that the bishops have been silent or have done nothing for years.”

During the meeting, the bishops also discussed the Synodal Path, which is debating the issues of power, sexual morality, priestly life and the role of women in the church. It also heard a report from an ecumenical working group on shared Communion and discussed the dire situation of refugees on the EU borders. Bätzing asked EU governments to get involved in a situation that he described as a blot on the European Union.

Editor’s Note: EarthBeat Weekly is your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change. Below is the Feb. 26 edition. To receive EarthBeat Weekly in your inbox, sign up here.

EarthBeat is marking the end of Black History Month with a profile of Hazel Johnson, a Black woman who left an indelible mark on national environmental policy while remaining deeply rooted in Altgeld Gardens, the southeast Chicago neighborhood where she spent her life fighting polluters.

Johnson, who died in January 2011, is considered the mother of the U.S. environmental justice movement. She is known for her relentless battle against the evil that surrounded her neighborhood in the form of toxic dumps, lead paint and other pollution that sickened her neighbors and shortened their lives.

Less known, writes NCR environment correspondent Brian Roewe, is that her Catholic faith helped sustain her in the struggle.

Roewe spoke with her daughter, who carries on the work of the organization her mother founded, and others who knew and worked with Johnson. The portrait that emerges is of a woman who had to battle racism and government apathy as well as polluters.

As he delved into Johnson’s legacy, Roewe says, two things surprised him: “that Altgeld Gardens was built essentially on top of a toxic waste site, and that the community’s discovery of that reality did not lead to an immediate response from city officials in Chicago.”

Activists note that “I can’t breathe,” the phrase that became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd, also applies to communities where people of color are systematically exposed to high levels of toxic substances. Those neighborhoods are also hit harder by deadly heatwaves — another reminder, as Johnson knew, that environmental justice and racial justice are inextricably intertwined.

Today’s profile of Johnson is particularly timely. Just over a week ago, on Feb. 18, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that because of the coronavirus pandemic, life expectancy in the U.S. dropped from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.8 years in 2020. That is the largest decline since World War II. The decrease was even greater — 2.7 years — for Black Americans, whose life expectancy dropped from 74.7 to 72 years.

That disparity underscores the toll the virus has taken on communities of color, which are disproportionately affected by contaminants, including air pollution, from nearby industrial plants and waste dumps. Places like Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” where Catholic activist Sharon Lavigne is leading a fight to stop construction of a plastics factory, have higher rates of lung diseases, which have made residents more vulnerable to COVID-19.

At EarthBeat, we regularly draw those connections in our coverage of climate issues. For more background, I recommend Jesse Remedios’ interview with Sylvia Hood Washington, an environmental health scientist and historian, and Roewe’s conversation with Robert Bullard, who is considered the father of the U.S. environmental justice movement.

One thing Roewe learned from listening to those who knew Hazel Johnson, he says, “was just how relatable she came across in practicing her Catholic faith.”

“They did not describe her as part of an archdiocesan council or project. She wasn’t dropping lines from Scripture (and there was no Laudato Si’) or weaving theological citations into her powerful testimonies for why her neighborhood deserved clean air, water and land as much as any other.”

Above all, she showed how much of a difference one person can make.

“She wasn’t someone who publicly led with her faith, but friends say it was still a driving force for why she cared, and just as much what sustained her through the difficult struggle of going against corporations and government officials,” Roewe says.

“She was a regular parishioner, and I think that aspect of her story is important for Catholics who may think that they have to operate in formal church channels to make a difference,” he adds. “It can certainly help, and the wider church certainly has a bigger role to play. But Hazel shows us you just have to start working, keep pressing and wait for no one.”

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Here’s what else is new on EarthBeat this week:

• EarthBeat’s “A Climate-Conscious Lent” series continues with reflections by Fr. Emmet Farrell on what our dependence on fossil fuels means for the planet and for people of faith.

• The Adorers of the Blood of Christ, who tried to stop a natural gas pipeline from crossing their land in Pennsylvania by building a chapel, are now seeking damages in court from the energy company that constructed it, Roewe reports.

• Roewe also describes the launch of a new Catholic Climate Covenant initiative to mobilize young people for climate action through advocacy, building community resilience, education and ecospirituality.

• The NCR editorial staff notes that Texas has proved to be the “perfect storm” for assessing a future in which a deregulated and underspending government fails to respond to catastrophic events, especially those caused by climate change.

• Patrick Egwu reports that farmers in Nigeria’s Niger Delta have won a landmark court case in Holland against Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria over oil spills in the largely Catholic region of the country.

• An African faiths environmental institute is urging the Gates Foundation to support natural methods to help Africa achieve food sufficiency and protect its environments instead of funding green revolution technologies and genetically modified seeds. Fredrick Nzwili has the story for Catholic News Service.

Here’s what’s new in other climate news:

• An initial assessment of countries’ pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions shows they amount to “only a fraction of the effort needed to avoid climate breakdown,” writes Fiona Harvey at The Guardian.

• Denmark is planning to build a $34 billion artificial energy island in the North Sea, which will serve as a hub for hundreds of wind turbines providing enough energy for 3 million homes, according to the BBC.

• About two dozen Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives met privately to plan ways to “reclaim the narrative” about climate change and conservation from Democrats, report George Cahlink, Emma Dumain and Nick Sobczyk for E&E News.

• Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a champion of renewable energy, was confirmed as U.S. energy secretary with broad bipartisan support, writes Brad Plumer at The New York Times.

• Nicholas Kusnetz at Inside Climate News describes how the lies, conspiracy theories and political extremism that gave rise to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have found a disturbing echo in attacks on environmental activists in Canada.

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Upcoming events:

“The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis,” the fourth of seven virtual talks marking the fifth anniversary year of Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home”, will begin at 7:30 p.m. Central Time on March 4. Sponsored by the Center for Catholic Thought & Culture at the University of San Diego, it will feature Julia Cantzler, Andy Tirrell, Kate DeConinc and Jeffrey Burns.

You can find more information about this and other upcoming events on the EarthBeat Events page.

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Closing beat:

Several weeks ago, I asked readers to share the resources they are using for reflection during Lent.

In response, Nancy Lorence of the Church of St. Francis Xavier, in New York City, wrote, “It is the third year that the St. Francis Xavier Environment Ministry has published a Lenten Carbon Fast Calendar. We offer it to other parishes, etc., to use as they see fit.”

The calendar, which you can download here, includes reflections for each day of the week throughout Lent, from “Sustenance Sundays” through “Simple Saturdays.” I can’t help looking forward to March 25, when the calendar calls attention to the award-winning children’s book We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Michaela Goade. Inspired by Indigenous-led movements in North America, this book for young readers won the 2021 Caldecott Medal for its illustrations.

Is your family, parish or faith community using resources with a climate or environmental theme during Lent? If so, we’d love to hear about it at earthbeat@ncronline.org.

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