Author: Charles Dittmeier

Cyclospora Outbreak

• Cyclospora was officially identified July 1, 2026 and warnings were issued
• Michigan is a center of the outbreak. It normally experiences 40 to 50 cases a year. As of two days ago, Michigan has reported more than 5,000 cases.
• More than 7,000 cases are being investigated across 27 states.
• The Guardian reports “The outbreak comes after the Trump administration cut $12bn in public health funding in March 2025, including laboratory capacity, disease monitoring and outbreak investigation.”

[Headlines and information come from The Guardian, a major British newspaper.]


Care for Creation

Laudato Si’ challenges us to “hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” through ecological conversion, changes in lifestyle and society, and strong political action. What are Catholic Christians to do? Here are some suggestions:

5. JOIN with others who believe caring for our common home is a responsibility given to us by God when God asked us to care for the garden in Genesis.

Care for Creation

Laudato Si’ challenges us to “hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” through ecological conversion, changes in lifestyle and society, and strong political action. What are Catholic Christians to do? Here are some suggestions:

4. DISCERN what you can do to change your own way of living to one that is more sustainable for the whole community. This includes reducing water usage, reducing use of plastics and eliminating Styrofoam, switching to LED lighting, planting trees and native plants, and by becoming an eco-consumer doing eco-investing.

Public Man-Made Death

In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, historian Richard Rhodes spoke about a certain kind of dying: “the deaths caused not by microbe or misfortune but by policy—by war, by neglect, by privation deliberately imposed.  Artificially induced famine. The willful dismantling of the infrastructure that keeps the poor alive. Rhodes gave the thing a name. He called it public man-made death….”

Two reports were quoted. One in The Lancet said: “… in the single year since USAID was destroyed, on the order of seven hundred thousand human beings have already died who would otherwise be alive. The Lancet study calculated that the agency had saved some ninety-two million lives over the previous two decades.”

From a commentary by Msgr. Arthur Halquin.

Care for Creation

Laudato Si’ challenges us to “hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” through ecological conversion, changes in lifestyle and society, and strong political action. What are Catholic Christians to do? Here are some suggestions: 

  1. USE YOUR HEARING AND SIGHT to respond to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. They are interconnected. The poor have been unjustly subjected to the results of abuses on nature brought by wealthy nations.

Care for Creation

Laudato Si’ challenges us to “hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” through ecological conversion, changes in lifestyle and society, and strong political action. What are Catholic Christians to do? Here are some suggestions:

2. LEARN by reading Laudato Si’ for free at:    http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

St. Thomas Seminary

Class of 1966-1970

The St. Thomas Seminary class of 1966 (the last class to graduate from high school there) gathered today for a monthly event and it was special because attending was Bill Medley (R), a classmate who was appointed Bishop of Owensboro sixteen years ago. Today was also Bastille Day, and Jane Browne (standing) who has had a fixation on Bastille Day and other things French since her high school French class, brought a cake and a gift bag of French items for the fourteen people who attended. Jane is my sister and she married class member David Browne (L).

Care for Creation

Laudato Si’ challenges us to “hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” through ecological conversion, changes in lifestyle and society, and strong political action. What are Catholic Christians to do? I offer the following suggestions:

1. REFLECT on the miracle of the natural world and your place in it and PRAY that you might be intentional in her care.

Pope Leo and the U.S.

From the UCAN news service

Meeting reporters outside his villa in Castel Gandolfo Nov. 18, 2025, Pope Leo said, “No one has said that the United States should have open borders,” adding: “I think every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter.”

However, immigration policy should “look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have.”