Category: Government and Society

Room In The Inn

Room In The Inn (RITI) is an organization that utilizes church personnel, church volunteers, and church facilities to provide housing at night for homeless people during the coldest months. I was supposed to be an all-night volunteer tomorrow at Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral, but today we got notice that the city of Louisville has refused to give the permissions necessary to use the church facilities for this housing even though they allowed it in January, 2025. Fire safety regulations are the issue. It is especially sad to receive this message on the morning after the coldest night this winter in Louisville.

ICE Out demo

Saturday saw a pop-up ICE Out demonstration in Louisville, one of the many that took place across the United States.

It was a cold, windy, and rainy day in Louisville.
There were few speakers. It was mostly a matter of presence and visible opposition to government policy.
Two women ministers from a Presbyterian church placed the event in a gospel context.
My family and friends were well represented.

Cambodia-Thailand Border War

Here is some information received from the bishop of Phnom Penh about the conflict on the border between Cambodia and Thailand. Caritas Cambodia, the church relief agency, is organizing tent cities, water, food, toilets, and other assistance. They are probably the main positive force in the renewal of this century-old dispute.

Fratelli Tutti

Pope Francis’ Encyclical: Political Charity

180. Recognizing that all people are our brothers and sisters, and seeking forms of social friendship that include everyone, is not merely utopian. It demands a decisive commitment to devising effective means to this end. Any effort along these lines becomes a noble exercise of charity. For whereas individuals can help others in need, when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the “field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity”. [165] This entails working for a social and political order whose soul is social charity. [166] Once more, I appeal for a renewed appreciation of politics as “a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good”.