Copy Desk Daily, Nov. 20, 2019

The Copy Desk Daily highlights recommended news and opinion articles that have crossed the copy editors' desks on their way to you: National Catholic Reporter, Global Sisters Report and EarthBeat (NCR's project exploring faith and climate change).

For over four decades, Jason Berry has offered readers a mix of his intense examination of the ugliest side of Catholic reality and the soul-restoring gumbo of Louisiana life, particularly his hometown New Orleans.

From Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister: I'd be skeptical if I were you

We'll hear who the replacement director of the Financial Information Authority is next week, says Pope Francis, but for now, the Vatican financial watchdog is now a 'shell' after police raid.

Lenny Duncan has written a declaration of love rooted in deep feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment to the church in which he serves as a pastor. His background is significantly different from that of many who have been called into a Christian church, and once there called to ordained ministry. "I'm a former drug dealer, sex worker, homeless queer teen, and felon." He is one who shunned organized religion only to find himself being called and welcomed not just to membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the whitest church in the U.S., but to service as a minister to those both like and unlike himself. He is a black man.

We hear from Honorine Uwimana, a St. Joseph Worker from Rwanda serving at Regina Residence with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, California: " 'Divide' is always a verb that crosses my mind anytime I read the root causes of the wars in the East Africa region. My past dark encounters with this verb made me think that it is always followed by negativity — until our Sept. 28 day of service."

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