In Pope Leo XIV, the Catholic church chooses a middle path
The choice of Robert Prevost reflects a desire for unity and compromise. But insofar as Pope Leo XIV represents a middle path, how will he lead on the church's trickiest questions? The Trump administration has axed Biden-era export controls on AI chips. Good. Now they must enact simpler, more-effective ones (11:29). And remembering Martin Graham, founder of the Longborough Festival Opera (19:34). Runtime: 27 min
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The Herald Scotland
11 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump's on a collision course with many Americans over immigration
A week before, fierce protests in Los Angeles sparked by aggressive detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents led to clashes, tear gassing, scattered looting and multiple vehicles being set on fire. The vast majority of attendees were peaceful, however. To quell the protests and protect ICE agents in California, Trump called up thousands of National Guard troops over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom - referred to by Trump as "Newscum" - and has told federal agents they have his unconditional support to continue aggressive enforcement. Trump has also invoked military powers usually reserved for wartime, declaring that Biden-era immigration policies facilitated an invasion. And the president is pushing to dramatically expand detention centers and deportation flights while finishing the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Immigrant-rights advocates have reported harsher enforcement in rural farming communities and big cities alike, and note that federal statistics show more than 40% of ICE detainees have no criminal record. Trump and administration officials say they are targeting violent criminals and gang members, though Americans are also seeing vineyard workers, car-wash attendants and building contractors snatched up, in many cases by masked men and women refusing to identify themselves, ratcheting up tensions. Polls show a majority of voters support the president's approach: 51% of Americans approve of his handling of border security and immigration, although only 45% of voters approve of his overall job as president, according to the NBC News Decision Desk Poll, conducted with SurveyMonkey. "The American people want our cities, schools and communities to be SAFE and FREE from illegal alien crime, conflict, and chaos," Trump said in a social media post. "That's why I have directed my entire administration to put every resource possible behind this effort and reverse the tide of mass destruction migration that has turned once idyllic towns into scenes of third world dystopia." While border crossings have dropped dramatically, videos of masked federal agents chasing people across fields or grabbing them off city streets have horrified many Americans, and liberal leaders across the country say construction sites, farms and some entire neighborhoods are falling silent as undocumented workers stay home to avoid detention. Some critics accused Trump of causing chaos with ICE raids, then using the community response to justify even harsher measures. On June 19, federal immigration agents were briefly blocked at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles by protesters trying to stop detentions. Trump remains undeterred and is pushing Congress to pass a funding measure that would allow him to hire 10,000 new ICE agents, 5,000 more customs officers, and 3,000 additional Border Patrol agents. Resistance to Trump immigration enforcement spreading Across the country, the impacts of Trump's aggressive policies are adding up: coffee shops are sharing tips on how to protect workers, advocates are tracking and reporting ongoing ICE raids to warn at-risk communities, and other groups are adopting resistance tactics that include surrounding ICE agents. In California, officials are even boosting food-bank funding to help people afraid to go grocery shopping as waves of anxiety sweep through immigrant communities. While Trump officials are targeting people living illegally in the United States, the detentions are also affecting the estimated 4.7 million households that have both legal and undocumented members, according to the nonprofit Center for Migration Studies. "People are living in fear," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said June 17 after ICE agents arrested New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he was escorting a defendant from immigration court. ICE officials claimed Lander assaulted an agent, although video shows Lander appeared instead to have been manhandled by masked men as he demanded to see an arrest warrant. ICE agents have increasingly been detaining people going to court for scheduled immigration hearings, and are using a new Trump directive to detain people who would otherwise be protected from deportation. White House officials have suggested that other elected officials opposing Trump's immigration policies could also be arrested, and several members of Congress have recently been briefly detained or "manhandled" by federal agents, including California Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat. Immigrant rights experts worry what comes next Some immigration experts say Trump's approach reflects his administration's efforts to find ways to detain and deport people as quickly as possible, often at the cost of ignoring due process. "They're trying everything to see what they can get away with," said Prof. Michael Kagan, an immigration attorney and director of the immigration clinic at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "They are being far more provocative with raids in the community and also explicitly targeting Democrats and Democratic politicians." Kagan said while many Trump voters backed him over his immigration enforcement plans, he believes a growing number of his supporters are concerned that enforcement has not primarily targeted violent criminals and gang members as promised. "It definitely seems that while there's a core of his supporters who love this, the majority of the public does not," Kagan said. Advocates decry broken trust with police Retired California police officer Diane Goldstein said she's been "appalled" to see the tactics ICE agents have been using against immigrant communities and some American citizens. Goldstein was a police lieutenant in the Los Angeles area and now is executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a nonprofit that works with communities to help reform policing. Goldstein said the way ICE is acting risks erasing decades of hard-won bonds of trust between law enforcement and communities across the country, from the immigrants who are growing reluctant to call 911 for help to the ordinary Americans watching masked agents grab people without producing any identification or warrant. The New York City Bar Association on June 20 said letting agents obscure their identities with masks and other measures helps them evade accountability. "They are setting local law enforcement back on their heels after we have fought for years to engage with people," said Goldstein. "They're not policing in a constitutionally protected manner. We are disappearing people. We are even arresting U.S. citizens and disappearing them, and that is not what we do." She added: "We can't serve people unless they trust us. Having an angry community doesn't benefit either the community or our police officers. People think it's not going to impact them until it does." In a statement, the ACLU said Trump will continue to escalate his efforts unless reined in by the courts, Congress and the American public. "We have never experienced a moment like this in our lifetimes, when our troops are being turned against our communities, acting in the service of a military police state," the ACLU said. "These attacks are transparently about consolidating power, bringing critics to heel, and eliminating the space to fight back."
NBC News
14 hours ago
- NBC News
MAGA influencers fall in line behind Trump after U.S. airstrikes hit Iran
The MAGA movement's top influencers were divided over bombing Iran until President Donald Trump did just that Saturday night. Now, at least for the time being, the lay leaders in the president's base appear to be rallying around a position that spares Trump criticism: direct attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities are justified, as long as American troops aren't sent into a third full war halfway around the world in the last quarter of a century. "People don't want an escalation where ground troops are sent in, but this is not Iraq,' said Ryan Girdusky, a Republican consultant who worked for a super PAC that backed Vice President JD Vance's 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio. Girdusky predicted the MAGA base will swing in line behind the president. There is little appetite at the White House or anywhere else in Washington for a ground invasion of Iran, a mountainous nation in the Middle East that would be extraordinarily difficult to conquer in a conventional war. But it's hardly unusual for the start of hostilities — the airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear-enrichment facilities were the first direct American intervention in a week-old war between Israel and Iran — to create a rally-around-the-flag effect within a president's party. What's notable is just how dramatic and speedy the turn has been away from dissent to full-throated support. "Heavy smear campaign going on right now attacking America First Patriots as 'Isolationists,'" Jack Posobiec, a leading voice in the MAGA movement, posted earlier Saturday, before the bombings. "I hope everyone using this bad persuasion knows that it associate them with the worst Bush-era neocons," a slang for the so-called neoconservative George W. Bush administration officials who pushed for war in Iraq. He had previously warned that direct attacks on Iran would "disastrously split the Trump coalition." But after the airstrikes, Posobiec posted what looked like a sentiment of approval. "President Trump has clearly signaled, as he has all along, that he opposes a regime change war in Iran," he wrote. "This is about the nuclear program of Iran which he promised he would end from day one." He was hardly alone among anti-interventionist MAGA figures in holding off on criticizing the president after what Trump described as a highly successful mission that "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons. Steve Bannon, a top adviser in Trump's first White House and host of the War Room podcast, made clear in a special broadcast Saturday night that he would have preferred for Israel to take the lead in striking Iran's nuclear facilities. But he stopped short of condemning Trump for sending U.S. forces to do the job. Instead he gave voice to the doubts some MAGA voters would have about the mission. "A big question is going to be why Israel did not take the lead and do this. Because right now this is back to the United States," he said. "Why are we engaging in combat operations in a war that's a war of choice?" But he ultimately concluded that Trump would bring the MAGA movement to his own position — perhaps an indication that influencers have more to lose by opposing Trump than he does by using force in Iran. "There are a lot of MAGA that are not happy about this," Bannon said. "I believe he will get MAGA on board for all of it. But he's got to explain exactly and go through this." An hour after Trump addressed the nation from the White House, Tucker Carlson, the most prominent anti-strike Trump ally, had said nothing to his 16.4 million followers on X. But Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump coalition of younger conservatives, had abandoned his long-running skepticism about the wisdom of hitting Iran. "America stands with President Trump," Kirk wrote on X. While Democrats pushed back on Trump, both on the wisdom of the strikes and the constitutionality of attacking another sovereign country without either congressional authorization or an imminent threat to the United States, most Republicans voiced approval or met the decision with silence. One anomaly: Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who had been , D-Calif., on a measure designed to prohibit Trump from using force against Iran.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Pope Leo XIV says there should be no tolerance for abuse of any kind in Catholic Church
Pope Leo XIV has said there should be no tolerance in the Catholic Church for any type of abuse – sexual, spiritual or abuse of authority -- and called for 'transparent processes' to create a culture of prevention across the church. Leo made his first public comments about the clergy sex abuse scandal in a written message to a Peruvian journalist who documented a particularly egregious case of abuse and financial corruption in a Peruvian-based Catholic movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae. The message was read out loud on Friday night in Lima during a performance of a play based on the Sodalitium scandal and the work of the journalist, Paola Ugaz. 'It is urgent to root in the whole church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse - neither of power or authority, nor abuse of conscience, spiritual or sexual abuse,' Leo said in the message. 'This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active vigilance, of transparent processes and sincere listening to those who have been hurt. For this, we need journalists.' Leo is well aware of the Sodalitium scandal, since he spent two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru, where the group was founded in 1971. The then-Bishop Robert Prevost was responsible for listening to the Sodalitium's victims as the Peruvian bishops' point-person for abuse victims and helped some reach financial settlements with the organization. After Pope Francis brought him to the Vatican in 2023, Prevost helped dismantle the group entirely by overseeing the resignation of a powerful Sodalitium bishop. The Sodalitium was officially suppressed earlier this year, right before Francis died. Now as pope, Leo has to oversee the dismantling of the Soldalitium and its sizeable assets. The Vatican envoy on the ground handling the job, Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, read out Leo's message on Friday night, appearing alongside Ugaz on stage. In the message, Leo also praised journalists for their courage in holding the powerful to account, demanded public authorities protect them and said a free press is an 'common good that cannot be renounced.' Ugaz and a Sodalitium victim, Pedro Salinas, have faced years of criminal and civil litigation from Sodalitium and its supporters for their investigative reporting into the group's twisted practices and financial misconduct, and they have praised Leo for his handling of the case. The abuse scandal is one of the thorniest dossiers facing Leo, especially given demands from survivors that he go even farther than Francis in applying a zero-tolerance for abuse across the church, including for abusers whose victims were adults. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
