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  • ‘South Side’ Pope Leo offers video message to Chicagoans at ballpark mass

    Pontiff addresses young people at baseball stadium on Saturday amid ‘No Kings’ protests across the country

    Pope Leo XIV, born in Dolton, Illinois, and a White Sox baseball fan, has been anointed by Chicagoans as the “South Side Pope”, appearing via video on Saturday at the White Sox ballpark to offer a message to young people.

    At a mass organized by the archdiocese of Chicago in honor of the new pope, attendees wore baseball jerseys while nuns in habits congregated near the entrance. Others dressed up in slacks and ties, and the sound of “Pope parking!” echoed through a megaphone from a nearby parking lot.

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  • ‘He stole a piece of our souls’: Christian music star Michael Tait accused of sexual assault by three men

    Tait posted on Instagram days ago that for 20 years he lived a ‘double life’ but is working on ‘repentance and healing’

    The Christian music legend Michael Tait, whose hit song God’s Not Dead became an anthem for Donald Trump’s Maga movement, has been accused of sexually assaulting three men, two who believed they were drugged by the rock star in the early 2000s, according to a months-long Guardian investigation. Four other men have alleged that Tait, a founding member of DC Talk and later a frontman for the Newsboys, engaged in inappropriate behavior such as unwatched touching and sexual advances.

    The Guardian is publishing these allegations days after Tait posted an extraordinary confession on his Instagram account, admitting that for 20 years he had been “leading a double life”, abusing alcohol and cocaine, “and, at times, touched men in an unwanted sensual way”, according to his statement.

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  • Embryo ‘adoption’ answered these families’ prayers. The Christian right is using them to attack IVF

    By casting excess embryos as ‘little frozen orphans’, these programs appeal to infertile US Christians – and push an alarming view of personhood

    As soon as they arrived home, Tyler, seven, and Jayden, three, rushed to a small green tent perched on the living room table and pressed their faces against its mesh windows. Inside, several gray cocoons hung immobile as the boys’ eyes eagerly scanned them for the slightest sign of movement. “We’re waiting for butterflies to emerge,” explained their mother, Alana Lisano. “It’s our little biology experiment.”

    Within seconds, the boys were off to play with their cars, having no patience for such waiting. But Tyler and Jayden, Alana told me, were like those butterflies not so long ago, suspended in a different kind of stasis for two decades.

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  • New Orleans archdiocese says it reached abuse settlement as lawyers say deal falls short about $100m

    Some lawyers of more than 600 abuse claimants trying to block approval of current agreement of chapter 11 case

    Some attorneys involved in the bankrupt New Orleans Catholic archdiocese’s federal financial reorganization say they have reached terms on an agreement to settle decades’ worth of clergy molestation claims, but lawyers representing a sizeable share out of more than 600 abuse claimants contend the proposed deal falls short by about $100m – and they’re hoping they have the votes to block its approval.

    Both developments came on Wednesday amid a struggle to resolve a tortuous chapter 11 case that has cost the church more than $45m in legal and other professional costs. The case theoretically could get dismissed at a hearing toward the end of June if the presiding judge, Meredith Grabill, determines she is unsatisfied with its progress.

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  • Quakers march 300 miles to protest Trump’s immigration crackdown

    Group marches from New York City to Washington, carrying on a long tradition of Quaker activism

    A group of Quakers were marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington DC to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

    The march extends a long tradition of Quaker activism. Historically, Quakers have been involved in peaceful protests to end wars and slavery, and support women’s voting rights in line with their commitment to justice and peace. Far more recently, Quakers sued the federal government earlier this year over immigration agents’ ability to make arrests at houses of worship.

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  • This American pope: Leo XIV’s bloodline reflects the US melting pot

    A fraught history of race and immigration connect the new pope with his homeland

    Pope Leo XIV, who on Thursday was elected as the first-ever US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, has a familial bloodline that reflects his homeland’s fraught relationship with race – and why the nation’s stature as a melting pot of origins has long endured, records unearthed by genealogists show.

    The maternal grandfather of 69-year-old Robert Prevost, the newly minted pope, was evidently born abroad in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, according to birth records that professional genealogist Chris Smothers cited to ABC News in a recent report. When Leo’s grandfather, Joseph Martinez, obtained an 1887 marriage license to wed the future pope’s grandmother, Louise Baquié, he listed his birthplace as Haiti, which at the time was the same territory as Santo Domingo, Smothers noted.

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  • Trump accused of ‘mocking’ Catholics after posting image of himself as pope

    US president displays ‘pathological megalomania’ as cardinals gather to elect new pope after death of Francis

    Donald Trump has been accused of mocking the election of a new leader of the Catholic church after posting an artificial intelligence-generated picture of himself as the pope on social media.

    The image, shared on Friday night on Trump’s Truth Social site and the White House’s official X account, raised eyebrows at the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning after Pope Francis’s funeral on 26 April.

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  • Trump has put Christian nationalists in key roles – say a prayer for free speech

    Experts warn that a specific brand of Christianity will be prioritized and lead to a ‘further dismantling’ of institutions

    The Trump administration’s promotion of white Christian nationalists and prosperity gospel preachers to key government roles will lead to the “further dismantling of government institutions” and the chilling of free speech, experts have warned.

    Donald Trump announced the creation of an “anti-Christian bias” taskforce and a White House Faith Office (WHFO) in February, saying it would make recommendations to him “regarding changes to policies, programs, and practices” and consult with outside experts in “combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias”.

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  • The rise of end times fascism

    The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

    The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business “freedom cities” such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island.

    Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don’t actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Próspera might be nice for a holiday and some body “upgrades”, its extra-national status is currently being challenged in court.

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  • Former Washington archbishop Theodore McCarrick, defrocked over abuse allegations, dies aged 94

    Most senior American prelate in Catholic church to face accusations of sexual abuse died in state of Missouri

    The first cardinal to be defrocked by the Pope over allegations of sexual abuse has died in the United States, a senior US churchman said on Friday.

    Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington and the most senior American prelate in the Catholic church to face claims of abuse, died in the state of Missouri aged 94, the New York Times reported, citing a Vatican statement.

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