Berkley Center

by Nick Anderson and Michelle Boorstein

Georgetown University is intensifying its study of Jewish civilization with aid from a series of significant donations. The latest, to be announced Wednesday, is a $10 million gift for research on the Holocaust. Its mission is to explore foreign policy pertaining to Israel; the Holocaust and genocide issues; Jewish-Catholic relations; and Jewish literature, culture and religious expression.

by Drew Christiansen, S.J. and Ra’fat Aldajani

After a massive but failed Israeli effort to prevent the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli sources are now raising the alarm that a nuclear arms race is beginning in the Arab world. The competition is fueled by fear of a resurgent and expansionist Iran and mistrust, especially on the part of the Saudis, of American policy in the region.

by Drew Christiansen, S.J.

Beginning with the “Declaration on Religious Freedom,” however, the church promoted the freedom not just of Catholics, but of all believers. The new teaching on religious freedom altered Vatican diplomacy itself. Before the Second Vatican Council, concordats (treaties with the Vatican) protected the church’s right to minister to its people. Now, the church demanded protection for all believers. 

by Elise Viebeck

Former British prime minister Tony Blair and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta are launching a commission on violent extremism that will aim to help the next U.S. administration counter radicalization among Muslims. The soon-to-launch effort, which also hopes to guide European leaders, will unite experts to study extremist groups like the Islamic State and recommend ways to blunt their appeal among disaffected youth. It is being sponsored by the CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism.

"The commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' has absolute value and concerns both the innocent and the guilty," Pope Francis says.

Economist Erasmus blog

Should Western democracies make the defense of religious freedom around the world a separate, fenced-off part of their foreign policy? Or is it better simply to subsume that concern under the general heading of human rights? In an age when blasphemy laws are horribly abused in many countries, and regimes like those of China, Iran and Turkmenistan deal brutally with dissent in metaphysical matters, that is not just a question for bureaucrats.

by Amos Harel

An unrelenting wave of Palestinian violence has Israeli leaders at each other’s throats — and it’s going to get even uglier. While the number of casualties remains significantly lower than the comparable period in the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000 — 174 Palestinians and 31 Israelis have died so far, about 60 percent of the numbers last time — the Israeli reaction seems far more frantic and confused.

by Ruth Eglash

Washington Post WorldViews

Iranian nationals are not even allowed to visit their country’s greatest foe, Israel, but Pyam Feili, an Iranian poet, who fled from there two years ago after facing harassment and arrest for being gay, is now seeking asylum in the Jewish state. Feili, who is not Jewish, says he wants to stay.

by Sam Roberts

The Rev. Fernando Cardenal, who embraced Latin America’s poor as a revolutionary priest and brazenly defied Pope John Paul II’s order to quit Nicaragua’s leftist cabinet in the 1980s, died on Saturday in Managua. He was 82. After the Cardenal brothers and two other clergymen were warned by the church that their political and priestly posts were incompatible, Fernando Cardenal was the first to be disciplined. He was expelled by the Jesuits in 1984 and suspended from the priesthood by the pope.

By Joseph Beger

Bernie Sanders emphasizes his secular image, not his Jewish identity, complicating the way American Jews regard the historic nature of his candidacy. Indeed, he seems more comfortable speaking about Pope Francis, whose views on income inequality he admires, than about his own religious beliefs.

 

by Frank Bruni

New York Times Opinion 

“[Cruz] directs you to his halo as he surreptitiously grabs a pitchfork. His rivals aren’t so diabolically hypocritical…[his] hypocrisy may be catching up with him. In Iowa, he drew more evangelical Christian voters than his rivals did, but in South Carolina, Trump beat him among those voters, and Rubio wasn’t far behind. Some of them told reporters, including me, that they’d been turned off by behavior of Cruz’s that they deemed un-Christian.”

Evangelical voters are often talked about as a key part of the electorate. But the actual number of evangelical voters and the religious beliefs are not nearly as clear cut as pundits think.

For transgender people, church can feel extremely unwelcoming. A congregation in Phoenix is trying to change that by offering free meals and support to them — many of whom are homeless trans youth.