Gina Ciliberto

For Katharine Hayhoe, climate change isn’t just a topic of study or her area of expertise; it’s what she calls “an everything issue.” Hayhoe, who is a leading climate science expert, told Sojourners that everybody everywhere “already has everything they need to care about climate change” and its impact on people, animals, and Earth.
Hayhoe’s passion for climate science is based in her Christian faith. Hayhoe is an evangelical, which she defines as “someone who takes the Bible seriously.” For ...

When U.S. Catholic bishops hold their next national meeting in June, they’ll have a number of issues to discuss, including whether President Joe Biden and other Catholic public figures should continue to present themselves to receive Communion. Because of Biden’s public advocacy of abortion rights, some Catholics feel that Biden receiving Communion is a moral evil that must be stopped.
According to The Associated Press, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., chair of the USCCB’s Comm...

Editor’s note: On May 3, 2021, after this article was published, President Joe Biden announced his administration would lift the refugee cap to 62,500.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Joe Biden said he would restore America’s role as a “leader" in refugee resettlement. And despite a discouraging start on fulfilling that promise, faith leaders and other advocates for refugees are determined to hold him to his commitment.
On April 16, President Joe Biden signed an emergency determination ...

On April 6, the Arkansas State Legislature passed a bill that will make it a felony to provide gender-affirming healthcare to transgender people under the age of 18.
The legislature overrode a veto from Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson to pass the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act. The bill criminalizes prescribing puberty blockers, hormones, and gender-affirming surgery to minors, and prohibits medical providers from referring these patients to other providers for such treatment...

Ask climate experts and faith leaders what they think of President-elect Joe Biden’s climate agenda and you’ll get praise: This is the most ambitious climate agenda ever proposed by a presidential candidate — and a dramatic change from the Trump administration.
“Biden acknowledges the climate crisis and climate science. That is like a breath of fresh air,” said Rev. Kelvin Sauls, former senior pastor at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles and member of Californians Against Fracking....

As we approach the 2020 holiday season, misinformation is thriving. A recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll showed that 70 percent of Republicans do not believe the presidential election was “free and fair.” On the COVID-19 front, an October Gallup poll revealed that a third of Americans say they would be very or somewhat unlikely to comply with a recommendation by public health officials to stay home for a month due to a serious outbreak of the virus in their community.
Misinformation is wide...

On Jan. 27, former California Gov. Jerry Brown — now executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — spoke passionately to fellow global leaders, scientists, and public figures at the Doomsday Clock virtual news conference. “It’s time to eliminate nuclear weapons, not build more of them,” he said.
Brown’s statement followed the announcement that the Doomsday Clock will remain at 100 seconds to midnight — as close to midnight as the clock has ever been. The clock was created more th...

At President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Rev. Leo O’Donovan, SJ, invoked the “Holy Mystery of Love” to be with us “as we dream together.”
“Help us under our new president to reconcile the people of our land, restore our dream, and invest it with peace and justice and the joy that is the overflow of love,” O’Donovan prayed on the Capitol steps.
In his prayer, O’Donovan quoted a prayer Archbishop John Caroll composed in 1789 for George Washington’s inauguration; however, the tradition of an inaug...

As the Inauguration Day nears, one thing is clear: The U.S. needs as many prayers as possible. Here are places where you can pray virtually, both before and after new elected officials take office.
1. #PeaceWithJustice is hosting a non-partisan, ecumenical Christian prayer vigil on Tuesday, Jan. 19 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. EST. The service will “show that we are united in prayer for all of God’s children made in God’s own image, that we will love our neighbors as ourselves, and especially those wh...

This Tuesday, Feb. 16, PBS will air the first episode of a four-hour, two-part series, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song.
Hosted and written by Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is also the documentary’s executive producer, the series traces the 400-year-old story of the Black church in America, beginning with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and culminating in the present day. The four episodes feature interviews with prominent African Americans, including Oprah Winfrey, John Lege...

Today, Pastor José Chicas — an undocumented immigrant who has been in sanctuary in Durham, N.C., since June 27, 2017 — is returning home. His departure from sanctuary comes as a result of President Joe Biden’s 100-day moratorium on some deportations.
In 2017, Chicas was told by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that he had to return to his native El Salvador. At that time, he chose to take sanctuary at Durham's Saint John’s Missionary Baptist Church, away from his wife and four childre...

Shortly before Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, Rev. Leo O’Donovan, SJ, a longtime friend and mentor of President Biden's, delivered this prayer.
Gracious and merciful God, at this sacred time we come before you in need, indeed on our knees.
But we come still more with hope, and with our eyes raised anew to the vision of a more perfect union in our land — a union of all our citizens to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselv...

At least 65 million absentee votes were cast early by mail in the 2020 general election, compared to 34 million absentee votes in 2016, according to the U.S. Elections Project and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, respectively. However, a number of people who intended to vote via mail-in ballots this year surrendered their mail-in ballots and voted in-person instead.
Voters in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Illinois, and Minnesota all reported that fellow voters opted to invalidate th...

After President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory in the presidential election at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, he continued to share unsubstantiated claims about dumped ballots, mysteriously found votes, and an effort to rig ballot counts. These claims were quickly proven false. And, throughout the day, more false claims spread across social media.
One claimed 100,000 absentee ballots were found in Michigan and none of them were for Trump. (According to the Detroit Free Press, this claim was based...

Souls to the Polls has a big vision: energizing 100,000 Milwaukee residents to vote. To get there, the nonpartisan organization educates, registers, and transports voters to polling sites in Wisconsin, a battleground state with rising COVID-19 case numbers.
“I hope we can get at least 80 percent of the Black community out here to go vote,” Rev. Greg Lewis, assistant pastor at Saint Gabriel’s Church of God in Christ in Milwaukee and president and founder of Souls to the Polls, told Sojourners....