Friday’s News & Ideas - 7/25/2025

As deportation fears keep immigrants from work, their churches feel financial strain
Religion News Service: Newly strained finances are just one reality that Latino immigrant churches are adjusting to as the Trump administration accelerates a promised mass deportation campaign and other aggressive changes to immigration policy.

Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication
The Guardian: As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an “education and Palestine” issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

Dispute over former Gateway Church pastor Robert Morris’s retirement cash heads to court
CBS News: Morris, 63, is demanding millions of dollars in payments and retirement benefits from the church following his resignation last year. Morris stepped down after allegations resurfaced that he sexually abused a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.

Late Jesuit global leader didn’t stop known child molester from becoming priest — court documents
The Guardian: Pedro Arrupe is a candidate for sainthood, but an abuse victim’s lawsuit turned up evidence that he didn’t prevent child molester Donald Dickerson from being ordained after learning of allegations.

Yellowstone has been a ‘sacred wonderland’ of spiritual power and religious activity for centuries – and for different faith groups
The Conversation: Few realize that religion has been part of Yellowstone’s appeal throughout the park’s history.

The Spark

ICE agents invade a Manhattan Little League field
Youman Wilder has coached* local kids for twenty-one years — including four who have gone pro, The New Yorker says. When masked agents tried to interrogate his players, he told them, “You don’t have more rights than they do.”

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