Copy Desk Daily, July 16, 2020

Our team of copy editors reads and posts most of what you see on the websites for National Catholic Reporter, Global Sisters Report and EarthBeat. The Copy Desk Daily highlights recommended news and opinion articles that have crossed our desks on their way to you.

Archbishop Moses Costa of Bangladesh dies after COVID-19 battle: After a monthlong battle with COVID-19, the secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Bangladesh died July 13. Costa was a beloved leader in the country.

From one survivor to others, wishes of healing for David Haas' accusers:  Valerie Schultz writes, "I read with empathetic revulsion the narratives of these young women who craved the mentorship of a legendary church musician, only to find themselves being played, sought after for a stolen kiss or a grope or worse, the music in them silenced by this grotesque misreading of the situation.

"Each one breaks my heart. Each one represents a young person who, like me, will spend a long time figuring out that the blame belongs completely to the adult predator."

The problems with papal politicking: Executive editor Heidi Schlumpf takes a look at the politicking within Cardinal Timothy Dolan's apparent meddling in the process of selecting a papal successor. She starts with a helpful news flash: The current pope is currently alive and, as far as we know, healthy and not considering stepping down.

Amid biting drought, sisters in Zambia fend off hunger with organic farming: Daughters of the Redeemer sisters farm on their 15 acres, excluding all synthetic chemical inputs. As GSR Africa/Middle East correspondent Doreen Ajiambo reports, "the farm bears a variety of indigenous vegetables, fruits, cabbage, kale, maize, tomatoes, onions, beans and livestock."

Also in Zambia, many rural peasants and townspeople burn charcoal as a source of energy, as Charity Bbalo explains. A women's group, in an alternative effort to tree-cutting, is preserving trees by making charcoal from paper litter.