Copy Desk Daily, Aug. 18, 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.

2020 has been a tough year for Catholic Charities agencies, with drastically increased needs, canceled fundraising events and their own workers struck by COVID-19. But they keep at the work of serving the vulnerable. While political leaders squabble, Catholic Charities pushes to meet greater pandemic demands throughout the U.S. In the words of the head of San Antonio's Catholic Charities, "Sometimes when we're in our darkest hour, that's when we strive to be our best."

In words and evocative photos, tradition, religion, pollution and climate change meet in EarthBeat's lead story: Ganges River flows with history and prophecy for India.

Also from India, Sr. Shanti Tirkey has found in that country's coronavirus lockdown a time to think and rethink. "I now understand better how saints of yesteryear thirsted for God and longed for the Eucharist, especially when they faced hard times," the Salesian sister reflects.

Just because you're stuck at home doesn't mean you can't explore the world. For Soul Seeing writer Peter Gilmour, armchair pilgrimages are meditations during the pandemic.

The Vatican's recent document on parishes frustrated Sr. Christine Schenk. Instead of reinforcing the male-celibate-priest-centric approach as the document did, she suggests the church take a cue from St. Paul: Let's use the title 'co-worker' for laypeople in parish leadership.

NCR's conversation about millennial Catholic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues, after pieces by executive editor Heidi Schlumpf and guest contributor Gloria Purvis. In her column today, Jamie Manson contends that AOC embraces reproductive justice, and other Catholics should, too.

GSR is talking to women religious who worked and/or marched in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, asking for their perspectives on the struggle for racial justice then and now. Today, read a Q & A with Sr. Rosemary Flanigan: 1965 and 2020 'are different worlds.'

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