Morning Briefing

News:

Businessman Charles Koch was honored by the Catholic University of America business school during a conference on "Good Profit." NCR's Tom Roberts was there and has details from the conference.

Catholics who care about the earth are disappointed in yesterday's news that the Trump administration plans a repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which addressed climate change by cutting carbon pollution from power plants.

The Anglican Diocese in Sydney, Australia, donated $1 million to a campaign against same-sex marriage, saying "removing gender from the marriage construct will have irreparable consequences for our society, for our freedom of speech, our freedom of conscience and freedom of religion." His Catholic counterpart is also on the record as against same-sex marriage

Meanwhile, the top leaders of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference are concerned with another issue: the abuse of minors by clergy. Their top leaders met with Vatican officials to discuss investigations in Australia, including the one into abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell.

The Vatican's nuncio to the United Nations, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, decried how poverty and violence hurt women around the world and called for reversing "exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples" in an address to the U.N.

Auza mentioned the importance of clean water in his address to the U.N., which says that 663 million people don't have access to drinkable water and 1,000 children die from preventable water-related diseases every day. Read how Catholic sisters are working together to bring clean water to communities around the world that need it.

Did you know yesterday, Oct. 10, was the World Day against the Death Penalty?

If you're following the unofficial Twitter competition, Pope Francis now has 40 million followers but is still lagging a bit behind Donald Trump.

Opinion:

The expansion of exemptions to mandated coverage of contraception in employers' health insurance plans has Michael Sean Winters concerned that catering to each side's base took precedence over the negotiating for the common good.

Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese's take-away from the recent conference on Amoris Laetitia is that the U.S. bishops' conference will not be a leader in its implementation until more bishops in the "Francis mode" are appointed. (ICYMI: NCR's coverage of the conference can found here.)

Daughter of St. Paul Sr. Kathryn James Hermes is inspired by the words of one of the Cistercian martyrs of Algeria as she considers the questions of why there is so much suffering in the world.

"Toxic shame" can be deadly, especially for LGBT youth, says moral theologian Emily Reimer-Barry at the Catholic Moral Theology blog, who argues why "Church Militant Has It All Wrong." Good reading on National Coming Out Day. 

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