Jason Adkins: Catholic social teaching is for everyone

The modern tradition of Catholic social teaching (CST) — the toolbox of principles the church calls us to draw upon to build the just social order — was instigated by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903). We now have a new pope, Leo XIV, who is reminding us of this corpus of teaching as a resource as the world is torn by war and faces the challenge of a new digital industrial revolution.

Despite new EPA rule to reduce toxic pollution, Catholic activist says fight to protect communities far from over

Sharon Lavigne has been called a modern-day Moses. But the perhaps unlikely environmental prophet — a 71-year-old retired special education teacher — doesn’t want to lead her neighbors out of St. James Parish, Louisiana. She said she just wants area industries — which lie in the 85-mile corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans ruefully nicknamed “Cancer Alley” — to stop poisoning them. So in 2018, Lavigne — a lifelong resident of St. James Parish and a member of St. James Church, a predominantly Black Catholic parish in the Diocese of Baton Rouge with a 250-year history — founded a faith-based environmental advocacy group, Rise St. James.