Copy Desk Daily, April 8, 2019

Our team of copy editors reads and posts what you see on the websites for National Catholic Reporter and Global Sisters Report (the NCR project focusing on women religious). The Copy Desk Daily highlights recommended news and opinion articles that have crossed our desks on their way to you.

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NCR Editor Tom Roberts introduces a new series: "Distractions abound, but we hope, amid all the noise, to help focus attention on the key issue of the day — the Earth — upon which all else depends."

Jump into "Our Common Home" series by Brian Roewe: Where science warnings fail, can moral force push us out of climate inertia?

A small farmer in Vietnam, Mary Tran Thi Thu, says, "As Catholics, we grow fresh organic produce for the common good rather than private interests,"  adding they have to work harder than other farmers in the area who use chemicals to plant vegetables for retail clients. She sells about 100 kg (220 lbs.) of produce a day, at a rate of 25-50 cents per kg.

Read: Farmers benefit from organic farming initiated by sisters

America's wealth and free enterprise system were built by slave labor. Catholic ethicist Alex Mikulich makes a strong case for why renewed calls for reparations by the church and the people of God ought to be a sting of conscience that goes to the central act of worship of church: the Eucharist.

Read: The dangerous memory of Jesus Christ calls us to enact reparations

To counteract polarization in the church and the country, the Catholic Church needs to approach both with humility — which is also an appropriate response to its mishandling of clerical sex abuse, said theologian Brian Flanagan. This report from the Msgr. Philip J. Murnion Lecture at a March 29 Catholic Common Ground Initiative event, sponsored by the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago is full of gem quotes.

Read: Theologian Brian Flanagan calls for a 'humble church' 

Amy Morris-Young knows what makes angels giggle.

Read: Planning is overrated

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