For my Catholic readers …

… and everyone else too: this report on the bishops’ gathering in Baltimore deserves a read. Quotable:

The bishops will vote on a statement about pornography, but the decline of living wage jobs, attacks on workers’ rights and growing threats to the environment—all moral issues addressed by traditional Catholic teaching—will not be up for discussion. The bishops will make time to hear a report about their advocacy efforts to oppose same-sex marriage, which an increasing number of Americans and most Catholics now support, but no reports are planned about income inequality or persistent unemployment. If the bishops left their hotel in Baltimore – where nearly 1 in 4 people live in poverty – they could follow Pope Francis’ lead during his visit to a favela in Brazil, where he listened to the stories of real people and challenged government leaders to address systemic injustice and growing inequality. But there are no indications that the bishops will scrap their formal agenda.

Read more: As Catholic Bishops Meet, Culture Wars Trump Poverty | TIME.com http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/07/as-catholic-bishops-meet-culture-wars-trump-poverty/#ixzz2kZ8c98wo