Hope of a peace deal seems increasingly out of reach, finding a solution to the conflict ever more difficult, still this doesn’t mean attempts to resolve the conflict are worthless. In an interview, the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow, Monsignor Paolo Pezzi, exposes the extreme gravity of the situation and the urgency for negotiation.

By a large majority, the Chilean population has rejected the proposed new Constitution promoted by President Boric. Despite much press coverage and considerable interference from abroad (including the UN and the USA), rejection won in the constitutional referendum. The text of the new constitution included abortion, LGBT rights, and ecologism.

Increased military spending, the purchase of armaments, increased number of soldiers, voluntary military training: in Poland, war is not only considered inevitable, but for many it is even an opportunity to settle the score with Russia. And the hottest front is currently the one with Belarus.

The words pronounced at yesterday’s Angelus by the Pope on the situation in Nicaragua, the first in four years of persecutions, are gravely inadequate and are consistent with the attitude held towards all communist regimes, not only South American. But the real problem is bending the Church's presence and intervention to political logic.

The FBI raid on former President Trump’s residence is the sign and culmination of an oligarchy’s domination (political, financial, media, etc.) which has subverted the natural and legal order. The remedy, however, does not consist in returning to the “American Way” or "to the principles of the Founding Fathers”, because they were always, from the very outset, designed to allow an oligarchy to dominate things politically and socially.

From Ukraine to the Balkans, from the Middle East to Asia-Pacific, tensions are boiling over and becoming more dangerous by the day. Especially disturbing is the fact that there are no firefighters on hand when fires break out. And the crisis in Taiwan is particularly dangerous because the equilibrium rests on certain fictions.

Taiwan’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Matthew Lee, speaks forthrightly to the Daily Compass in his condemnation of Communist China’s military action against his country. "It is a one-sided attempt to create a crisis." Lee reiterates that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is not part of the People's Republic of China and that Beijing has never ruled Taipei.

The Pope's words on his human relationship with Raúl Castro have been ignored in Italy, but not in Latin America, where they have provoked critical reactions. The Compass interviews dissident priest Fernando Gálvez who wrote a letter to Francis. "Those words caused a deep wound. How can one have a human relationship with a person who has shown Cubans that he does not know humanity?  Cuba is in an untenable situation, it is not a symbol of anything good”.

Talks, suspended since 2020, have begun with North Macedonia and Albania for their accession to the European Union. But Brussels, which thinks like the former USSR, looks at the Balkans in an anti-Russian light and this destabilises the region even more. There are fears of consequences for Bosnia and Herzegovina. And meanwhile, tensions between Croatia and Serbia are being rekindled.

Four months have passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine; it was supposed to be a blitzkrieg, now it promises to last for years, according to the protagonists themselves. Russia has no intention of stopping until its goal is achieved; on the other side NATO is determined to do everything to defeat Putin. And more and more countries find themselves involved in some way. The prospect is increasingly worrying, and recalls Our Lady's prophecy in Civitavecchia about the risk of a nuclear world war between West and East. It can be avoided under these conditions...

The common response to yet another mass shooting caused by a young gunman is the usual polemic about the right to keep and bear arms in the United States. But it is a reductive view that does not take into account all the factors involved. What emerges is the deep despair in the perpetrators of these massacres, a lack of meaning that drives them to death. This should be the starting point for reflection.

Monkeypox, an extremely rare disease, is hogging the headlines. Smallpox has been eradicated since 1980. A new vaccine, in case of its deliberate spread (i.e. biological warfare) was announced in 2019. Monkeypox is one of many zoonoses and cases are few. Why the alarm?