1. Iraqi Archbishop: ‘The Faith Is Alive’ Despite ISIS’ Devastation

2. Restoring churches seen as key to have Christians return to Middle East

3. The World Finally Sees The Survivors Of Religious Persecution, Now We Must Act

4. The Washington Post editorial board: Muslim countries joined China in defending its cultural genocide of Uighurs. Aren’t they ashamed?


5. Clark Forsythe in the Wall Street Journal: changes to abortion law this year have taken place in states, and that’s how it should be.


(A Q&A from a little ways back on how Roe happened in the first place)

6. What a beautiful, heart-wrenching piece from Meghan McCain in the New York Times:

They were conceived, and they lived, fully human and fully ours — and then they died. We deserve the opportunity to speak openly of them, to share what they were and to mourn. More important, they deserve to be spoken of, shared and mourned. These children, shockingly small, shockingly helpless, entirely the work of our love and our humanity, are children. We who mourn are their mothers. … I had a miscarriage. I loved my baby, and I always will. To the end of my days I will remember this child — and whatever children come will not obscure that. I have love for my child. I have love for all the women who, like me, were briefly in the sisterhood of motherhood, hoping, praying and nursing joy within us, until the day the joy was over. You are not alone.

7. What a beautiful use of her platform. I hope it can be a consolation to her and others who suffer in silence.


8. Please pray for the Dingle family — Lee, husband and father (including of four children he and his wife adopted), died over the weekend in a beach accident. (They are friends of a number of good people I know.)

9. The “Modern Love” column in the New York Times:

When I froze my eggs, I didn’t understand that “fertility preservation” (as many doctors laughably call it) has only a 2 to 4 percent success rate per thawed egg, according to my clinic, meaning more likely than not, my eggs would fail me. … Egg freezing offered the illusion that more time was possible.

1o. Peggy Noonan on tact in her Wall Street Journal column Friday:

In New York six months ago it wasn’t enough to pass one of the most radical pro-abortion laws in the land; you had to light up the World Trade Center and the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in pink lights to celebrate. So that even the skyline approves of what you did. You say you do this because you’re happy. You do it to rub the opposition’s faces in it. …. Members of Congress often go to detention centers and make it worse. They summon complaints, say people drink from the toilet, call it a concentration camp. All the border police are just good Germans following orders. The illegal aliens are victims, the guards Nazis. That goes over badly in America, which has a heart but doesn’t like being manipulated and is weary of being bullied. Journalists go and try to explain the plight of the detained migrants, who are in hard circumstances, and who are often portrayed as being put upon by America, which is yet again failing its ideals. Americans watching know their country is riven by drugs, inequality, lack of social cohesion. They see the migrants and grimly think: Oh good, more unhappy people to join our unhappy people—maybe we can all be unhappy and take drugs together. That will improve things! But this week on “CBS This Morning,” Norah O’Donnell toured the largest detention facility on the border and talked to a young mother from Venezuela with a 2-year-old son. She told her story. For months at home she’d heard nothing but gunfire. She fled alone with her son, just the two of them on the long trek north. She wept as she talked. She was a person of modesty and dignity. She said she had warm food here. They provided Pampers for the baby. Ms. O’Donnell said: But you are sleeping on the floor. Yes, said the mother, “on a mat.” She showed no resentment, expressed no demand. She was just grateful. She had tact. Get her in here, please. We need her kind.

11. Prescription opioids flooded Norton, Va. Here’s what’s happened to the small city.


12. The Foster Care Crisis: The Shortage Of Foster Parents In America

13. Glenn Reynolds: At the scene of a fatal car crash, I saw Americans reveal their fundamental decency


Relatedly: West Windsor man hailed as hero for rescuing motorist from sinking car

And: We are wired to take care of those more vulnerable. This is what we do as humans.

14.

Cloistered Dominican Nuns in Linden don’t have AC except in the chapel. Me: You all must be miserable in this oppressive heat. Nun: We’re all a little grumpy. Me: But AC is always on in the chapel, right? Nun: Yes. We visit our Lord there more often these days. #OPLife — Fr. Thomas Petri, OP (@PetriOP) July 19, 2019

15. Wimbledon champion Simona Halep on faith