The country of Georgia, a small nation of 3.8 million people in the Caucasus, has been thrown into a profound crisis. Its people have risen up against the ruling party, Georgian Dream, over the passage of its Russia-style “foreign influence law,” homophobic anti-LGBTQ propaganda law, rigging of the recent election, and suspension of accession talks for membership in the EU.

The conclave of cardinals has for the first time elected a pope from the USA, a man who has been critical of the policies of President Donald Trump and Vice-president J.D. Vance. What will the choice of this American to be head of the Catholic Church mean for the US?

Pope Francis was better than his predecessors. He integrated climate change into the Church's concerns and widened space for discussion of social justice. His reign as Pope left the Catholic Church a marginally better place for the poor and the weak. He named more Cardinals from the Global South, where most Catholics live.

The Marxist scholar proposes a reading of the ruptures that marked Francis's papacy, particularly his commitment to the poor and his ecological sensitivity. Was Bergoglio merely a parenthesis in the long history of the Catholic Church or the beginning of a different path?

On the morning of 7 May, when I answered my doorbell and went outside looking for who rang, my neighbor loudly asked me to turn off all my lights. This command signaled to me that we are living in a moment of war.