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Rashad Hussain has been confirmed as the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, making him the first Muslim American in the role.

Hussain was confirmed by the US Senate by an 85–5 vote.

Hussain, 42, previously served as White House counsel during the Obama administration, as special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and as US special envoy for the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications.

Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize–winning icon, an uncompromising foe of apartheid, and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBTQ rights, died December 26, 2021, at 90 (see remembrance, p. 10).

Tutu died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Center in Cape Town, according to his trust. He had been hospitalized several times since 2015 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997.

The Catholic Church and the northern Italian city of Ferrara made their peace with Antonio Vivaldi on December 30, 2021—nearly 300 years after the city’s archbishop effectively canceled the staging of one of his operas, sending the famed Baroque composer into debt for his final years of life.

Ferrara archbishop Gian Carlo Perego attended the ceremony opening Vivaldi’s Il Farnace at the city’s public theater, a decision hailed by the theater’s artistic director as a “marvelous gesture” that helps heal the past and highlight one of Vivaldi’s lesser-known works.

A year after the COVID-19 vaccine became available, traditional public health campaigns promoting vaccination are often going unheeded. So an unconventional cadre of people has joined the effort.

In Germany, Lutheran pastors are offering COVID-19 shots inside churches. In Israel’s science-skeptical haredi community, trusted rabbis are trying to change minds. And in South Africa, undertakers are taking to the streets to spread the word.

The funeral directors’ message: “We’re burying too many people.”

As California aims to become a sanctuary for out-of-state patients seeking abortions, Kathleen Domingo, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, is calling on Catholics to recognize this as “our moment.”

“We’re in a position here in California where we really have a fight on our hands,” Domingo told Currents News, a Catholic news TV show, on December 20, 2021.

Negotiators for the United Methodist Church have reached a settlement for the denomination to pay $30 million as part of the Boy Scouts of America’s bankruptcy reorganization plan.

UMC congregations in the United States have long been sponsors of Boy Scout and Cub Scout troops, and the $30 million is to be paid over three years into a trust fund for survivors of Scouting-related sexual abuse.

All US annual conferences of the denomination are being asked to make a commitment to raise the necessary funds, church leaders said.