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Omar G. Encarnación Reflects on the Legacy of the First Latin American Pope

For Time magazine, Omar G. Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics at Bard, considers the legacy of Pope Francis after his passing on Easter Monday. Although Francis did not reverse the decline of Catholicism in Latin America, as the Vatican had hoped, he did transform the Church in the image of Latin America, writes Encarnación. In his first papal announcement, Francis denounced the twin evils of poverty and inequality, citing “idolatry of money” and criticizing “unfettered capitalism as a new tyranny,” ideas drawn from Liberation Theology, a progressive philosophy originating in Latin America that married Marxist critiques of capitalism with traditional Catholic concerns for the poor and marginalized. The Argentine pontiff’s second legacy, informed by an understanding of the devastating impacts of Amazonian deforestation especially on vulnerable populations, was that he “unambiguously aligned the Vatican with the fight against climate change.” Pope Francis’s third and most surprising legacy, asserts Encarnación, was his support of the LGBTQ community’s struggle for dignity and respect, a perspective shaped by the divisive culture war over same-sex marriage in Argentina, the first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage in July 2010. “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” the Pope once said when asked about homosexuals in the Catholic clergy. Encarnación writes, “he made the Church more progressive at a time when the far-right is ascendant around the globe. Whether that direction continues will be up to the next Pontiff. But one thing is certain: Francis will be a tough act to follow.”

Post Date: 04-23-2025

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Estimated Cost of Hate Crimes to Phoenix Residents in 2022 Between $39 and $160 Million, Reports Bard Center for the Study of Hate and Anti-Defamation League’s Desert Region

The Bard Center for the Study of Hate (BCSH), in partnership with the ADL Desert Region, has released a new report: The Societal Impacts of Hate Crimes: A Case Study. What emerges from this study is a staggering cost–the estimate for the “hate tax” on Phoenix residents from hate crime in 2022 is between $39 million and $160 million.

Building on the groundbreaking work of Bard Associate Professor of Economics Michael Martell, and his 2023 analysis of the “Economic Costs of Hate Crimes,” the ADL Desert Region’s GRACE Committee (Government Relations Advocacy and Community Engagement Committee) sought to quantify the costs of hate crimes in Phoenix for the year in 2022. Using Martell’s model, and assisted by BCSH summer intern Mimla Wardak, the GRACE committee reached out to leaders in Phoenix to gather data, but also to discuss the various costs associated with hate crime, such as the need to use money that could otherwise have supported community projects on infrastructure security instead.

This joint project, led by BCSH director Kenneth Stern and ADL- Desert Region’s GRACE Committee chair Bob Braudy, was designed as a model that other communities in the US and abroad can use too.

In a joint statement, Stern and Braudy emphasized the broader implications of the report. Stern and Braudy said, “Hate crimes reverberate in any community, and we think of the moral costs associated with them, as well as the legal implications. But calculating and underscoring the societal costs is a critical project, not only to remind people of the financial costs of hate crimes, but also highlighting the things that community groups and others might otherwise accomplish to benefit everyone if millions didn’t have to be diverted because of the costs of hate crimes.”

The next step in Phoenix involves the use of the report for meetings with community groups, government officials, and others, to plan together how to reduce these costs.

BCSH is willing to help other communities design their own assessments, and follow-up plans. Contact BCSH director Kenneth Stern at [email protected].

Post Date: 04-11-2025