Ideas

WARSAW — Poland's bishops have warned that the fight over the Constitutional Tribunal is producing a profound crisis of the state. In an Oct. 31 statement, the presidium of the bishops' conference said it was not the Church's role to determine who caused the dispute. It urged politicians to start dialogue and not to escalate. The standoff sharpened on Oct. 30. Police were deployed at the tribunal in Warsaw, and judges chosen by the current parliamentary majority entered the building with state protection officers. One of those judges then purported to suspend the tribunal's president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy for a month. The court said she was not a judge of the tribunal, and many legal experts doubt she had the power to do so. President Karol Nawrocki called the episode a forcible takeover. The Catholic legal institute Ordo Iuris called it an attack on a constitutional body. The bishops have so far avoided taking sides.

WASHINGTON — Several ordained ministers and seminary-trained Democrats won office in Tuesday's midterms, and many invoked scripture in their victory speeches, according to the UK's Religion Media Centre. Methodist minister Adam Hamilton won a Senate seat in Kansas, the first Democratic win there since 1932. James Talarico, a former Presbyterian seminarian, won in Texas, the first Democratic Senate win there in 38 years. Two ministers were elected to the House from Iowa, and a Baptist minister won a House seat from Texas. The digest also reports that Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim elected to the Senate, representing Michigan. It adds that Jyot Singh became the first Sikh American elected to Georgia's General Assembly. The Christian Post reported that Democrats took control of both chambers. The digest relies on outside reports, and chamber control was not independently checked here.