Plough Quarterly Magazine

3 weeks ago | plough.com | KC McGinnis

What I remember most is the smell. It wasn’t the smell of pig dung. I’m used to that. I was in the back seat of a pickup, driving down a gravel road just south of the Iowa-Missouri border. Back in Iowa, my home state, pigs outnumber humans eight to one.

1 month ago | plough.com | Isaac Guzmán

On October 20, 2024, Father Marcelo Pérez was assassinated in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state. The parish priest’s advocacy for the rights of the Indigenous in the rural Simojovel area had provoked death threats over the years, and was probably the reason for his murder. In this mountainous area where conflict has simmered unabated for over thirty years, such situations are not uncommon.

1 month ago | plough.com | Holly Guertin |Marie Elizabeth Oliver

“Let the earth bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever…. Everything growing on earth, bless the Lord…. All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord…. All you mortals, bless the Lord.”How do plants, beasts, and mortals praise and exalt the Lord above all forever? I’ve been working in textiles for over thirteen years, both as a print designer for women’s clothing brands and as a contemporary fiber artist.

1 month ago | plough.com | Monica Pelliccia |Alice Pistolesi

Survival can be complex in the south-central peaks of the Peruvian mountains, 13,000 feet above sea level, and when medical treatment is required it is more complex still. But for over a decade, an NGO run by an Augustinian foreign mission – the Apurímac ETS – has brought doctors into the Andes to provide medical care for indigenous Quechua communities. Difficult to access due to poor roads, the Apurímac region is one of the most impoverished in the country.

1 month ago | plough.com | Daniel Payne |Daniel Payne

In the months leading up to an election last year, I joined the candidate I was working for, Tim Farron, on a farm visit. A National Farmer’s Union rep had arranged for five local farmers to meet their Member of Parliament (MP) in the front room of a farmhouse in Ormside, Cumbria. It felt like a council of elders from days of old. These men were used to living and working largely on their own, far from the nearest town, far from easy convenience.