NZARA COUNTY: Catherine Bashiama runs her fingers along the branches of the coffee tree she’s raised from a seedling, searching anxiously for its first fruit buds since she planted it three years ago. When she grasps the small cherries, Bashiama beams.
The farmer had never grown coffee in her village in western South Sudan, but now hopes a rare, climate-resistant species will help pull her family from poverty. “I want to send my children to school so they can be the future generation,” said Bashiama, a mother of 12.
Discovered more than a century ago in South Sudan, excelsa coffee is exciting cash-strapped locals and drawing interest from the international community amid a global coffee crisis caused mainly by climate change. As leading coffee-producing countries struggle to grow crops in drier, less reliable weather, prices have soared to the highest in decades and the industry is scrambling for solutions.
Experts say estimates from drought-stricken Brazil, the world’s top coffee grower, are that this year’s harvest could be down by some 12 percent.
“What history shows us is that sometimes the world doesn’t give you a choice, and right now there are many coffee farmers suffering from climate change that are facing this predicament,” said Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London.
Excelsa could play a key role in adapting.
Native to South Sudan and a handful of other African countries, including Congo, Central African Republic and Uganda, excelsa is also farmed in India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The tree’s deep roots, thick leathery leaves and big trunk allow it to thrive in extreme conditions such as drought and heat where other coffees cannot. It’s also resistant to many common coffee pests and diseases.
Yet it comprises less than 1 percent of the global market, well behind the arabica and robusta species that are the most consumed coffees in the world. Experts say excelsa will have to be shown to be practical at a much larger scale to bridge the gap in the market caused by climate change.
Coffee’s history in South Sudan
Unlike neighboring Ethiopia or Uganda, oil-rich South Sudan has never been known as a coffee-producing nation.
Its British colonizers grew robusta and arabica, but much of that stopped during decades of conflict that forced people from their homes and made it hard to farm. Coffee trees require regular care such as pruning and weeding and take at least three years to yield fruit.
During a visit earlier this month to Nzara County in Western Equatoria state — regarded as the country’s breadbasket — residents reminisced to Associated Press reporters about their parents and grandparents growing coffee, yet much of the younger generation hadn’t done it themselves.
Many were familiar with excelsa, but didn’t realize how unique it was, or what it was called, referring to it as the big tree, typically taller than the arabica and robusta species that are usually pruned to be bush- or hedge-like. The excelsa trees can reach 15 meters (about 49 feet) in height, but may also be pruned much shorter for ease of harvesting.
Coffee made from excelsa tastes sweet — unlike robusta — with notes of chocolate, dark fruits and hazelnut. It’s more similar to arabica, but generally less bitter and may have less body.
“There’s so little known about this coffee, that we feel at the forefront to trying to unravel it and we’re learning every day,” said Ian Paterson, managing director of Equatoria Teak, a sustainable agro-forestry company that’s been operating in the country for more than a decade.
The company’s been doing trials on excelsa for years. Initial results are promising, with the trees able to withstand heat much better than other species, the company said. It’s also working with communities to revive the coffee industry and scale up production. Three years ago it gave seedlings and training to about 1,500 farmers, including Bashiama, to help them grow the coffee. The farmers can sell back to the company for processing and export.
Many of the trees started producing for the first time this year, and Paterson said he hopes to export the first batch of some 7 tons to specialty shops in Europe. By 2027, the coffee could inject some $2 million into the economy, with big buyers such as Nespresso expressing interest. But production needs to triple for it to be worthwhile for large buyers to invest, he said.
Challenges of growing an industry amid South Sudan’s instability
That could be challenging in South Sudan, where lack of infrastructure and insecurity make it hard to get the coffee out.
One truck of 30 tons of coffee has to travel some 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) to reach the port in Kenya to be shipped. The cost for the first leg of that trip, through Uganda, is more than $7,500, which is up to five times the cost in neighboring countries.
It’s also hard to attract investors.
Despite a peace deal in 2018 that ended a five-year civil war, pockets of fighting persist. Tensions in Western Equatoria are especially high after the president removed the governor in February, sparking anger among his supporters. When AP reporters visited Nzara, the main road to town was cut off one day because of gunshots and people were fleeing their villages, fearful of further violence.
The government says companies can operate safely, but warned them to focus on business.
“If I’m a businessman, dealing with my business, let me not mix with politics. Once you start mixing your business with politics, definitely you will end up in chaos,” said Alison Barnaba, the state’s minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Environment.
Barnaba said there are plans to rehabilitate old coffee plantations and build an agriculture school, but details are murky, including where the money will come from. South Sudan hasn’t paid its civil servants in more than a year, and a rupture of a crucial oil pipeline through neighboring Sudan has tanked oil revenue.
Growing the coffee isn’t always easy, either. Farmers have to contend with fires that spread quickly in the dry season and decimate their crops. Hunters use fires to scare and kill animals and residents use it to clear land for cultivation. But the fires can get out of control and there are few measures in place to hold people accountable, say residents.
Coffee as a way out of poverty
Still, for locals, the coffee represents a chance at a better future.
Bashiama said she started planting coffee after her husband was injured and unable to help cultivate enough of the maize and ground nuts that the family had lived on. Since his accident she hasn’t been able to send her children to school or buy enough food, she said.
Another farmer, 37-year-old Taban John, wants to use his coffee earnings to buy a bicycle so he can more easily sell his other crops, ground nuts and cassava, and other goods in town. He also wants to be able to afford school uniforms for his children.
Excelsa is an opportunity for the community to become more financially independent, say community leaders. People rely on the government or foreign aid, but when that doesn’t come through they’re not able to take care of their families, they say.
But for coffee to thrive in South Sudan, locals say there needs to be a long-term mentality, and that requires stability.
Elia Box lost half of his coffee crop to fire in early February. He plans to replace it, but was dispirited at the work it will require and the lack of law and order to hold people accountable.
“People aren’t thinking long-term like coffee crops, during war,” he said. “Coffee needs peace.”
As warming climate hammers coffee crops, this rare bean may someday be your brew
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As warming climate hammers coffee crops, this rare bean may someday be your brew
- The tree’s deep roots, thick leaves and big trunk help it thrive in extreme conditions where other coffees cannot
- Earth’s warming climate is causing problems for big coffee producers everywhere and some are looking to a rarely cultivated species that may stand up better to drought and heat
In London, the fox has its own ambulance service when it needs help
- The critters that have admirers and adversaries are well adapted to city life but living on the streets, alleys and back gardens of a dense urban environment can be rough
- When they are ill, injured or abandoned as cubs in south London and its leafy suburbs, The Fox Project is often there to help
PADDOCK WOOD: The injured fox is cornered in a cage, teeth bared and snarling at the woman trying to help it.
Nicki Townsend is unfazed. Wearing only rubber gloves and an outfit suitable for a yoga class, she approaches with soothing words. “All right, baby,” she coos as she deftly drapes a towel over his head, grabs him by the scruff of his neck, scoops up his wounded legs and moves him to a clean cage.
It’s not the way her day typically begins, but there’s nothing routine about rescuing foxes.
“You can never predict what you’re going to arrive at,” Townsend said.
While not as visible as phone boxes or double-decker buses, the red fox is a fixture in London, a city not known for its wildlife. But living on the streets, alleys and back gardens of a dense urban environment can be rough and when foxes need help, they have their own ambulance service — and Townsend may be on her way.
The foxes didn’t invade London so much as adapt and expand their range inward as the city spread to their habitat in the 1930s and suburbs grew.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em
But people and the bushy-tailed member of the canine family have not always lived in harmony, and the species has admirers and adversaries.
For everyone enchanted seeing a fox trotting nonchalantly down their street at dusk or basking in a sunny backyard, there are plenty who see them as pests. They poop where they like, tear into garbage and the vixens in heat let out terrifying shrieks in the dead of winter when attracting a mate.
“It’s like Marmite with foxes,” Townsend said, referring to the food spread that is an acquired and divisive taste. “You either love them or hate them.”
The divide between the two camps led Trevor Williams to found what became The Fox Project nearly 35 years ago.
Once a bass player in the rock group Audience that opened for Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, Williams had been active in the campaign to stop fox hunting when he redirected his protection efforts to the city, where foxes were once routinely killed.
“Because of the myths that have occurred over the years, there’s still a lot of suspicion about what foxes might be,” Williams said. “You know, they’re going to bite the baby, they’re going to eat the cat, they’re going to run away with your husband.”
The project has since grown from providing information on deterring foxes to rescuing 1,400 a year, including 400 cubs, though only about half survive to be released.
City offers cheap eats and unique hazards
There are estimated to be 15,000 foxes in London. The project covers a swath of south London and its leafy suburbs while other organizations not devoted solely to foxes handle other parts of the city.
While the omnivores survive on small animals, bugs and berries in the wild, they favor easily scavenged leftovers in the city and handouts that make them more dependent on humans.
Their main urban menaces are cars, getting snagged in soccer nets or getting stuck in tight spaces. In their effort to get free, they often get nasty abrasions that can become infected. Many also suffer from mange, a parasitic infestation that leads to all kinds of problems.
Townsend pilots her VW Caddy on city streets, highways and narrow lanes that roll through lush hills, responding to calls about injured or ill foxes or cubs that have lost their mothers.
She’s seen a bit of everything since her first humbling call 2 1/2 years ago when the supposedly injured fox bolted.
“In my inexperience, I chased after him, which is comical because you’re never going to outrun a fox,” she said. “I just remember he ran very fast and I looked silly running after him.”
Despite many challenging situations — she once managed to rescue a fox that lost its footing atop a fence and ended upside down at eye level with its paw lodged between boards — she’s only been bitten once.
Heartbreak with hard cases
Her van carries the distinctly musky scent of foxes. The odor becomes unpleasant when an anxious passenger in a litter of cubs relieves itself enroute to being delivered to a foster care pen where they will stay until being released in the wild.
“Feel free to open the window,” said Townsend, who is accustomed to the stench. “This is a stinky job.”
On a recent day, she was dispatched to meet a heartbroken couple who found a cub with a puncture wound collapsed on their back lawn.
“We thought he was asleep at first, so we went to go and have a close look because we love them,” Charlotte English said. “Then he just didn’t move, so we knew something was wrong.”
That cub had to be put to sleep, as did the adult Townsend transferred at the start of her shift.
Cubs that recover are socialized in packs of five until they mature and are then released in a rural location while the adults are freed in the neighborhoods where they were found.
The fox does not say ‘Thank you’
Given a second chance, it’s not clear how well the foxes fare, because they are rarely tracked. A 2016 study in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science found that rehabilitated foxes were more likely to behave as if they had been displaced when returned to their original territory. They were tracked wandering farther away, potentially exposing them to more traffic and greater stress.
“It is a gap in the knowledge and there’s an assumption that when you release them, they thrive and I think that that assumption needs to be challenged more,” said Bryony Tolhurst, a University of Brighton honorary research fellow and lead author of the study.
For Townsend, fox deaths are offset by the joy of seeing little ones venture into the unknown or an adult darting into a neighborhood it instantly recognizes.
“Sometimes they look back and people like to romanticize that they’re saying ‘thank you,’” she said. “They’re just making sure we’re not chasing after them.”
Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
- Nail houses sometimes make headlines for delaying money-spinning construction projects or forcing developers to divert roads or build around shabby older homes
XINGYI, China: Surrounded by the rubble of demolished homes, Chen Tianming’s ramshackle tower of faded plyboards and contorted beams juts into the sky in southwestern China, a teetering monument to one man’s stubbornness.
Authorities razed most of Chen’s village in Guizhou province in 2018 to build a lucrative tourist resort in a region known for its spectacular rice paddies and otherworldly mountain landscapes.
Chen, 42, refused to leave, and after the project faltered, defied a flurry of demolition notices to build his family’s humble stone bungalow higher and higher.
He now presides over a bewildering 10-storey, pyramid-shaped warren of rickety staircases, balconies and other add-ons, drawing comparisons in Chinese media to the fantastical creations of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.
“I started building out of practicality, trying to renovate and expand our home,” Chen said on a sweltering May afternoon as he climbed ladders and ducked wooden beams in his labyrinthine construction.
“But then it became more of an interest and hobby that I enjoyed,” he said.
Chen’s obsessive tinkering and lack of building permits continue to draw ire from the local government.
The higher floors where he sleeps sway in the wind, and dozens of ropes and cables tether the house to the ground as if the whole thing might one day float away.
“When I’m up here... I get the sense of being a nomad,” Chen said, gazing out at apartment blocks, an airport and distant mountains.
“People often say it’s unsafe and should be demolished... but I’ll definitely never let anyone tear it down.”
Local authorities once had big plans to build an 800-acre tourist resort — including a theater and artificial lake — on Chen’s native soil.
They promised to compensate villagers, but Chen’s parents refused, and he vowed to help them protect the home his grandfather had built in the 1980s.
Even as neighbors moved out and their houses were bulldozed, Chen stayed put, even sleeping alone in the house for two months “in case (developers) came to knock it down in the night.”
Six months later, like many ill-considered development projects in highly indebted Guizhou, the resort was canceled.
Virtually alone among the ruined village, Chen was now master of a “nail house” — a Chinese term for those whose owners dig in and refuse to relocate despite official compensation offers.
A quirk of China’s rampant development and partial private property laws, nail houses sometimes make headlines for delaying money-spinning construction projects or forcing developers to divert roads or build around shabby older homes.
Even as Chen forged ahead, completing the fifth floor in 2019, the sixth in 2022 and the seventh in 2023, he continued to receive threats of demolition.
Last August, his home was designated an illegal construction, and he was ordered to destroy everything except the original bungalow within five days.
He says he has spent tens of thousands of yuan fighting the notices in court, despite losing several preliminary hearings.
But he continues to appeal, and the next hearing has been delayed.
“I’m not worried. Now that there’s no one developing the land, there’s no need for them to knock the place down,” he said.
In recent years, ironically, Chen’s house has begun to lure a steady trickle of tourists itself.
On Chinese social media, users describe it as China’s strangest nail house, likening it to the madcap buildings in Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli masterpieces “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Spirited Away.”
As dusk falls, Chen illuminates his home with decorative lanterns, and people gather on the nearby dirt road to admire the scene.
“It’s beautiful,” local resident He Diezhen said as she snapped photos.
“If there are no safety issues, it could become an (official) local landmark,” she said.
Chen said the house makes many visitors remember their whimsical childhood fantasies.
“(People) dream of building a house for themselves with their own hands... but most can’t make it happen,” he said.
“I not only thought of it, I made it a reality.”
Man who let snakes bite him 200 times spurs new antivenom hope
- “I know what it feels like to die from snakebite”
PARIS: Tim Friede was feeling particularly down on the day after the September 11 attacks, so he went to his basement and let two of the world’s deadliest snakes bite him.
Four days later, he woke up from a coma.
“I know what it feels like to die from snakebite,” Friede told AFP via video call from his home in the small US town of Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
This experience might put most people off snakes entirely, but Friede simply vowed to be more careful next time.
From 2000 to 2018, he allowed himself to be bitten by snakes more than 200 times. He also injected himself with their venom over 650 times.
Friede endured this pain because he wanted to achieve total immunity to venom, a practice called mithridatism which should not be tried at home.
After a couple of years, Friede started to believe he could be the basis for a better kind of antivenom. The former truck mechanic, who does not have a university degree, long struggled to be taken seriously by scientists.
But last month, a study published in the prestigious Cell journal showed that antibodies from his blood protect against a range of snake venom.
The researchers now hope Friede’s hyper-immunity could even lead to the development of a universal antivenom.
This would fill a major need, because currently most antivenoms only cover one or a few of the world’s 600 venomous snakes.
Up to 138,000 people are killed by snakebites a year, while 400,000 suffer amputations or other disabilities, according to the World Health Organization.
These figures are believed to be vastly underestimated because snakebite victims typically live in poorer, remote areas.
Friede’s first bite was from a harmless garter snake when he was five years old.
“I was afraid, I cried, I ran away,” said Friede, now 57.
Then he started bringing snakes home and hiding them in pickle jars. His mother sought counselling, but his interest in snakes persisted.
Things escalated after Friede attended a class that taught him how to “milk” snakes for their venom.
How antivenom is made has changed little over the last 125 years.
Small doses of snake venom are injected into animals such as horses, which produce antibodies that can be extracted and used as antivenom.
However this antivenom usually only works for bites from that particular species of snake — and it includes other antibodies from horse that can cause serious side-effects including anaphylactic shock.
“I thought, well, if they make antivenom in horses, why can’t I just use myself as a primate?” Friede said.
He started working through the venom from all the deadly species he could get his hands on, such as cobras, taipans, black mambas and rattlesnakes.
“There is pain every time,” he said.
For years, the scientists he contacted to take advantage of his immunity refused to bite.
Then in 2017, immunologist Jacob Glanville, who previously worked on universal vaccines, turned his attention toward antivenom.
Glanville told AFP he had been looking for “a clumsy snake researcher who’d been bit accidentally a couple times,” when he came across a video of Friede taking brutal back-to-back snake bites.
When they first spoke, Glanville said he told Friede: “I know this is awkward, but I would love to get my hands on some of your blood.”
“I’ve been waiting for this call for a long time,” came the response, Glanville said.
The antivenom described in the Cell paper includes two antibodies from Friede’s blood, as well as a drug called varespladib.
It offered mice full protection against 13 of the 19 snake species tested, and partial protection for the remaining six.
The researchers hope a future cocktail will cover far more snakes — particularly vipers — with further trials planned on dogs in Australia.
Timothy Jackson of the Australian Venom Research Unit praised the immunological research, but questioned whether a human needed to be involved, pointing to synthetically developed antibodies.
Glanville said the ultimate goal of his US-based firm Centivax was to develop a universal antivenom administered by something like an EpiPen, potentially produced in India to keep the costs down.
Friede said he was “proud” to have made a “small difference” in medical history.
Now working for Centivax, Friede stopped self-inflicting himself with venom in 2018 to save the firm from liability issues.
But he hopes to get bitten by snakes again in the future.
“I do miss it,” he said.
Video shows dolphin calf birth and first breath at Chicago zoo. Mom’s friend helped
- Calf was born at Brookfield Zoo Chicago from 38-year-old bottlenose dolphin named Allie
- Experienced mother dolphin stayed close to Allie through her more than one hour of labor
CHICAGO: A bottlenose dolphin at a Chicago zoo gave birth to a calf early Saturday morning with the help of a fellow mom, in a successful birth recorded on video by zoo staff.
The dolphin calf was born at Brookfield Zoo Chicago early Saturday morning as a team of veterinarians monitored and cheered on the mom, a 38-year-old bottlenose dolphin named Allie.
“Push, push, push,” one observer can be heard shouting in video released by the zoo Saturday, as Allie swims around the tank, the calf’s little tail fins poking out below her own.
Then the calf wriggles free and instinctively darts to the surface of the pool for its first breath. Also in the tank was an experienced mother dolphin named Tapeko, 43, who stayed close to Allie through her more than one hour of labor. In the video, she can be seen following the calf as it heads to the surface, and staying with it as it takes that first breath.
It is natural for dolphins to look out for each other during a birth, zoo staff said.
“That’s very common both in free-ranging settings but also in aquaria,” said Brookfield Zoo Chicago Senior Veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Langan in a video statement. “It provides the mom extra protection and a little bit of extra help to help get the calf to the surface to help it breath in those couple minutes where she’s still having really strong contractions.”
In a written statement, zoo officials said early signs indicate that the calf is in good health. They estimate it weighs around 35 pounds (16 kilograms) and stretches nearly four feet in length (115-120 centimeters). That is about the weight and length of an adult golden retriever dog.
The zoo’s Seven Seas exhibit will be closed as the calf bonds with its mother and acclimates with other dolphins in its group.
As part of that bonding, the calf has already learned to slipstream, or draft alongside its mother so that it doesn’t have to work as hard to move. Veterinarians will monitor progress in nursing, swimming and other milestones particularly closely over the next 30 days.
The calf will eventually take a paternity test to see which of the male dolphins at the zoo is its father.
Zoo officials say they will name the calf later this summer.
Pope Leo XIV faces funding challenges for cash-strapped Vatican
VATICAN CITY: The world’s smallest country has a big budget problem.
The Vatican doesn’t tax its residents or issue bonds. It primarily finances the Catholic Church’s central government through donations that have been plunging, ticket sales for the Vatican Museums, as well as income from investments and an underperforming real estate portfolio.
The last year the Holy See published a consolidated budget, in 2022, it projected €770 million ($878 million), with the bulk paying for embassies around the world and Vatican media operations. In recent years, it hasn’t been able to cover costs.
That leaves Pope Leo XIV facing challenges to drum up the funds needed to pull his city-state out of the red.
Withering donations
Anyone can donate money to the Vatican, but the regular sources come in two main forms.
Canon law requires bishops around the world to pay an annual fee, with amounts varying and at bishops’ discretion “according to the resources of their dioceses.” US bishops contributed over one-third of the $22 million (€19.3 million) collected annually under the provision from 2021-2023, according to Vatican data.
The other main source of annual donations is more well-known to ordinary Catholics: Peter’s Pence, a special collection usually taken on the last Sunday of June. From 2021-2023, individual Catholics in the US gave an average $27 million (€23.7 million) to Peter’s Pence, more than half the global total.
American generosity hasn’t prevented overall Peter’s Pence contributions from cratering. After hitting a high of $101 million (€88.6 million) in 2006, contributions hovered around $75 million (€66.8 million) during the 2010’s then tanked to $47 million (€41.2 million) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many churches were closed.
Donations remained low in the following years, amid revelations of the Vatican’s bungled investment in a London property, a former Harrod’s warehouse that it hoped to develop into luxury apartments. The scandal and ensuing trial confirmed that the vast majority of Peter’s Pence contributions had funded the Holy See’s budgetary shortfalls, not papal charity initiatives as many parishioners had been led to believe.
Peter’s Pence donations rose slightly in 2023 and Vatican officials expect more growth going forward, in part because there has traditionally been a bump immediately after papal elections.
New donors
The Vatican bank and the city state’s governorate, which controls the museums, also make annual contributions to the pope. As recently as a decade ago, the bank gave the pope around €55 million ($62.7 million) a year to help with the budget. But the amounts have dwindled; the bank gave nothing specifically to the pope in 2023, despite registering a net profit of €30 million ($34.2 million), according to its financial statements. The governorate’s giving has likewise dropped off.
Some Vatican officials ask how the Holy See can credibly ask donors to be more generous when its own institutions are holding back.
Leo will need to attract donations from outside the US, no small task given the different culture of philanthropy, said the Rev. Robert Gahl, director of the Church Management Program at Catholic University of America’s business school. He noted that in Europe there is much less of a tradition (and tax advantage) of individual philanthropy, with corporations and government entities doing most of the donating or allocating designated tax dollars.
Even more important is leaving behind the “mendicant mentality” of fundraising to address a particular problem, and instead encouraging Catholics to invest in the church as a project, he said.
Speaking right after Leo’s installation ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, which drew around 200,000 people, Gahl asked: “Don’t you think there were a lot of people there that would have loved to contribute to that and to the pontificate?”
In the US, donation baskets are passed around at every Sunday Mass. Not so at the Vatican.
Untapped real estate
The Vatican has 4,249 properties in Italy and 1,200 more in London, Paris, Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland. Only about one-fifth are rented at fair market value, according to the annual report from the APSA patrimony office, which manages them. Some 70 percent generate no income because they house Vatican or other church offices; the remaining 10 percent are rented at reduced rents to Vatican employees.
In 2023, these properties only generated €35 million euros ($39.9) in profit. Financial analysts have long identified such undervalued real estate as a source of potential revenue.
But Ward Fitzgerald, the president of the US-based Papal Foundation, which finances papal charities, said the Vatican should also be willing to sell properties, especially those too expensive to maintain. Many bishops are wrestling with similar downsizing questions as the number of church-going Catholics in parts of the US and Europe shrinks and once-full churches stand empty.
Toward that end, the Vatican recently sold the property housing its embassy in Tokyo’s high-end Sanbancho neighborhood, near the Imperial Palace, to a developer building a 13-story apartment complex, according to the Kensetsu News trade journal.
Yet there has long been institutional reluctance to part with even money-losing properties. Witness the Vatican announcement in 2021 that the cash-strapped Fatebenefratelli Catholic hospital in Rome, run by a religious order, would not be sold. Pope Francis simultaneously created a Vatican fundraising foundation to keep it and other Catholic hospitals afloat.
“They have to come to grips with the fact that they own so much real estate that is not serving the mission of the church,” said Fitzgerald, who built a career in real estate private equity.
