At the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, a place where hope is often spoken of in whispers and measured in small steps, Pope Leo XIV delivered a message that cut through the noise of modern medicine’s most uncomfortable debate. “We must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion,” he told a gathering of sick people, disabled pilgrims, and healthcare workers. His words were not aimed at any single country, but they landed with special force in France, where a divided National Assembly had just voted to legalize assisted suicide. The pope’s phrase “false compassion”…

Football’s governing bodies are supposed to be the guardians of the beautiful game, but right now they are locked in a bitter, high-stakes legal and public-relations war that has nothing to do with what happens on the pitch. The dispute is between FIFA, the global governing body of football, and UEFA, its European counterpart, and it centres on a now-shelved plan called Fifa Forward Enterprise, or FFE. That plan would have sold stakes in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors, effectively opening up the sport’s most precious assets to outside money. FIFA has accused UEFA of…