Far-left streamer Hasan Piker suspended from Twitch after broadcasting DC shooting suspect's manifesto
One of Twitch's most popular streamers was suspended from the platform over the weekend for reading the manifesto of the suspect in the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers last week.
Hasan Piker, a streamer with nearly 3 million Twitch followers and 1.6 million YouTube subscribers, is known for broadcasting far-left content under the handle HasanAbi. In a May 23 YouTube video titled "What People Miss About The DC Israeli Embassy Shooting," Piker went through the manifesto of Elias Rodriguez word for word.
Rodriguez was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and multiple firearm-related counts after Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
In the video, Piker expressed a desire to "understand the mindset" of Rodriguez, who shouted "Free, free Palestine!" as he was arrested.
"The reason why I read this manifesto … is oftentimes to understand the mindset of this person, especially when there are a lot of mainstream narratives that will immediately design an alternative scenario," Piker said in the video.
'Cheerleading For Terrorism': Twitch Star Called For New 9/11, Dismissed Horror Of Oct 7
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"I don't think that this person acted out on an antisemitic desire or is a f---ing Nazi or anything like that, but that is dangerous in a separate way," he continued. "The very fact that a person who is this legible, who has their s--t together enough to be able to write a f---ing, write prose such as this one, in the act of vengeance, in the acts of vigilante justice in his own mind, is meaningful in and of itself."
Piker disputed claims that the shooter, who killed the victims outside an event held by the American Jewish Committee, was antisemitic – despite the fact that Lischinsky was an Israeli Christian and Milgrim was an American Jew. The pair worked together and planned to marry.
"The idea that this is a neo-Nazi that came after Jewish people, deliberately looking for Jews to kill, like all of that stuff, is incorrect," Piker said. "This is not a value judgment on the actions of the shooter, but it's obvious that this was a person that was brain-broken by a lot of the realities that are unfolding in Gaza."
In a Saturday post on X, Piker announced the suspension and shared an email from Twitch. The email stated that Piker violated a rule about the improper handling of terrorist propaganda content.
"Based on a review of your activity or content, we have issued a global suspension on your account," the Twitch email said. "As a result, your access to Twitch services is temporarily restricted. Please be aware that repeated violations may lead to more serious actions on your account, including longer temporary suspensions or permanent suspension."
In response, Piker claimed that Twitch's terms of service "dictates a suspension for even critical examination of the manifesto."
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"i believe this is a bad policy for news and press freedom," Piker's post read. "ill take the suspension, but hope twitch changes this policy in the future."
Piker has been known for creating extremist content in the past. He has regularly broadcast propaganda from the Houthis, an Iranian-backed group in Yemen that has been designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group, and claimed that "America deserved 9/11" during a 2019 stream.
In March, Piker was temporarily suspended from Twitch after making a comment about murdering Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.
"They're not tackling providers; they're not actually going after false billing. They are trying to cut recipients. [Fraud] is not happening at the point of recipient. If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott," Piker said.
The political commentator later walked back the statements, telling his social media followers that he was "sorry" over the incident.
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"I'll choose my words carefully next time and say, 'if Mike Johnson cares abt (sic) medicare fraud (since he wants to cut 800m from Medicaid/Medicare) he'd call for MAX PUNISHMENT for current fl gop senator/former gov Rick Scott- who has done the most Medicare fraud in us history!'" Piker's post read.
Fox News Digital's Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.Original article source: Far-left streamer Hasan Piker suspended from Twitch after broadcasting DC shooting suspect's manifesto
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23 minutes ago
Can an American pope apply US-style fundraising and standards to fix troubled Vatican finances?
VATICAN CITY -- As a bishop in Peru, Robert Prevost was often on the lookout for used cars that he could buy cheap and fix up himself for use in parishes around his diocese. With cars that were really broken down, he'd watch YouTube videos to learn how to fix them. That kind of make-do-with-less, fix-it-yourself mentality could serve Pope Leo XIV well as he addresses one of the greatest challenges facing him as pope: The Holy See's chronic, 50 million to 60 million euro ($57-68 million) structural deficit, 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall and declining donations that together pose something of an existential threat to the central government of the 1.4-billion strong Catholic Church. As a Chicago-born math major, canon lawyer and two-time superior of his global Augustinian religious order, the 69-year-old pope presumably can read a balance sheet and make sense of the Vatican's complicated finances, which have long been mired in scandal. Whether he can change the financial culture of the Holy See, consolidate reforms Pope Francis started and convince donors that their money is going to good use is another matter. Leo already has one thing going for him: his American-ness. U.S. donors have long been the economic life support system of the Holy See, financing everything from papal charity projects abroad to restorations of St. Peter's Basilica at home. Leo's election as the first American pope has sent a jolt of excitement through U.S. Catholics, some of whom had soured on donating to the Vatican after years of unrelenting stories of mismanagement, corruption and scandal, according to interviews with top Catholic fundraisers, philanthropists and church management experts. 'I think the election of an American is going to give greater confidence that any money given is going to be cared for by American principles, especially of stewardship and transparency,' said the Rev. Roger Landry, director of the Vatican's main missionary fundraising operation in the U.S., the Pontifical Mission Societies. 'So there will be great hope that American generosity is first going to be appreciated and then secondly is going to be well handled,' he said. 'That hasn't always been the circumstance, especially lately.' Pope Francis was elected in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Vatican's opaque finances and made progress during his 12-year pontificate, mostly on the regulatory front. With help from the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, Francis created an economy ministry and council made up of clergy and lay experts to supervise Vatican finances, and he wrestled the Italian-dominated bureaucracy into conforming to international accounting and budgetary standards. He authorized a landmark, if deeply problematic, corruption trial over a botched London property investment that convicted a once-powerful Italian cardinal. And he punished the Vatican's Secretariat of State that had allowed the London deal to go through by stripping it of its ability to manage its own assets. But Francis left unfinished business and his overall record, at least according to some in the donor community, is less than positive. Critics cite Pell's frustrated reform efforts and the firing of the Holy See's first-ever auditor general, who says he was ousted because he had uncovered too much financial wrongdoing. Despite imposing years of belt-tightening and hiring freezes, Francis left the Vatican in somewhat dire financial straits: The main stopgap bucket of money that funds budgetary shortfalls, known as the Peter's Pence, is nearly exhausted, officials say. The 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall that Pell warned about a decade ago remains unaddressed, though Francis had planned reforms. And the structural deficit continues, with the Holy See logging an 83.5 million euro ($95 million) deficit in 2023, according to its latest financial report. As Francis' health worsened, there were signs that his efforts to reform the Vatican's medieval financial culture hadn't really stuck, either. The very same Secretariat of State that Francis had punished for losing tens of millions of euros in the scandalous London property deal somehow ended up heading up a new papal fundraising commission that was announced while Francis was in the hospital. According to its founding charter and statutes, the commission is led by the Secretariat of State's assessor, is composed entirely of Italian Vatican officials with no professional fundraising expertise and has no required external financial oversight. To some Vatican watchers, the commission smacks of the Italian-led Secretariat of State taking advantage of a sick pope to announce a new flow of unchecked donations into its coffers after its 600 million euro ($684 million) sovereign wealth fund was taken away and given to another office to manage as punishment for the London fiasco. 'There are no Americans on the commission. I think it would be good if there were representatives of Europe and Asia and Africa and the United States on the commission,' said Ward Fitzgerald, president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation. It is made up of wealthy American Catholics that since 1990 has provided over $250 million (219 million euros) in grants and scholarships to the pope's global charitable initiatives. Fitzgerald, who spent his career in real estate private equity, said American donors — especially the younger generation — expect transparency and accountability from recipients of their money, and know they can find non-Vatican Catholic charities that meet those expectations. 'We would expect transparency before we would start to solve the problem,' he said. That said, Fitzgerald said he hadn't seen any significant let-up in donor willingness to fund the Papal Foundation's project-specific donations during the Francis pontificate. Indeed, U.S. donations to the Vatican overall have remained more or less consistent even as other countries' offerings declined, with U.S. bishops and individual Catholics contributing more than any other country in the two main channels to donate to papal causes. Francis moved Prevost to take over the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. Residents and fellow priests say he consistently rallied funds, food and other life-saving goods for the neediest — experience that suggests he knows well how to raise money when times are tight and how to spend wisely. He bolstered the local Caritas charity in Chiclayo, with parishes creating food banks that worked with local businesses to distribute donated food, said the Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, a diocesan spokesperson. In 2019, Prevost inaugurated a shelter on the outskirts of Chiclayo, Villa San Vicente de Paul, to house desperate Venezuelan migrants who had fled their country's economic crisis. The migrants remember him still, not only for helping give them and their children shelter, but for bringing live chickens obtained from a donor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prevost launched a campaign to raise funds to build two oxygen plants to provide hard-hit residents with life-saving oxygen. In 2023, when massive rains flooded the region, he personally brought food to the flood-struck zone. Within hours of his May 8 election, videos went viral on social media of Prevost, wearing rubber boots and standing in a flooded street, pitching a solidarity campaign, 'Peru Give a Hand,' to raise money for flood victims. The Rev. Jorge Millán, who lived with Prevost and eight other priests for nearly a decade in Chiclayo, said he had a 'mathematical' mentality and knew how to get the job done. Prevost would always be on the lookout for used cars to buy for use around the diocese, Millán said, noting that the bishop often had to drive long distances to reach all of his flock or get to Lima, the capital. Prevost liked to fix them up himself, and if he didn't know what to do, 'he'd look up solutions on YouTube and very often he'd find them,' Millán told The Associated Press. Before going to Peru, Prevost served two terms as prior general, or superior, of the global Augustinian order. While the order's local provinces are financially independent, Prevost was responsible for reviewing their balance sheets and oversaw the budgeting and investment strategy of the order's headquarters in Rome, said the Rev. Franz Klein, the order's Rome-based economist who worked with Prevost. The Augustinian campus sits on prime real estate just outside St. Peter's Square and supplements revenue by renting out its picturesque terrace to media organizations (including the AP) for major Vatican events, including the conclave that elected Leo pope. But even Prevost saw the need for better fundraising, especially to help out poorer provinces. Toward the end of his 12-year term and with his support, a committee proposed creation of a foundation, Augustinians in the World. At the end of 2023, it had 994,000 euros ($1.13 million) in assets and was helping fund self-sustaining projects across Africa, including a center to rehabilitate former child soldiers in Congo. 'He has a very good interest and also a very good feeling for numbers,' Klein said. 'I have no worry about the finances of the Vatican in these years because he is very, very clever.' Franklin Briceño contributed from Lima, Peru.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How Closures at Food Distribution Hubs Are Impacting Gazans
Palestinians receive food from a charity distribution point in Khan Yunis, Gaza on June 05, 2025. Credit - Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images The organization tasked with delivering food aid in Gaza halted operations at its distribution centers this week following a series of fatal incidents near aid sites, raising urgent questions about how humanitarian assistance can be delivered safely in the weeks ahead. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private group backed by Israel and the U.S. said in a statement on social media Wednesday that centers would be 'closed for update, organization, and efficiency improvement work." On Thursday, the organization said two of its aid centers were open, while two other hubs remained closed. In total, over 1.4 million meals were distributed on the day, across the two centers, according to the GHF. But on Friday, June 6, the GHF announced that all aid hubs would once again be closed for the day, warning people to stay away from sites for their own safety. Here's what has been reported regarding the circumstances surrounding the closure of aid centers. The closures came after a number of incidents in which Palestinians collecting aid from hubs have been killed. On Sunday, June 1, 31 Palestinians were killed at an aid hub, according to Reuters and the Associated Press, citing Gaza's Health Ministry and witnesses, after Israeli soldiers opened fire near crowds. In a statement on X, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it 'did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false.' CNN reported that sound and video of gunfire from the site was consistent with that of weapons used by the IDF, and that the rate of fire 'appears to rule out' weapons used by Hamas. Pictures of bullets from the scene were also consistent with machine guns used by the IDF as they can be mounted on tanks, according to the news outlet. Weapons experts told the BBC that both the IDF and armed Palestinian groups have access to weapons that use these types of rounds. In a post by the GHF Sunday, civilians were warned that Israeli troops were operating in the area surrounding the aid hub at the time of the shooting, and that it was prohibited to enter before 5 a.m. On Monday, June 2, three Palestinians were killed, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told the BBC, at the same location as Sunday's killings. The IDF said on Monday morning that it 'was aware of reports regarding casualties, and the details of the incident are being looked into.' The statement added that approximately half a kilometer from the aid site, 'IDF troops identified several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated routes. The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near individual suspects who advanced toward the troops.' The IDF has not provided any further statement to TIME regarding the incidents on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday marked the third day in a row of deadly incidents at the distribution center. At least 27 people were killed, according to the Red Cross. The Red Cross said Tuesday that its field hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, received 184 patients, 19 of whom were dead upon arrival and an additional eight who died at the hospital. The majority of cases had suffered gunshot wounds, the Red Cross said. A spokesperson told TIME that all responsive patients from Tuesday's mass casualty event had told the aid organisation they were trying to reach an aid distribution site. 'The ICRC urgently reiterates its call for the respect and protection of civilians. Civilians trying to access humanitarian assistance should not have to confront danger,' the Red Cross said. The IDF however said that troops fired warning shots Tuesday towards suspects that had deviated from designated aid routes. 'Troops are not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites,' the IDF said in a statement. 'The warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometer away from the humanitarian aid distribution site toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them.' United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk condemned Tuesday's incident, calling for 'a prompt and impartial investigation into each of these attacks,' adding that those responsible must be 'held to account.' GHF is a U.S. private organization that has been backed by Israel and the U.S. to be the sole distributor of aid in Gaza. This came after Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on the territory in early March. Israel allowed aid into Gaza in May, following international pressure and condemnation of the humanitarian situation. But the United Nations called the initial aid 'a drop in the ocean.' The GHF was designated to distribute aid in Gaza. But the day before operations began, on May 25, the foundation's lead Jake Wood resigned, saying he would not be able to work in a way that met 'humanitarian principles.' On May 27, just two days into the new GHF-led distribution program, it was reported that one Palestinian had been killed and dozens more injured near an aid hub. Medicin San Frontieres reacted on May 30 to the incident, saying: 'The disastrous start of the food distribution coordinated by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation confirmed that the U.S.-Israel plan to instrumentalise aid is ineffective,' adding that it was a 'dangerous and reckless approach,' to aid distribution. The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday that since Israel resumed military operations in March, 640,000 Palestinians have been displaced. Over half of those displaced since May are based in the North of Gaza, on the other end of the strip from three of the GHF's four aid centers. 'Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel's militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,' said Türk. Since the start of the war, as of June 5, over 54,600 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry —the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies in the absence of any independent monitoring on the ground. A peer-reviewed study, undertaken by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine epidemiologists, published in January in The Lancet found that the official Gaza death toll reported by the enclave's Ministry of Health between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024 likely undercounted the number of fatalities during that period. The war was triggered after the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Oday Basheer, who helps run a food kitchen in Deir al-Balah, told TIME that he has not collected any food from the GHF centers yet, describing the process as 'messy and dangerous.' His kitchen has partnered with World Central Kitchen (WCK), founded by chef José Andrés, to help provide food for displaced Palestinians. WCK halted operations in Gaza twice in the past year after Israeli strikes killed seven in April 2024 and three last November. Despite aid entering the strip, Basheer says that prices are still rising, with people paying up to $20 for a kilo of flour. 'There is not enough coming in to replace what we are buying, people are dying to get a bag of flour,' he says. Read more: $25 Butter and $40 Eggs: The Search for Food in Gaza He also described that people who successfully get into the aid hubs can take as much as they want, with aid not distributed equally among those waiting. 'From where I am, you have to walk 20 kilometers there and back, carrying food. Just the strongest and fastest can get there,' he explains. Jehad Miri, a journalist from Tel al-Hawa in Gaza City who has been displaced over a dozen times, says that despite having not eaten properly for weeks, he has not gone to the GHF aid sites. 'Going to those aid centers feels like walking into death,' he told TIME from Deir al-Balah. 'Just two days ago, a close friend of mine was killed. He used to go to the aid centers to help families who couldn't reach them.' Several of Miri's family members have chronic health conditions, and he has been supporting them however he can. 'I've been trying to take care of them getting food, water, and whatever they need. Every day feels like a mission finding water, finding a way to charge batteries, finding internet, finding safety,' he says. Wednesday's aid hub closure affected everyone, Miri says, not only those who go to collect aid. 'We get some food from traders who risked their lives to bring it from the aid hubs. Now, that's gone. We can't buy anything anymore, the prices are insane.' Basic food supplies are staggeringly high, with 500 grams of butter costing up to $25 and a dozen eggs priced at over $40, civilians in Gaza have told TIME. Friday marked the beginning of Eid Al Adha, an important festival in Islam that will be honored across the Gaza Strip, despite the continuing war. But Miri explains: 'In Gaza, Eid doesn't feel like Eid anymore.' Basheer agrees, saying: 'It was a custom to get new clothes, new food before Eid. Now you cannot find anything. There is no joy, there is no celebration for this Eid. Every day there is lots of killing, you don't know if you will be alive.' Contact us at letters@
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Can an American pope apply US-style fundraising and standards to fix troubled Vatican finances?
VATICAN CITY (AP) — As a bishop in Peru, Robert Prevost was often on the lookout for used cars that he could buy cheap and fix up himself for use in parishes around his diocese. With cars that were really broken down, he'd watch YouTube videos to learn how to fix them. That kind of make-do-with-less, fix-it-yourself mentality could serve Pope Leo XIV well as he addresses one of the greatest challenges facing him as pope: The Holy See's chronic, 50 million to 60 million euro ($57-68 million) structural deficit, 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall and declining donations that together pose something of an existential threat to the central government of the 1.4-billion strong Catholic Church. As a Chicago-born math major, canon lawyer and two-time superior of his global Augustinian religious order, the 69-year-old pope presumably can read a balance sheet and make sense of the Vatican's complicated finances, which have long been mired in scandal. Whether he can change the financial culture of the Holy See, consolidate reforms Pope Francis started and convince donors that their money is going to good use is another matter. Leo already has one thing going for him: his American-ness. U.S. donors have long been the economic life support system of the Holy See, financing everything from papal charity projects abroad to restorations of St. Peter's Basilica at home. Leo's election as the first American pope has sent a jolt of excitement through U.S. Catholics, some of whom had soured on donating to the Vatican after years of unrelenting stories of mismanagement, corruption and scandal, according to interviews with top Catholic fundraisers, philanthropists and church management experts. 'I think the election of an American is going to give greater confidence that any money given is going to be cared for by American principles, especially of stewardship and transparency,' said the Rev. Roger Landry, director of the Vatican's main missionary fundraising operation in the U.S., the Pontifical Mission Societies. 'So there will be great hope that American generosity is first going to be appreciated and then secondly is going to be well handled,' he said. 'That hasn't always been the circumstance, especially lately.' Pope Francis was elected in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Vatican's opaque finances and made progress during his 12-year pontificate, mostly on the regulatory front. With help from the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, Francis created an economy ministry and council made up of clergy and lay experts to supervise Vatican finances, and he wrestled the Italian-dominated bureaucracy into conforming to international accounting and budgetary standards. He authorized a landmark, if deeply problematic, corruption trial over a botched London property investment that convicted a once-powerful Italian cardinal. And he punished the Vatican's Secretariat of State that had allowed the London deal to go through by stripping it of its ability to manage its own assets. But Francis left unfinished business and his overall record, at least according to some in the donor community, is less than positive. Critics cite Pell's frustrated reform efforts and the firing of the Holy See's first-ever auditor general, who says he was ousted because he had uncovered too much financial wrongdoing. Despite imposing years of belt-tightening and hiring freezes, Francis left the Vatican in somewhat dire financial straits: The main stopgap bucket of money that funds budgetary shortfalls, known as the Peter's Pence, is nearly exhausted, officials say. The 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall that Pell warned about a decade ago remains unaddressed, though Francis had planned reforms. And the structural deficit continues, with the Holy See logging an 83.5 million euro ($95 million) deficit in 2023, according to its latest financial report. As Francis' health worsened, there were signs that his efforts to reform the Vatican's medieval financial culture hadn't really stuck, either. The very same Secretariat of State that Francis had punished for losing tens of millions of euros in the scandalous London property deal somehow ended up heading up a new papal fundraising commission that was announced while Francis was in the hospital. According to its founding charter and statutes, the commission is led by the Secretariat of State's assessor, is composed entirely of Italian Vatican officials with no professional fundraising expertise and has no required external financial oversight. To some Vatican watchers, the commission smacks of the Italian-led Secretariat of State taking advantage of a sick pope to announce a new flow of unchecked donations into its coffers after its 600 million euro ($684 million) sovereign wealth fund was taken away and given to another office to manage as punishment for the London fiasco. 'There are no Americans on the commission. I think it would be good if there were representatives of Europe and Asia and Africa and the United States on the commission,' said Ward Fitzgerald, president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation. It is made up of wealthy American Catholics that since 1990 has provided over $250 million (219 million euros) in grants and scholarships to the pope's global charitable initiatives. Fitzgerald, who spent his career in real estate private equity, said American donors — especially the younger generation — expect transparency and accountability from recipients of their money, and know they can find non-Vatican Catholic charities that meet those expectations. 'We would expect transparency before we would start to solve the problem,' he said. That said, Fitzgerald said he hadn't seen any significant let-up in donor willingness to fund the Papal Foundation's project-specific donations during the Francis pontificate. Indeed, U.S. donations to the Vatican overall have remained more or less consistent even as other countries' offerings declined, with U.S. bishops and individual Catholics contributing more than any other country in the two main channels to donate to papal causes. Francis moved Prevost to take over the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. Residents and fellow priests say he consistently rallied funds, food and other life-saving goods for the neediest — experience that suggests he knows well how to raise money when times are tight and how to spend wisely. He bolstered the local Caritas charity in Chiclayo, with parishes creating food banks that worked with local businesses to distribute donated food, said the Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, a diocesan spokesperson. In 2019, Prevost inaugurated a shelter on the outskirts of Chiclayo, Villa San Vicente de Paul, to house desperate Venezuelan migrants who had fled their country's economic crisis. The migrants remember him still, not only for helping give them and their children shelter, but for bringing live chickens obtained from a donor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prevost launched a campaign to raise funds to build two oxygen plants to provide hard-hit residents with life-saving oxygen. In 2023, when massive rains flooded the region, he personally brought food to the flood-struck zone. Within hours of his May 8 election, videos went viral on social media of Prevost, wearing rubber boots and standing in a flooded street, pitching a solidarity campaign, 'Peru Give a Hand,' to raise money for flood victims. The Rev. Jorge Millán, who lived with Prevost and eight other priests for nearly a decade in Chiclayo, said he had a 'mathematical' mentality and knew how to get the job done. Prevost would always be on the lookout for used cars to buy for use around the diocese, Millán said, noting that the bishop often had to drive long distances to reach all of his flock or get to Lima, the capital. Prevost liked to fix them up himself, and if he didn't know what to do, 'he'd look up solutions on YouTube and very often he'd find them,' Millán told The Associated Press. Before going to Peru, Prevost served two terms as prior general, or superior, of the global Augustinian order. While the order's local provinces are financially independent, Prevost was responsible for reviewing their balance sheets and oversaw the budgeting and investment strategy of the order's headquarters in Rome, said the Rev. Franz Klein, the order's Rome-based economist who worked with Prevost. The Augustinian campus sits on prime real estate just outside St. Peter's Square and supplements revenue by renting out its picturesque terrace to media organizations (including the AP) for major Vatican events, including the conclave that elected Leo pope. But even Prevost saw the need for better fundraising, especially to help out poorer provinces. Toward the end of his 12-year term and with his support, a committee proposed creation of a foundation, Augustinians in the World. At the end of 2023, it had 994,000 euros ($1.13 million) in assets and was helping fund self-sustaining projects across Africa, including a center to rehabilitate former child soldiers in Congo. 'He has a very good interest and also a very good feeling for numbers,' Klein said. 'I have no worry about the finances of the Vatican in these years because he is very, very clever.' ___ Franklin Briceño contributed from Lima, Peru. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
