A new annual report by the U.S. bishops’ conference identifies five top threats to religious liberty in the United States, including a federal regulation it says could impose mandates on doctors to perform objectionable procedures and threats to the church’s service to people who are migrants.
The U.S. Supreme Court said on March 6 that it would not weigh in on a dispute between city officials of Ocala, Florida, and atheists who are suing the city. The lawsuit claims that a 2014 prayer vigil in Ocala — held after a series of drive-by shootings — violated the First Amendment.
In a ranking of how the 50 states protect religious liberties, New York came in last, and Mississippi came in first.
This past year was busy for the nation’s high court, particularly with issues of interest to Catholics regarding abortion, religious liberty, COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the death penalty.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a high-profile group in the fight against racism, is being criticized by pro-family groups complaining of unfair inclusion on the SPLC’s annual list of dangerous “hate groups.”
When religion is “instrumentalized or politicized for vested interests,” the cause of peace is put “in jeopardy,” an Indian archbishop has told a forum on religious liberty in the Asia-Pacific region.
Archbishop William Lori, former head of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, believes the case will have grave implications for the future of religious freedom.
Saying “religious freedom in America has suffered years of unprecedented erosion,” the U.S. Catholic bishops have posted an online letter for Catholics to send to President Trump urging him to sign an executive order promoting religious freedom.
“Witnesses to Freedom” is the theme of the U.S. bishops’ fifth annual Fortnight for Freedom, which opens June 21, the vigil of the feast of SS. Thomas More and John Fisher, and closes on Independence Day, July 4.
Restrictions on reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Holy Week and Easter are part of the current Israeli government’s policy of making Jerusalem an exclusively Jewish city, said a representative of the Jerusalem Interchurch Center.
