Charging that religious practice is increasingly threatened by legal maneuvering and public actions that seek to limit the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious rights, speakers during an online launch of the National Committee for Religious Freedom Jan. 18 called on Americans to join the effort.
Religious Freedom
Supreme Court takes up former football coach’s firing for praying on field
The Supreme Court announced Jan. 14 that it would hear an appeal from a former high school football coach in Washington state who says his rights to freedom of speech and religion were violated when he was fired in 2015 for praying on the football field after team games.
Report IDs five European nations with increasing anti-Christian violence
Catholics are facing soaring levels of discrimination in some of the most influential countries in Europe, a new report said.
Religious freedom commission welcomes U.S. diplomatic boycott of Olympics
The Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing sends “a strong and unequivocal message” to the Chinese government that its persecution of religious minorities will not be tolerated, said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Court rejects Catholic hospital’s appeal of transgender patient’s lawsuit
The Supreme Court Nov. 1 turned down an appeal from a Catholic hospital in California that was sued for refusing to perform a hysterectomy on a transgender patient.
Seal of confession a topic of debate after French abuse report
Church and government leaders in France are at odds over whether priests should be required to report the abuse of minors if they learn about it in the sacrament of confession.
Catholic Medical Association joins lawsuit over HHS ‘transgender mandate’
The Philadelphia-based Catholic Medical Association Aug. 26 joined in a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures on any patient despite any moral or medical objections of the doctor or health care facility.
Faith leaders raise concerns over online censorship of religious speech
YouTube’s blocking of a theologian’s talk on the Christian view of sex as a “content violation” raises serious concerns that “religious speech is being censored online,” San Francisco’s archbishop and Focus on the Family’s president said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed they co-wrote.
Federal judge sides with Catholic school over guidance counselor’s firing
A federal judge sided with an Indianapolis archdiocesan high school and the Indianapolis Archdiocese in a lawsuit filed against them by a former guidance counselor whose contract was not renewed because of her same-sex marriage.
Ruling blocking HHS ‘transgender mandate’ called ‘victory for conscience’
A U.S. District Court judge’s Aug. 9 ruling to block the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures despite their own moral or medical objections is “a victory for common sense, conscience and sound medicine.”
Anderson: Like worship, Christian witness is essential to religious liberty
A top concern for Carl Anderson, the now-retired CEO of the Knights of Columbus, is preserving religious freedom in this country.
Bishops say Spain trying to ‘dismantle the Christian worldview’
Spain’s Catholic bishops warned of growing division and tension in their country over government attempts to “deconstruct and dismantle the Christian worldview.”