Vermont maintains a Town Tuition Program, which provides educational vouchers for students who live in the towns that lack public schools. Students at public and secular private schools are eligible, and so are home-schooled students, but students at religious private high schools are excluded. In a ruling Wednesday (June 2, 2021), the U.S. Court of…
Attorneys with the Thomas More Society recently secured settlements in two major religious liberty cases: South Bay United Pentecostal Church, et al. v. Newsom, et al. and Father Trevor Burfitt v. Newsom, et al. The State of California agreed to pay $2,150,000 in “prevailing party” attorneys’ fees to settle both cases ($1,600,000 in South Bay…
CNA—For Gulchehra Hoja, the Chinese government’s systematic repression of Uyghur Muslims is personal: her mother, father, brother, and more than 20 relatives are detained in “reeducation camps” in Xinjiang. “Last week, I learned that one of my relatives … had died in Chinese prison. His body has not been returned to his family,” Hoja said…
CNA—Catholic groups and legal experts denounced the Biden administration’s notice on Monday that it would prohibit denial of gender-transition procedures in health care. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Monday issued a notice that it would include, as unlawful sex discrimination, “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation” as well as “on…
CNA—A bill threatens to ban University of California health systems from partnering with institutions that follow Catholic ethics, prompting concern ideological motives on abortion and LGBT issues will damage longtime partnerships and limit medical care access. An organization of Catholic hospitals has defended its efforts to adhere to Catholic ethics, but also defend the partnership…
CNS—The head of the Irish bishops’ conference said the government’s move to criminalize attendance at Mass as part of COVID-19 regulations was a “potential infringement of religious freedom and of constitutional rights.” “The precise provisions are unclear and at first reading appear to be draconian, going further than the restrictions we have been cooperating with…
CNA—Jack Phillips, a Christian cake baker, was again in court for declining to make a cake that expresses messages contrary to his religious beliefs after an attorney who identifies as transgender filed suit over the bakery’s refusal to make a cake to celebrate a gender transition. The civil trial began March 22, conducted virtually by…
CNA—Early on March 24, 1944, a Nazi patrol surrounded the home of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma on the outskirts of the village of Markowa in southeast Poland. They discovered eight Jewish people who had found refuge with the couple and executed them. The Nazi police then killed the pregnant Wiktoria, who was 32 years old,…
Below is the full text of the inflight interview between Pope Francis and news media en route from from the Holy Father’s historic visit to Irac Baghdad, Iraq, to Rome, Italy that took place March 8, 2021, provided courtesy of CNA: Pope Francis: First of all, thank you for your work, your company, your fatigue.…
CNA—The House on Thursday passed the Equality Act, a bill that the U.S. bishops have warned would trample religious freedom protections while codifying gender ideology in federal law. By a vote of 224 to 206, the House passed the Equality Act only six days after it was introduced on Feb. 18. The legislation, sponsored by…
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the deceptively named ‘Equality Act,’ legislation that could be used to restrict the religious freedom of churches and religious nonprofits including religious schools; set back protections for women on the playing field, at work, and in private spaces like showers and locker rooms; as well as inhibit…
Roger Severino, the outgoing director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Civil Rights, stepped down from his high-profile role last month, after launching a new division dedicated to the protection of conscience rights and religious freedom. A Catholic pro-life lawyer, Severino is OCR’s longest-serving director in the past three decades…
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s injunction issued late last night (2-5-21) in South Bay United Pentecostal Church, et. al striking down California’s blanket ban on indoor worship. “This is a very significant step forward for basic rights. This decision makes clear we can now return to…
(January 8, 2021 – New York, New York) Religious freedom received validation this week from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of two Catholic priests, two Catholic school students, and four Orthodox Jewish individuals who are suing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Thomas More Society attorneys are representing…
For a little background on David Shestokas, he is an attorney licensed in IL and FL and author of Constitutional Sound Bites .He earned his B.A. in Political Science from Bradley University and J.D. from The John Marshall Law School, cum laude, while serving on the The John Marshall Law Review. He studied law at…
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing two Hawaii churches are well-prepared for this Friday’s hearing (December 4, 2020) in state trial court regarding a baseless lawsuit that two atheists filed before leaving the state years ago. The two activists filed suit to oust the churches since they didn’t like that local public schools allowed the two…
Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver expressed disappointment with the government’s decision to ban religious services as part of a plan to curb the pandemic in British Columbia. During Sunday Mass at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver, Miller said religious institutions are not being treated fairly compared to the other establishments. “As I mentioned in the…
New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo may have met his match in the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, led by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio. Bishop DiMarzo is asking the US Supreme Court to strike down Cuomo’s Oct. 6 executive order virtually shutting down houses of worship in areas of Brooklyn and Queens. Cuomo’s order, which…
New York Post—The usual mainstream-media suspects wasted no time in blasting as inappropriate Samuel Alito’s address last week to the Federalist Society. Which is another way of saying they didn’t like what he had to say. The Supreme Court justice warned that “religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right,” that freedom of speech is…
CNA—“On veut la Messe!” (“We want Mass!) signs read as Catholics in France gathered outside churches in multiple cities this weekend calling on the government to allow them to attend Mass during the national lockdown. Protests took place across France, including in Nantes, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Rennes, and Versailles, Nov. 14 and 15. A Sunday protest…
