CNA—In a “resounding victory” for religious freedom, a court in North Dakota ruled this week that the federal government cannot compel religious employers and health care providers to pay for or perform “gender transition” procedures that go against their religious beliefs. The North Dakota District Court found that the religious beliefs of Christian Employers Alliance…
Population Research Institute— The communist Chinese party (CCP) has been on a mission to suffocate religion in China for decades. Now, new measures are set to go in place today that further this terrible mission. All religious venues will have to uphold the Chinese Communist Party. All Christian sermons will have to reflect China’s political…
FBI targets serious Catholics. NYPost—Multiple FBI field offices were involved in drafting a controversial January 2023 internal memo suggesting traditionalist Catholic groups were potential hotbeds of domestic extremism, two Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee alleged Wednesday. A less redacted version of the memo obtained by the panel last month cited a “liaison contact” at…
(July 13, 2023 – New Orleans, Louisiana) Thomas More Society attorneys have filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in a lawsuit seeking to block a Biden Administration directive that forces doctors to perform elective abortions in emergency rooms. The filing, made July 7, 2023, in the United States Court of Appeals for…
CNA—Federal government regulators backed off their demands that a Catholic hospital extinguish its chapel candle after the Oklahoma hospital’s lawyers argued that their client’s religious freedom was being violated. The hospital was informed that it will receive a waiver, provided it posts signs warning about keeping oxygen equipment away from the tabernacle candle, which is…
— read latest update here — From time immemorial, Catholic parishes’ sanctuary lamps have signaled the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. But the current U.S. administration’s federal officials recently told a thriving Catholic hospital to extinguish its chapel sanctuary lamps or stop serving elderly, disabled and low-income patients. Feds threaten to strip hospital…
Denver—Twenty-two states, six Colorado state legislators, and multiple advocacy groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Colorado Supreme Court, asking it to uphold the First Amendment freedoms of cake artist Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop. The case name is: Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys representing Phillips and his cake shop filed…
CNA—Police were called to maintain order at a Catholic school board meeting in Ontario, Canada, during a discussion about whether the board should fly a gay pride flag at its central office throughout June to support gay pride month. The York Catholic District School Board met Tuesday night to consider the proposal. After hearing two…
CNA, The Guardian and other sources—The last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, Benjamin Ferencz, died last week on Good Friday at the age of 103. Ferencz secured the convictions of 22 Nazis for the murder of 1 million Jews during World War II. He spent the rest of his life advocating for human rights.…
NEW YORK, January 13 (C-Fam)— In his annual address to foreign diplomats at the Holy See Pope Francis criticized Western countries and the UN for promoting gender ideology and abortion. He told the ambassadors that education “requires showing integral respect for the person, and for his or her natural physiognomy, and avoiding the imposition of…
WSJ—Russia and China want to replace the West. Benedict wanted to save it. A big story the past year has been the firming alliance between the world’s two leading autocrats, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, predicated on their conclusion that the West is in terminal decline. Fortuitously, the world has just lost its…
Cake designer Cathy Miller has been vindicated in the California courts for practicing her Christian principles on the job. On October 21, 2022, attorneys from the Thomas More Society law firm brought home a First Amendment victory for the cake shop owner of Tastries, a popular Bakersfield, California, bakery that was targeted for abiding by…
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a Christian counselor filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Tuesday that asks the full court to hear the case of Brian Tingley, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Tacoma, after a three-judge panel dismissed his case. Tingley vs. Ferguson Tingley is challenging…
On Tuesday, Cardinal Joseph Zen’s second day in court in Hong Kong, five witnesses were cross-examined and the magistrate ruled that there was sufficient evidence to justify a trial. Paul Marshall, the director of the Religious Freedom Institute’s South and Southeast Asia Action Team, told CNA that Zen’s trial “further undercuts [communist] China’s 1997 promise…
Just a few weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi, D-California, introduced (or re-introduced?) H.R. 5, the so-called Equality Act. This bill would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI) as protected classes under the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course we, as Catholics and Christians, accept each individual as created by God and as such,…
“The problem that looms is not just indifference to religion. It’s not just ignorance about religion. There’s also growing hostility to religion or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors,” noted Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in a Rome speech…. Read more>>
Terror in Nicaragua as Marxist dictator Ortega’s police target Catholic radio stations. What and Who will be next? CNA—Nicaraguan police broke into Divine Mercy parish the night of Aug. 1 in the town of Sébaco in the Diocese of Matagalpa to shut down one of the five Catholic radio stations closed on Monday by the…
CNA—The European Parliament has called on the Vatican “to give full support to Cardinal Zen” and told the Holy See it should “strengthen its diplomatic efforts and its leverage on the Chinese authorities”. In a resolution passed on July 7, the parliament condemned the arrest of the 90-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong by Chinese…
On Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost, likely terrorist gunmen targeted, massacred and injured a significant number of Catholics celebrating Holy Mass in Ondo state, south-west Nigeria. “We were about to round off service. I had even asked people to start leaving, that was how we started hearing gunshots from different angles,” recounted Father Andrew Abayomi,…
CNA—A Christian nurse practitioner formerly employed at a CVS Pharmacy in Texas has filed a discrimination complaint, saying that the company illegally discriminated against her on the basis of her religious beliefs against contraception and pressured her to change her beliefs. Robyn Strader, 72, was a nurse practitioner at the CVS Pharmacy MinuteClinic in the…
