CNA—Several U.S. Supreme Court justices across ideological lines during oral arguments Monday morning expressed concerns about a Wisconsin agency’s refusal to legally recognize a Catholic charity — run by the Diocese of Superior — as a religious organization. The dispute between Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) and the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (LIRC) will…
CNA—Mark Houck, pro-life advocate and father of seven, was found not guilty Monday on federal assault charges stemming from a shoving incident outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic. Supporters of the Catholic father of seven cried and hugged one another after the verdict was read in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. “We couldn’t have done it…
CNA, London, England—The lord mayor of Westminster in London said he is “blown over” after being chosen to become a papal knight — the highest honor a lay Catholic can receive from the Vatican. Councillor Robert Rigby will become a knight of St. Gregory sometime in 2025. Living his Catholic Faith as lord mayor The…
CNA—A coalition of religious broadcasters and churches is suing the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over a long-standing rule that forbids certain nonprofits, including churches, from supporting politicians and political campaigns. The complaint, filed on August 28, 2024, in U.S. district court by the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), argues that churches “are placed in a…
According to reports in Yahoo!, CNN, Fox News, AP and more, the radical, Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center recently slashed more than 60 employees. In addition, union officials related to the organization say it stashed cash. Long known for its fierce and radical labeling of so-called “hate groups” that included Catholic and evangelical entities,…
CNA—The Supreme Court on Friday, June 28, 2024, overturned a 40-year-old decision that gave unelected federal agencies considerable power to interpret federal law, with significant implications for religious freedom. The high court in its Friday decision in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturned the 1984 ruling in Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council,…
CNA—The Archdiocese of Baltimore is suing numerous insurers over their alleged failure to pay for abuse claims stretching back several decades. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in September of last year ahead of a state law that ended the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits for negligence concerning child sexual abuse. The law opened the archdiocese up…
My commentary on the government’s arguments and the Justices’ interrogations of the government’s lawyer regarding the first day of the Supreme Court case of Murthy v. Missouri, our free speech case challenging government censorship. The government’s opening argument attempted to characterize their behavior as friendly persuasion toward the social media companies, not overt coercion. Justice…
My initial reaction to the oral arguments in our Murthy v. Missouri (a.k.a. Missouri v. Biden) case on Monday follows below. As many of you are aware, on we had oral arguments on Monday at the Supreme Court in our free speech case challenging government censorship. The arguments have generated a lot of commentary in…
Parental rights are on the chopping block in California, yet the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta ignores the supremacy of federal law and federal courts. People v. Chino Valley Unified School District In a September 26 letter issued to school district superintendents and members of boards of education, titled “Guidance Regarding Forced Disclosure Policies Concerning…
CNA—After hitting their lowest recorded levels since the start of the pandemic in early summer, COVID-19 cases have begun to increase again, raising the specter of new mask mandates and recalling the early days of the pandemic, when fears of COVID outbreaks led much of society to shutter — including, controversially, many churches around the…
(full text follows) The Role of Canon Law In the period immediately preceding the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and, even more so, in the post-Conciliar period, the Church’s canonical discipline was called into question at its very foundations. The crisis of canon law had its origin in the same philosophical presuppositions which were inspiring a…
CNA—A federal appeals court ruled that a Catholic school in Indiana is allowed to hold its leaders to moral religious standards after the institution refused to renew an employee’s contract because she violated Catholic teaching. What happened? Roncalli High School, which is under the authority of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, refused to renew the contract…
(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—The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment’s free speech clause protects a Colorado web designer who feared she would be prosecuted under state anti-discrimination law for her faith-based objections to designing websites that promote same-sex marriage or same-sex weddings. Lorie Smith, owner of the graphic and web design studio 303 Creative LLC,…
Discrimination complaint filed against Bud Light, Anheuser-Bush — Last week, America First Legal filed a federal civil rights complaint against Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch (a division of InBev), for “illegal, racist and sexist hiring practices.” An interesting twist indeed to the recent marketing debacle that sent shares of the former #1 beer brand—once favored…
The Carolina Journal—The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, 8-1, that N.C. legislative leaders will be able to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging that state’s voter ID law. The decision reverses a ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “[F]ederal courts should rarely question that a State’s interests will be practically impaired or…
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, 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.…
Among the many articles on the murder of Ireland native, Los Angeles Bishop David G. O’Connell, Catholic Business Journal found the following article the Los Angeles Times to be the most to-the-point and informative, especially as one reads the full article to the end: A 61-year-old man who prosecutors said has admitted that he killed…
