CNA—A Catholic freelance journalist who has reported on a surge of violent attacks by radicalized Muslims in Nigeria for CNA recently found himself caught in the middle of a firefight between government soldiers and armed militiamen. “With hundreds of bullets flying over my head, and the whizzing gunfire whipping past my ears, lying flat on…
Don’t Miss this film on Catholic businessman Jimmy Lai—WSJ—Currently imprisoned by the Chinese government for pressing the case for freedom and democracy, the defiant entrepreneur and media mogul is the focus of a stirring, free-to-stream documentary. “It would be so boring just being a businessman,” notes the Hong Kong entrepreneur and media mogul Jimmy Lai,…
WSJ—A Hong Kong court ruled Friday that imprisoned newspaperman Jimmy Lai, a devout Catholic, can’t hire the British lawyer he wants for his upcoming national security trial. That came the morning after Mr. Lai’s son Sebastian accepted the Cato Institute’s prestigious Milton Friedman Prize on behalf of his father in Washington. The two events tell…
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…
Crisis Magazine—“It is a mistake, even heresy,” warned St. Francis de Sales, to “banish the devout life from the company of soldiers.” But the current U.S. administration did just that by evicting priests from the facility, and turned Holy Week into Hell Week for Catholic servicemembers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The issue,…
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…
CNA—Cardinal Joseph Zen met privately with Pope Francis on Friday after attending Benedict XVI’s funeral. The Hong Kong authorities temporarily released the passport of the 90-year-old cardinal, who was arrested last year under the city’s national security law, to allow him to travel to Rome. According to America Magazine, Zen met Pope Francis in the…
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…
WSJ—Even as Xi Jinping was being crowned as China’s unchallenged dictator, the Vatican said Saturday it has renewed its agreement with the Chinese Communist Party. This is the second renewal since the deal was brokered in 2018, though there’s little progress on religious freedom to show for it. Its main contribution has been to mute…
CNA/ADF—The Supreme Court’s fall term features a major case that will push the question of religious liberty back into the national spotlight as the court determines whether or not a Colorado woman can be forced to violate her religious beliefs about marriage. Lorie Smith, an artist and small business owner, is challenging a Colorado state…
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…
Warsaw, CNA—On Wednesday, Catholics recited the Divine Mercy Chaplet in the streets of 173 cities in Poland and 44 localities worldwide, according to organizers of the prayer event. “We believe that 10 minutes of supplication to God can change our families, cities, and the whole world,” the organizers said. At 3 p.m. local time, street…
LifeSite News and other resources—A federal court has ruled that the California mandate that forces churches to pay for abortions in their health insurance plans is unconstitutional. Nine Long Years Churches across California have been battling the onerous abortion mandate for years with no relief. The troubling situation began in 2014 when the California Department…
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>>
