Kate Scanlon

Amid controversy over religious-themed tattoos sported by President-elect Trump's pick for defense secretary, a U.S. office of a Vatican lay institution for the church in the Holy Land has expressed concern regarding the misuse of its historic insignia.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled the law violated court precedent and the First Amendment. 

"Sadly, this court decision will likely end the program, as Trump will terminate it upon taking office," J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News.

A number of U.S. Catholic dioceses and their bishops have issued statements disavowing fake Catholic newspapers that have resurfaced in swing states ahead of the presidential election to target Catholic voters on key issues.

A diverse group of religious organizations weighed in to ask the Supreme Court to protect an Apache sacred site from destruction by a copper mining giant, including Catholic ones: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Columbus, and Notre Dame Law School's Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, all filed friend of the court briefs, also known as amicus briefs, in support.

The U.S. Supreme Court Oct. 9 considered a bipartisan appeal to reverse the death penalty conviction of Richard Glossip, a case in which Oklahoma's Republican attorney general and Republican lawmakers have also intervened on his behalf.

The Supreme Court Oct. 7 began its new term, which is scheduled to include cases involving school policies regarding students who identify as transgender, the regulation of so-called "ghost guns," the death penalty and whether adults can be required to provide their IDs as age verification to access pornographic websites.

Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, urged its supporters to speak out against what it called a "regressive" trend of five executions in five states in the span of one week.

A bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers gathered Sept. 18 to call for the immediate release from prison of prominent Hong Kong Catholic, philanthropist and media mogul Jimmy Lai, who is facing a trial on what they called bogus charges.

Amid an unprecedented U.S. presidential election cycle, Catholic voters should reflect on fostering key principles of Catholic social teaching — such as respect for human life, solidarity and the common good — through dialogue and civic engagement, panelists said at a discussion event Sept. 11 hosted by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

A coalition of Western Apache people, along with other Native American and non-Indigenous supporters, under the banner of the non-profit Apache Stronghold, asked the U.S. Supreme Court Sept. 11 to protect their sacred site at Oak Flat, Arizona, from destruction by a copper mining giant after a federal appeals court rejected their request.
 

Voters in states with abortion referendums on the ballot in November broadly appear poised to approve the efforts to codify abortion protections, according to polls of those contests.

"Once again, we implore elected officials to work together, regardless of political or religious affiliation, to enact laws and provide services that will prevent the repetition of such tragedies," the bishops said..
 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the exemption Aug. 30, finding that it only applies to schools under the purview of a religious group, and only if the application of Title IX "would not be consistent with a specific tenet of the controlling religious organization."

Former President Donald Trump pledged his administration would require the government or insurance companies to pay for in vitro fertilization treatments, commonly known as IVF, in comments to multiple media outlets. IVF is a form of fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church on the grounds that it often involves the destruction of human embryos, among other concerns.

Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization in June 2022 that reversed its previous abortion precedent, voters in Ohio, California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Vermont and Kansas either rejected new limitations on abortion or expanded legal protections for it as the result of ballot measures.

Meghan J. Clark, an associate professor of moral theology at St. John's University in the Queens borough of New York and the author of "The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights," pointed to areas of convergence and divergence with Catholic social teaching in both the records of Vance and Walz on a range of issues.

The Supreme Court Aug. 16 declined to allow the Biden administration to enforce portions of a new regulation expanding Title IX protections from sex discrimination to include students who identify as transgender while legal challenges to the rule proceed.

Jill Rauh, the executive director of a newly created secretariat at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pledged to support the work of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the USCCB's domestic anti-poverty initiative, after some expressed concern about the future of that project following some staff layoffs. Rauh oversees the work of the new Secretariat of Justice and Peace, announced Aug. 6. The new office will serve four bishops' committees to advance the social mission of the church through formation, policy analysis, advocacy and outreach.

The Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, filed an appeal to the high court of a March 14 ruling by the Wisconsin court that Catholic Charities is not exempt from paying into the state's unemployment insurance system because its operations aren't primarily religious under the statute.