The Supreme Court will not consider a challenge to new federal death penalty protocols proposed by the Justice Department, clearing the way for the government to resume executions as early as July for the first time since 2003. The court, without comment, declined Monday to take up the lawsuit filed by four death row inmates.…Read More
In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of abortion providers in June Medical Services v. Russo, striking down a Louisiana law that required abortionists to maintain admitting privileges at a local hospital in order to perform abortions. In doing so, the majority has upheld flawed precedent and permitted abortionists to continue…Read More
In a 7-2 decision June 25, the Supreme Court said the Trump administration can deport some asylum-seekers without granting them a federal court hearing. The opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, said asylum-seekers on track for expedited removal from the U.S. are not entitled to seek habeas corpus — or the right to challenge government…Read More
As police reform legislation is currently stuck in the Senate, leading U.S. bishops wrote members of Congress on Wednesday outlining Catholic principles of policing. Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington, and Bishop Shelton Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux sent a joint letter to members of Congress on Wednesday “in the…Read More
As police reform legislation is currently stuck in the Senate, leading U.S. bishops wrote members of Congress on Wednesday outlining Catholic principles of policing. Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington, and Bishop Shelton Fabre of Houma-Thibodaux sent a joint letter to members of Congress on Wednesday “in the…Read More
Three state legislatures have passed new restrictions on abortion: a heartbeat-based abortion ban in Tennessee; a 24-hour waiting period on abortion in Iowa; and a ban on abortion due to race, sex or genetic anomaly of the unborn child in Mississippi. The Tennessee Senate passed a ban on abortion 30 minutes after midnight on June…Read More
U.S. Senator James Lankford is leading a bipartisan group of Senators hoping to expand the federal tax deduction for charitable giving. The bill is called the Universal Giving Pandemic Response Act. It expands the above-the-line deduction for donations to non-profits, houses of worship, religious organizations and charities. “Nonprofits uphold Americans in our times of greatest…Read More
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts may play a pivotal role in a the first major SCOTUS abortion place to occur during President Donald Trump’s administration. Both Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberal judges in a landmark decision June 15 that federal law protects LGBT employees from discrimination, while Roberts joined the…Read More
A statue of Catholic missionary St. Junipero Serra was toppled in a San Francisco park Friday, along with statues of Francis Scott Key and Ulysses S. Grant. The statues were torn down Friday evening from Golden Gate Park, by a group of about 100 people. During the eighteenth century, the saint founded nine Catholic missions…Read More
Tennessee passed sweeping legislation Friday seeking to place restrictions on abortion, becoming the latest state to try to curtail access to the procedure. The bill, which passed 23-5 in the state Senate, was one of several pieces of legislation that had been put on pause during the coronavirus pandemic, but it was boosted by new…Read More
A narrowly divided Supreme Court extended Thursday a life-support line to some 650,000 so-called DREAMers, allowing them to remain safe from deportation for now, while the Trump administration jumps through the administrative hoops that the court said are required before ending the program. The vote was 5-to-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the decisive…Read More
President Trump on Tuesday said school choice is the civil rights issue of “all-time in this country.” Speaking to reporters while announcing an executive order on law enforcement reform, Trump said: “We’re fighting for school choice, which really is the civil rights [issue] of all-time in this country. Frankly, school choice is the civil rights…Read More
A consistent feature of racists through history is that they have fully understood the power of education, or the lack of education, as a tool of oppression. Extraordinary efforts were taken to keep black slaves illiterate, including killing those who deigned to learn to read. After the Civil War, black schools were frequent targets of…Read More
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that employers cannot fire workers because of their sexual orientation or self-determined gender identity, while dissenting justices opined the Court was legislating from the bench. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion for the Court in a 6-3 decision, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer,…Read More
Oklahoma law provides a large range of sentencing guidelines for each category of crime to allow prior convictions to be taken into account in determining the length of the sentence imposed. Oklahoma law also allows sentencing enhancements to add years or decades to be piled on top of a maximum guideline sentence. Here’s the problem.…Read More
Oklahoma law provides a large range of sentencing guidelines for each category of crime to allow prior convictions to be taken into account in determining the length of the sentence imposed. Oklahoma law also allows sentencing enhancements to add years or decades to be piled on top of a maximum guideline sentence. Here’s the problem.…Read More
On Friday, the Trump administration finalized a new rule to protect doctors’ right to object to abortion and “gender reassignment” operations. The rule clarifies that bans on sex-based discrimination do not include gender identity or abortion. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that its final rule eliminates portions of a 2016 regulation…Read More
The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference is asking the U.S. Department of Education to reverse state authorities’ decisions that the conference says gives insufficient coronavirus relief funds to Catholic and other private schools. “We are appealing the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s decision because Congress was clear when it unanimously passed the CARES Act education funding,” Sean McAleer,…Read More
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that a “constitutionally dubious” double standard is being applied to religious communities and protestors during a Senate session on Tuesday. “I have no criticism for the millions of Americans who peacefully demonstrated in recent days. Their cause is beyond righteous,” said McConnell. “It is the inconsistency from leaders that…Read More
In just a few weeks, Oklahoma voters will be able to voice their opinions on Medicaid expansion in the Sooner State. In recent years, there has been a push across the state to expand Medicaid in Oklahoma. Since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2014, Oklahoma has rejected federal money for Medicaid expansion. ”Right now,…Read More
In just a few weeks, Oklahoma voters will be able to voice their opinions on Medicaid expansion in the Sooner State. In recent years, there has been a push across the state to expand Medicaid in Oklahoma. Since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2014, Oklahoma has rejected federal money for Medicaid expansion. ”Right now,…Read More
As part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Congress allocated $30 billion to assist educational institutions in handling the economic fallout from COVID-19. About half of that funding was designated for higher education and $13.5 billion for K–12 schools, with the remainder left to state governments. The bill gave the Department…Read More
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, the U.S. bishops argued that a Catholic agency should not be banned from participation in the Philadelphia foster care system due to its beliefs on marriage. “The Catholic Church serves orphans through adoption and foster care not simply because it cares about children, but because it is…Read More
NBA stars Trae Young, Russell Westbrook and Blake Griffin all sent letters to Gov. Kevin Stitt and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, asking them to commute the sentence of Julius Jones. “This is a serious, serious matter, and I’m not taking that lightly,” Young said at a peaceful protest in Norman on Monday. “I’m…Read More
NBA stars Trae Young, Russell Westbrook and Blake Griffin all sent letters to Gov. Kevin Stitt and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, asking them to commute the sentence of Julius Jones. “This is a serious, serious matter, and I’m not taking that lightly,” Young said at a peaceful protest in Norman on Monday. “I’m…Read More
U.S. Senators James Lankford and Jim Inhofe are members of a group of Senators asking the Supreme Court to hear a case dealing with state voter laws. The group submitted an amicus brief for DNC v. Hobbs out of Arizona. They contend the lower court’s decision would jeopardize neutral voting laws designed to prevent election…Read More
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order “to advance international religious freedom,” after he visited the St John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC. The order calls religious freedom “a moral and national security imperative” and declares it “a foreign policy priority of the United States.” The order calls for “robust” engagement…Read More
As the nation was gripped by widespread unrest over the weekend in response to the killing of yet another unarmed black man by a police officer last week, U.S. Catholic leaders said recent events served as a “wake-up call” to the racism that continues to plague the country, while encouraging non-violent protests as a means…Read More
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of California’s limits on the number of people who may attend a church service, in a decision that saw justices debating whether religious services were being treated more strictly than similar gatherings under restrictions aimed to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Chief Justice John Roberts, a President…Read More