Jamie Manson, head of Catholics for Choice, was watching Netflix when Politico published US Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion arguing for overturning Roe v. Wade. Like many Americans, even devoted activists on the issue, Manson wasn’t expecting the news. She said it took multiple calls from her staff to get her attention.
The decision, however, did not surprise her.
Catholic bishops in California have asked the US Supreme Court to review a case challenging a state law that expands the time survivors of childhood sexual assault have to file their claims.
The petition, first reported by the Catholic News Agency, was filed April 15 by nine California Catholic dioceses and archdioceses after the California Supreme Court refused to consider the case—Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland v. Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County—in November.
Muslim and Jewish organizations are expressing concern about billionaire Elon Musk’s impending ownership of Twitter, warning that the aerospace tycoon could roll back moderation policies and unleash a new wave of harassment against religious minorities often targeted on the platform.
“It strikes me as deeply troubling and potentially dangerous that two people—Musk and [Facebook cofounder] Mark Zuckerberg—essentially control the public square,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “That seems like a sad day for democracy.”
The City of Boston so clearly violated US law on religious liberty that a normally divided US Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the city on May 2.
At issue was a flagpole owned by the city. The city offers civic groups the opportunity to fly their flags briefly on the pole to encourage civic engagement. Yet when a conservative Christian group called Camp Constitution applied to fly its flag—which is widely known as the Christian flag—city officials denied the request, citing the religious nature of the flag’s “speech.”
One of the most celebrated and influential United Methodists is lending his name to an institute at Vanderbilt University that will promote and study nonviolence.
James Lawson, who has been called the “architect of the civil rights movement,” has given his blessing to the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University.
Lawson, 93, said in an interview that he will act as “spiritual adviser” to the institute, along with his ongoing work advising, teaching, and writing.
On April 21, Izani Bruch, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile, was appointed chaplain of the Palacio de La Moneda of Chile, the national headquarters of governmental affairs and ministries.
“As a church we are very happy and we receive it with humility, with fear and trembling, but also with great hope and commitment to make this new Chile, which we are all dreaming of, possible,” Bruch said.
On April 11, Cathy Chang, a Presbyterian missionary living in the Philippines, discovered she had been “red-tagged” by the Philippine government after meeting with a progressive political candidate.
According to Human Rights Watch, red-tagging is a decades-long practice in which the Philippine government publicly accuses individuals or organizations of supporting the communist New People’s Army. The Philippine military often harasses, tortures, or kills suspected communists.
The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has selected scholar and activist Linda Gaither as the recipient of the 2022 John Nevin Sayre Award. The award, established in 1979, is given every three years to an Episcopalian who has shown “courageous witness in the cause of peace and justice.”
A small but determined group of Ukrainian asylum seekers has discovered that the quickest route to safety in the United States currently runs through Mexico, immigrant rights advocates say.
A diplomatic arrangement predating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enables Mexico to fast-track Ukrainian passport holders into the country and to the American border, where the majority are gaining entry into the US within three to four days, said Danilo Zak, policy and advocacy manager for the National Immigration Forum.
Mariam is sipping on a juice box while sitting on the front steps outside a hotel not far from the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest of cities for Muslims. She first says she is ten years old but then decides she is eight.
Her mother, in a black abaya and a face veil, is sitting a few steps away on the pavement, selling scarves to a group of pilgrims.
It is 6:30 a.m., and dozens of pilgrims stop as they walk back to their hotels after performing fajr, the morning prayer at the Grand Mosque.