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,…
Mark Your Calendars for the worldwide premiere of THE HONG KONGER: JIMMY LAI’S EXTRAORDINARY STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM, to be shown on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at 8:00 pm ET . Sign up here to get notified of the worldwide premiere next Tuesday: https://www.acton.org/jimmylai Here is where to watch the premiere next Tuesday at 8pm ET: …
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.…
CNA—The dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, has confiscated a cloistered monastery and arrested 20 people for activities related to Holy Week in Nicaragua. The Trappist sisters of Nicaragua (see feature photo), who left the country in February after 22 years of service, reported April 11 that the government…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health authorities—once relatively obscure government agencies—were given unprecedented power to manage citizens’ lives in the name of public safety. Some critics have argued that this situation brought into focus a number of long-standing trends of modernity: trends toward medicalization, scientific rationalism, and state surveillance in liberal societies. Any plausible analysis…
CNA, CBJ—“Most of us will never die a hero’s death… But all of us are called by the idea of faith, day in and day out, to give of ourselves,” said Newark Auxiliary Bishop Gregory J. Studerus, who presided over the Four Chaplains 80th Anniversary Mass at St. Stephen’s parish in Kearny, New Jersey, on…
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…
Pro-Democracy, former media tycoon and courageous Catholic Jimmy Lai sentenced to 69 Months in Communist Prison—December 2022 CNA / WSJ—The godfather of an arrested Hong Kong Catholic entrepreneur and pro-democracy advocate says he hopes Jimmy Lai’s courageous example will inspire more calls for justice amid an ongoing crackdown on human rights in now-Communist Hong Kong.…
A quick glimpse at what’s happening in China now. As we cull this news, I wonder how many Chinese know of St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit sent as a missionary to the Far East by St. Ignatius himself (the founder of the Jesuit order). “Go set all on fire” Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552), whose Feast…
Ukraine—CNA—After the liberation of the Mykolaiv district in Ukraine from the Russian army last week, residents began to return to their homes with the hope of saving at least some of their possessions. Together with the parish priest, Society of Christ Father Oleksandr Repin, and other nuns, Benedictine Sister Faustina Kovalska went to the site…
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…
