Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

• The leaders of the Catholic Church in New York anticipate hundreds of lawsuits to be filed against the church within the next year because of the state’s Child Victims Act, which allows alleged victims of child sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits against offenders despite an expired statute of limitations.
• A federal district court judge ruled that the Georgia Department of Corrections must adopt a policy that allows inmates qualifying for a religious exemption to grow beards up to three inches long.
• The Labor Department Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs proposed a new rule allowing religious organizations to “make employment decisions consistent with their sincerely held religious tenets and beliefs without fear of sanction by the federal government.”
• Victoria joins other Australian states in moving to introduce laws that would make religious ministers mandatory reporters of abuse suspicions, including if the abuse is revealed under the seal of confession.
• On behalf of more than four dozen families, attorneys argued on Wednesday in Albany County Supreme Court, requesting a preliminary injunction against New York’s new state law that eliminated nonmedical exemptions to vaccines for children to attend school or daycare.