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

  • The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Catholic order’s challenge to a denial of a permit to build a shrine next to its church. The case could provide clarity on protections for houses of worship against restrictive local zoning.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court may also take up the Texas and Louisiana Ten Commandments classroom laws, according to CBS’s new-term preview.
  • The Archdiocese of St. Louis sued in federal district court over a detention center policy that bars priests from giving Communion and hearing confessions, claiming the policy denies detainees spiritual care core to their faith.
  • A federal district court in New Jersey dismissed without prejudice the Justice Department’s FACE Act suit over a 2024 protest outside a synagogue, ruling that the complaint did not allege a violation of the statute’s protections for worship.
  • Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him to advocate for military chaplains and religious support.
  • The Justice Department’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced the first stop of a national “American Tour Against Hate” in Michigan.
  • President Trump issued a Columbus Day proclamation that invokes devotion to God in describing the nation’s origins.
  • In his new book, So Ordered, Justice Alito said that the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which legalized marriage equality in all 50 states, was “perhaps the decisive point in our nation’s turn against religious liberty.”

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Around the Web

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

  • The Ninth Circuit rejected an effort to remove a nearly century-old cross and longstanding nativity display at the historic El Pueblo monument in Los Angeles. 
  • In a speech to sick people and caregivers, the Pope Leo denounced France’s recent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Catholic Church has continued to push against assisted suicide laws in the U.S. 
  • A federal district court in Oklahoma ruled the state may not single out religious schools for exclusion from public charter funding on the basis of religion.
  • A federal judge in Tennessee dismissed most of the claims against Southern Baptist Convention leaders in a lawsuit filed by a former SBC seminary professor David Sills, who lost his job due to sexual misconduct allegations.
  • The Muslim Center of New Jersey is suing the Marlboro Township, New Jersey zoning board, council, mayor and others, alleging religious discrimination and violations of the community’s right to worship after a five-year application process to build a mosque ended in a denial.
  • The Chicago Immigration Court ruled that the U.S. can deport the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque on the grounds that he is a threat to national security.

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Around the Web

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

  • A federal judge ruled that Oklahoma cannot exclude a Jewish charter school from the state’s charter school program because of its religious character. 
  • The Eighth Circuit heard arguments over Arkansas’s law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. 
  • An Oregon mother sued a public school district for refusing to reimburse her for Christian homeschooling materials while providing reimbursements for secular materials. 
  • A dispute over access to a Jewish rabbinical court reached the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. 
  • Two Christian student organizations sued Virginia State University, alleging that the public university discriminated against them in access to campus recognition and benefits because of their religious requirements for student leaders. 

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Around the Web

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

  • In Lewis v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, the 9th Circuit upheld a jury’s verdict against the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). The jury found BART failed to show that accommodating employees’ religious objections to the Covid vaccine would have imposed undue hardship on BART. In his concurrence, Judge Nelson took the position that the Supreme Court case Employment Division v. Smith was “demonstrably erroneous” and “is inconsistent with history and tradition.”
  • Last week, Planned Parenthood filed suit in Wisconsin challenging the state’s laws requiring abortions to be performed only by physicians, and not by qualified advance practice clinicians. They are also challenging the state’s 24-hour waiting period after examination and consultation with a physician before an abortion can be performed.
  • The United Kingdom’s passed a new law, the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which requires reporting of child sex abuse. MP Ben Obese-Jecty has made clear that “The Crime and Policing Act 2026 does not provide any exemption from mandatory reporting on the basis of religious practice, or the setting in which information is received.”
  • DOJ announced that it has reached a settlement with Lincoln Memorial University to resolve complaints of discriminatory treatment of Jewish students. As a result of the settlement, “LMU-DCOM will revise its absence policy to allow excused absences for religious reasons on the same basis as non-religious reasons.”
  • A group of Christian doctors in Colorado filed suit last week in federal district court alleging that the state is violating their 1st and 14th Amendment rights by applying to them the Colorado Supreme Court’s interpretation of the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act. They contend, among other things, that the court’s interpretation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act “now forces doctors to medically transition their patients—including children—even when doing so violates their conscience and medical judgment.”
  • A Michigan state appellate court upheld the dismissal on ecclesiastical abstention grounds of defamation, breach of contract, and other related claims filed by an assistant imam against his mosque and its board of trustees.

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Around the Web

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

  • The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in urging the Supreme Court to reject a broad application of the “finality” rule that subjects religious liberty plaintiffs to drawn-out proceedings.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by a Catholic mother seeking a religious exemption from New York’s school vaccine mandates.
  • A federal district court in Maryland temporarily barred Montgomery County from enforcing a gun ban against a Jewish synagogue, holding that the synagogue was likely to succeed on its Second Amendment and Free Exercise claims, and that the county had not shown a sufficient historical tradition of banning guns in houses of worship.
  • A federal district court in Oregon dismissed negligence claims against the LDS Church, holding that church membership alone did not create a special relationship imposing a duty to protect a member from abuse occurring outside church supervision.
  • A federal district court in Maine upheld the state’s school vaccine mandate against Free Exercise and Establishment Clause challenges, holding that eliminating all personal belief exemptions did not single out religion and that the mandate does not burden the parents’ right to direct their child’s religious upbringing.
  • The Indiana Supreme Court heard arguments whether the state’s abortion ban violates the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, with plaintiffs arguing that the law burdens sincerely held religious beliefs that require religiously motivated abortions.
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Legal Spirits 082: A Short Take on a Tomb in Sicily and a Never-Ending Contest

The Tomb of Frederick II in Palermo Cathedral

In this Legal Spirits Short Take, Center Director Mark Movsesian reflects on his recent visit to Sicily and the 13th-century tomb of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, and the famous Stupor Mundi—the “Wonder of the World”—in Palermo Cathedral. Medieval Sicily was a major theater in the long struggle between popes and secular rulers over the boundaries of spiritual and temporal power, a struggle that included disputes over the appointment and authority of bishops. Frederick was deeply involved in that conflict. His burial in the cathedral, after years of bitter conflict with the papacy and repeated excommunications, offers a reminder of the ambiguous line between church and state—and of a contest that never wholly ends. Listen in!

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Around the Web

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

  • Florida officials and Catholic schools are at odds over whether schools participating in state scholarship programs must provide religious exemptions from vaccination requirements.
  • Several Catholic religious orders and the Archbishop of Chicago filed a federal lawsuit challenging Illinois requirements that healthcare providers inform and counsel terminally ill patients about physician-assisted suicide, arguing that the requirements violate their religious freedom.
  • Maine’s highest court upheld a ruling allowing a father to prevent his daughter from attending her mother’s church after finding that participation there was psychologically harmful to the child, rejecting the mother’s constitutional claims.
  • A federal bankruptcy court allowed a Jewish religious nonprofit’s lawsuit against the City of Hollywood, Florida, to proceed after the city denied zoning approval for a proposed K-12 Jewish day school, with the nonprofit alleging violations of its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
  • A South Korean court sentenced Unification Church leader Hak Ja Han to two years in prison after convicting her of bribery, violating political finance laws, and embezzling church funds.
  • InterVarsity Christian Fellowship sued SUNY Broome Community College after the school denied the group official recognition because its constitution requires student leaders to affirm a statement of faith, which the college says conflicts with its nondiscrimination policy.
  • Catholic leaders in Maharashtra are considering a legal challenge to a new state law regulating religious conversions, which requires advance notice of conversions and has drawn broader constitutional challenges over religious freedom.
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Around the Web

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

  • Parents in Georgia have filed suit challenging requirements of the state’s Promise Scholarship Program, arguing that forcing their children to attend low-performing public schools before receiving funds for Catholic education violates the Free Exercise Clause.
  • A federal court allowed a Title VII religious discrimination suit against the Department of Homeland Security to proceed after Customs and Border Protection withdrew a job offer because of an applicant’s sacramental use of ayahuasca as a member of a Christian Spiritist denomination.
  • The Sixth Circuit rejected a challenge to a Michigan city’s restrictions on which flags may be flown on city-owned flagpoles, while questioning whether the Establishment Clause still requires government action to have a secular purpose after the Supreme Court abandoned the Lemon test.
  • A federal court allowed Establishment Clause claims to proceed against the Philadelphia School District based on allegations that officials created a Muslim prayer room, restricted access to Muslim students, and disciplined non-Muslim students for entering it.
  • A Minneapolis church asked a federal judge to hold DHS in contempt, alleging immigration agents surveilled worshippers despite an injunction restricting immigration enforcement at the church.
  • Iraq’s Court of Cassation ruled that a Christian woman has the right to have her religious identity officially recorded as Christian, overturning her classification as Muslim under Iraqi law.

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Around the Web

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

  • The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a preliminary injunction barring the city of Quincy from installing two religious statues on the façade of a new public safety building, finding there is a substantial likelihood that the installation would violate Article III of the Massachusetts Constitution.
  • Plaintiffs in New England Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America v. Department of Homeland Security filed a motion seeking to hold DHS in contempt for violating an injunction issued in February by a Massachusetts federal district court. The injunction barred immigration officials from enforcing a new policy that allows ICE to conduct arrests, searches, or interrogations in or near churches/other houses of worship at the agents’ own discretion.
  • The Second Circuit upheld the district court’s decision to grant summary judgment for defendants in Belya v. Kapral, finding that the church autonomy doctrine barred a former priest in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) from suing church leaders/entities for defamation.
  • The FBI released its 2025 Reported Crime Statistics, showing a 7% overall decrease in hate crimes in 2025 as compared to the year before.
  • A joint petition for certiorari was filed with the Supreme Court in Nathan v. Alamo Heights School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District. The petitioners seek review of a Texas law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom.
  • A Maryland Jewish Center is suing Montgomery County, Maryland to enjoin enforcement of imposed Expedited Bill 23-26, which bans even licensed firearm holders from carrying a firearm within 100 yards of houses of worship and other “places of public assembly.”
Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

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

  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a restructuring of its Office for Civil Rights that will create separate divisions focused on religious liberty and conscience protections, civil rights enforcement, and health privacy and cybersecurity. HHS said the changes are intended to combat anti-Christian bias and race-based discrimination while strengthening enforcement efficiency.
  • A Virginia appeals court revived a lawsuit against McLean Bible Church over claims that church leaders improperly handled a 2021 elder election and disenfranchised members. The court ruled that limited judicial review of the dispute is not automatically barred by the First Amendment.
  • A new lawsuit in Utah, backed by pro-life advocates with religious and fetal personhood arguments, claims that disposing of unused IVF embryos violates wrongful death laws. The case has raised concerns that similar religion-influenced legal challenges to IVF practices could spread to other states.
  • A Texas jury ordered an insurer to pay more than $7 million to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after the insurer denied coverage for legal costs related to lawsuits involving former seminary president Paige Patterson and the school’s handling of sexual assault allegations. The case arose from broader controversy within the Southern Baptist Convention over abuse and institutional accountability.
  • Two senators introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at combating antisemitism and increasing security protections for Jewish institutions, including a proposal to expand federal nonprofit security grants to $1 billion annually. The legislation would also address antisemitism on college campuses and require greater transparency from social media companies on moderating antisemitic content.
  • The Vatican’s Synod office released a new document outlining the path toward a global ecclesial assembly in 2028, continuing the Catholic Church’s “Synod on Synodality” process launched under Pope Francis. The plan establishes stages for dioceses, bishops’ conferences, and continental church bodies to evaluate how “synodality” is being implemented in local churches over the next several years.
  • A Catholic nun in Los Angeles runs Francisco Homes, a housing program for formerly incarcerated men, including immigrants facing deportation. Her ministry sits in the context of ongoing debates over immigration enforcement and deportation policy.
  • Archbishop John Ricard, the former archbishop of Baltimore and first leader of the National Black Catholic Congress, has died at age 86. Ricard was a prominent Black Catholic leader known for advancing Black Catholic ministry and advocacy within the Church for decades.