Last month, the Center co-sponsored a webinar on cultural heritage in law and diplomacy, along with the Fletcher Initiative at Tufts and the Armenian Studies Program at California State University-Fresno. Among other things, the participants discussed the capacity of international law to offer protection for minority cultural property during armed conflicts, including the current conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. A video of the webinar is now available at the link below. Posts from the participants were made available earlier on this site. Thanks again to our colleagues at Tufts and Cal-State and all the participants!
Around the Web
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- President Donald Trump issued an executive order prioritizing international religious freedom concerns for United States foreign policy, after he visited the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C.
- A Missouri federal district court dismissed as moot (with leave to amend) a church’s challenge to St. Louis County’s COVID-19 restrictions on church services.
- Gabriel Said Reynolds reviewed The Thirty-Year Genocide by Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, a book discussing three waves of violence that swept across Turkey from 1894 to 1924 and targeted the region’s Christian minorities.
- Pope Francis spoke out about the death of George Floyd during his weekly general audience.
- The Northern Ireland Assembly voted Tuesday in favor of a motion rejecting the “imposition” of abortion legislation by the Westminster parliament.
- In a case involving a plaintiff who claimed religious persecution in his home country, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that factual findings relating to relief under the Convention Against Torture can be appealed from the Board of Immigration Appeals to the federal circuit courts.
Around the Web
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- The Supreme Court will hear argument next week on whether employers with religious objections to birth control may deny insurance coverage of contraceptives to their employees.
- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released its 2020 Annual Report on religious freedom conditions around the world.
- The Pew Research Center published an analysis of religious exemptions to state-level COVID-19 social distancing regulations.
- Religious liberty lawyers have embraced different strategies in challenging stay-at-home orders amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is being accused of singling out the Jewish community after police in Brooklyn broke up a funeral for allegedly violating social distancing requirements, followed by his posting of a controversial tweet.
- German authorities have charged four people in the death of a young woman who died in an apparent exorcism ritual intended to “cure” the victim’s infertility.
- A lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court accuses Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, of sexual harassment and discrimination.
- Police in Missouri have arrested a suspect with a history of mosque vandalism in connection with a fire that heavily damaged a southeastern Missouri Islamic center last week at the start of Ramadan.
- Versant Supply Chain, Inc. and AT&T Services, Inc. have agreed to pay $150,000 and furnish other relief to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
- During its bankruptcy process, the Diocese of Buffalo has announced that it will end financial support and health benefits for priests facing substantiated allegations of sexual abuse.
Around the Web
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- A Washington federal district court dismissed a First Amendment claim by a high school football coach who was suspended for praying at the 50-yard line after football games.
- Virginia became the twentieth state to ban licensed medical professionals from practicing conversion therapy on minors.
- The city of Albany, New York became the third U.S. city to pass a resolution against anti-Muslim discriminatory laws in India.
- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom held a hearing about countries like India and Burma enacting citizenship laws to deny religious minorities legal protection.
- Brigham Young University reiterated that same-sex romantic behavior is not allowed on its campus, clarifying misinterpretation resulting from the school dropping a section of its code banning behavior that reflected “homosexual feelings.”
- Governments around the world have banned visits to holy pilgrimage sites in an effort to control the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Around the Web
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- A federal judge ruled in favor of St. Vincent Catholic Charities in a lawsuit challenging Michigan’s attempt to shut down faith-based foster and adoption agencies, finding that “the State’s real goal is not to promote non-discriminatory child placements, but to stamp out St. Vincent’s religious belief and replace it with the State’s own.”
- Four students at Wheaton College in Illinois filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago, claiming that newly implemented rules prohibit them from congregating and distributing religious pamphlets in Millennium Park.
- The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement of interest in support of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in its ongoing dispute with a former Catholic school teacher who alleges he was wrongfully terminated because he was in a same-sex marriage.
- At the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump announced new initiatives as part of a global call to protect religious freedom, including the allocation of $25 million to protect religious freedom as well as religious sites and relics and the formation of a coalition of business leaders to protect religious freedom in the workplace.
- A federal judge dismissed a psychotherapist’s lawsuit challenging Maryland’s ban on treating minors with conversion therapy, finding that the state law does not violate the therapist’s First Amendment rights to free speech and religious freedom.
- Religious liberty advocates are gearing up for a big year at the Supreme Court, with four faith-related cases on LGBTQ rights and religious schooling scheduled for argument and several other faith-related cert. petitions under consideration.
- The District Court for Kraków Śródmieście found that the eviction of a Chabad-affiliated rabbi and his congregation from a synagogue building violated the terms of the lease agreement between the rabbi and the Jewish Community of Kraków.
- Lawmakers in New South Wales, Australia, voted to pass a bill that decriminalizes abortion and makes the procedure available to people who are less than twenty-two weeks pregnant.
- The Catholic Diocese of Lansing (MI) released the names of seventeen priests it says have been “credibly accused of abusing a minor” since the diocese was founded in 1937.
Around the Web
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- The Ninth Circuit denied an en banc rehearing of Biel v. St. James School; the 2-1 circuit court panel held that a 5th-grade teacher at a Catholic school is not a minister under the ministerial exception doctrine. Nine judges dissented from the denial.
- On Tuesday, the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing regarding the “Do No Harm” Act, which is a bill designed to prevent the Religious Freedom Restoration Act from being used to override civil rights protections.
- A Christian grade school in Maryland filed suit after state officials revoked the school’s ability to participate in low-income scholarship programs because of the school’s Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
- The U.S. State Department released the 2018 Report on International Religious Freedom that covers the status of religious freedom, reporting on U.S. government policies that affect religious belief and religious freedom both positively and negatively.
- The Supreme Court requested the Solicitor General to file a brief in Archdiocese of San Juan v. Feliciano, which poses the question of whether courts in Puerto Rico can access the assets of Catholic entities to satisfy pension obligations for the organizations’ employees.
- The D.C. district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by former members of an Ethiopian Orthodox church alleging that a group of current church members violated RICO to take control; the district court stated the First Amendment prevents hearing the claim, stating “whether someone may worship at a church is plainly a matter of ecclesiastical cognizance.”
- An online church based in Seattle has sued Tennessee, claiming the state’s law barring online-ordained ministers from officiating weddings violates the First Amendment by limiting the church’s ministers from freely exercising religion.
- After strengthening a ban on LGBTQ clergy members and same-sex marriages, the United Methodist Church, which is the largest mainline U.S. protestant denomination, approaches closer to a formal split within the church; one potential solution is to turn to legislatures or to allow different sects of the church to split off.
Around the Web
Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:
- A Native American tribe in New Jersey has accused local authorities of trying to prevent its members from performing traditional rituals on private land it claims belongs to the tribe.
- A therapist who performed marriage counseling is suing her former employer because she says she was terminated after referring a same-sex married couple to a different therapist because counseling them would contradict her religious beliefs.
- After complaints from Quaker parents, a high school in Oregon has removed a Quaker mascot logo from its gymnasium.
- A federal judge in Ohio ruled that a prisoner’s as-applied challenge to the state prison system’s ban on dreadlocks was successful because the prison system does not provide for religious exemptions to the policy.
- Democrats reappointed an expert on Tibetan culture to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, while Republicans appointed the president of the Family Research Council to the same commission.
- Both conservative and progressive groups objected to the Methodist Church’s latest plan to avoid a schism between members of the church who want to recognize same-sex marriages and ordinations and those who do not.
“The Encyclopedia of Law and Religion” (Robbers et al, eds.)
In June, Brill Publishing will release “The Encyclopedia of Law and Religion” edited by Gerhard Robbers (Minister of Justice for Consumer Protection of Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany)), and W. Cole Durham, Jr. (Brigham Young University). The publisher’s description follows:
In recent years, issues of freedom of religion or belief and state-religion relations have become increasingly important worldwide. While some works have treated 
such issues regionally, the Encyclopedia of Law and Religion is unique in its breadth, covering all independent nations and jurisdictions as well as the major international organizations, treating the relation between law and religion in its various aspects, including those related to the role of religion in society, the relations between religion and state institutions, freedom of religion, legal aspects of religious traditions, the interaction between law and religion, and other issues at the junction of law, religion, and state.
Offered online and in five print volumes – Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Special Territories, International Organizations and Index – this work is a valuable resource for religious and legal scholars alike.
America Media Hosts Panel Discussion on International Religious Freedom
America Media, publisher of America Magazine, will host a panel discussion on international religious freedom. The discussion will be held at 6pm on March 30th at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York City.
A group of experts will discuss the current hopes and challenges facing the world today in the exercise of religious freedom. Presenters include Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations; Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, Associate Professor of International Relations, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; and Drew Christiansen, S.J., Distinguished Professor of of Ethics and Development at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The discussion will be moderated by Matt Malone, S.J., president and editor in chief of America Media, and is made possible through a partnership with the Catholic Communications Campaign.
Find more details here. RSVP by calling 212-515-0153 or by emailing events@americamedia.org.
Center for Law and Religion Hosts Dr. Pasquale Annicchino
We were delighted to have our old friend, Dr. Pasquale Annicchino of the 
European University Institute in Florence, visit with us yesterday. Pasquale gave a presentation in Mark’s Comparative Law & Religion seminar about his brand new book, Esportare La Libertà Religiosa: Il Modello Americano Nell’arena Globale [“Exporting Religious Freedom: The American Model in the Global Arena”] (Il Mulino). (For those that may not know, il Mulino is Italy’s most prestigious publisher). The book’s primary concern is about the influence of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 on international conceptions of religious liberty, and the different sorts of ideological and related resistance that the American model has encountered. The book has been discussed and reviewed in Il Corriere della Sera, Il Foglio, and The Economist.
Here’s the description of the book:
Con l’adozione nel 1998 dell’lnternational Religious Freedom Act gli Stati Uniti hanno posto al centro della loro politica estera la protezione e la promozione del diritto di libertà religiosa. Le istituzioni e le politiche che sono seguite hanno permesso agli Stati Uniti di ergersi a modello di iniziativa per la tutela della libertà religiosa nell’arena globale. Lungi dal rimanere un esperimento isolato, l’iniziativa statunitense ha influenzato l’Unione Europea, il Canada, il Regno Unito e l’Italia. Il volume analizza il modello normativo-istituzionale americano e passa in rassegna i sistemi che ad esso si sono ispirati. Ne risulta una libertà religiosa indebolita nella sua concezione universale ed unitaria e minacciata da specifici interessi politici e nazionali.
[With the adoption in 1998 of the International Religious Freedom Act the United States placed the protection and promotion of religious freedom at the center of its foreign policy. The institutions and politics that followed allowed the United States to raise up its initiative as a model for the defense of religious freedom in the global arena. Far from being an isolated experiment, the US initiative has influenced the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Italy. This volume analyzes the American normative-institutional model and surveys the systems that it has inspired. What has resulted is the weakening of religious freedom as a universal conception, threatened by specific political and national interests.]