Commissioner Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California USA and a Catholic, began a tense exchange with witnesses by asking if “speaking out about what many Americans view as a genocide in Gaza should be treated as antisemitic?”
Religious Freedom
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo says religious freedom is ‘not optional but essential’ as new report documents global persecution
Almost two-thirds of humanity—more than five billion people—live in countries where serious violations of religious freedom are taking place, according to the 2025 “Religious Freedom in the World Report.”
Posted inFaith and Reason
Catholics and conversion therapy bans: The problem with free speech objections
Therapy is a professional practice with standards of care. To reframe it as a matter of “free speech” is to miss the point entirely.
Posted inShort Take
Pope Leo praised ‘healthy secularism.’ What might that mean for U.S. Catholics?
Catholics, Leo suggests, should neither attempt to dominate the political sphere nor separate themselves from it.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
Facing—and naming—the existential threat to Christians in Nigeria
Though other factors are surely at play, church leaders in Nigeria insist the attacks are part of a systematic campaign to drive Christians from the region or force their conversion.
Posted inFaith, News Analysis
State laws require priests to disclose abuse revealed in confession
Washington State’s new law mandating priests to divulge abuse revealed in confessions is the latest salvo in a larger dispute between the Catholic Church and multiple U.S. states.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
Worst violence in years in Syria revives fears among minority Alawite and Christian communities
The question asked by many Syrians from Alawite, Shiite, Druse, Christian and other minority communities has become: “Can [I] live in an Islamist country and not be [Sunni] Muslim?”
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Trump’s war on DEI reaches Georgetown Law
Edward Martin, interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said he would refuse to hire Georgetown Law graduates unless the school eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Faith groups sued the Trump administration for its immigration policies. Church leaders should support them.
More than two dozen Christian and Jewish denominations have sued the Trump administration’s to stop ICE agents from making arrests in churches. Solidarity requires us to do more to help the vulnerable.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
What does the future hold for Christians in Syria after Assad?
The rapid victory of the Sunni opposition fighters over regular army units loyal to Mr. al-Assad has left many wondering how Syria’s minority faith groups—Alawites, Christians, Shiites and others—will fare as H.T.S. consolidates its control.