First Amendment

House Bill 74 would do away with the privilege between priest and penitent in a sacramental confession by requiring priests to report information relating to child abuse and neglect that is shared in a confessional.

A spokesperson for the Smithsonian said, “We apologize that visitors to the National Air and Space Museum were asked to remove their hats on Friday, Jan. 20.”

In a case examining the scope of free speech protected by the First Amendment, the Supreme Court Dec. 5 ultimately seemed to favor a broad view of free speech.

In a 6-3 decision, the court sided with two Christian families who challenged a Maine tuition assistance program that excluded private religious schools.

In the Supreme Court’s 2021-2022 term, which concluded June 30, it issued four opinions on religious liberty cases, siding with religion each time.

The majority of Supreme Court justices seemed to side with a former high school football coach April 25 who said his postgame prayers on the field — that cost him his job — amounted to private speech and not the public school’s endorsement of religion.

In response to the Supreme Court’s Dec. 3 order saying federal judges should take another look at pandemic limits on California churches, San Francisco’s archbishop said: “The time is overdue for our civil officials to work with us and other churches on worshiping safely.”

The Diocese of Brooklyn filed a lawsuit in federal court Oct. 8 against the state of New York, charging that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new orders reducing church capacity violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion.