Legislation introduced in the Senate and the House aims to protect "the cherished freedom of religious liberty" of faith-based foster care and adoption providers who believe children "deserve to be placed with a married mother and father," the chairmen of three U.S. bishops' committees said March 15.
Some of the country's most prominent church leaders appealed to congressional negotiators to include financial support for families to continue to send their children to Catholic and non-public schools in a coronavirus relief bill currently being negotiated.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and other church officials announced a multistep plan to reopen the 288 parish churches of the archdiocese as the coronavirus pandemic eases.
As the coronavirus pandemic has swept across the country, churches have been forced to follow states' stay-in-place guidelines, which some see as an infringement of their religious freedom.
St. Patrick's Day parades, long-held traditions in towns and cities throughout the country where onlookers and participants alike get their green on, have been called off or postponed indefinitely, amid fears of coronavirus spread.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn joined about 25,000 New Yorkers who took to the streets for a Jan. 5 "Solidarity March" in protest of anti-Semitism.
Now is the time to remember "the core principles we used to know and live by and that we now seem to have forgotten," according to retired Marine Gen. James Mattis.
The New York Archdiocese has placed four of its priests — three pastors and the director of priest personnel — on administrative leave following an allegation of abuse with minors dating back several decades.
