As part of what seems to be a new trend for the Supreme Court, it will once again take up a religious liberty case in its new term with oral arguments Nov. 4 in a case about a Catholic social service agency excluded from Philadelphia's foster care program for not accepting same-sex couples as foster parents.
Commentary: Religion in America overall has become so intensely private, so enmeshed with non-religious values and so ill-defined publicly, that it's hard to tell staged religion from real religious actors.
Distinctly Catholic: The estuary where church and state intertwine has been largely dominated in the past seven years by concerns about religious liberty. Steven Waldman seeks to bring some perspective and sanity back to discussions.
Patricia Hackett, attorney and Democratic congressional candidate, refuted the U.S. attorney general's controversial address on religious freedom, in the same space where he spoke about a month earlier.
Distinctly Catholic: Anyone who advocates against the ministerial exception must acknowledge that they wish to involve the government in deciding who can and can't be a minister.
Full recognition of religious freedom must include recognition of the right of believers to conscientiously object to participating in activities that violate their religious beliefs and values, said the International Theological Commission.
