By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – The Supreme Court begins its new term Oct. 3, jumping right back into the fray with cases that take on affirmative action, voting, immigration, the environment and freedom of speech.
This term will include a new member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, replacing Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired at the end of last session. It also will be the first time the public will be allowed back inside the court since the start of the pandemic.

In late September, the court had not announced if it will continue to provide live audio of oral arguments.
Another change is outside. Barriers around the court since May – after protests erupted following a leak of the court’s draft opinion on its Dobbs decision – have now been removed. The investigation into that leak, ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts, is still continuing.

For now, the court has agreed to hear 27 cases and has scheduled 18 of them.

In the weeks leading up to the court’s new session, law schools and think tanks have presented previews of big cases coming up and speculation on how the justices might respond.

Adam Liptak, a Supreme Court reporter for The New York Times, who moderated a few of these panels, pointed out in a Sept. 15 preview by the American Constitutional Society, that the court was not taking a breather after just finishing “a tumultuous term.”

And this term, as in many previous sessions, Catholic leaders have something to say about major cases coming up.

One case getting a lot of attention is 303 Creative v. Elenis about a Colorado graphic designer who does not want to create wedding websites for same-sex couples based on her Christian beliefs about marriage. The case, which does not have a date yet for oral arguments, is similar to the 2017 case involving a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple based on his religious beliefs.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined by the Colorado Catholic Conference and other religious groups, are siding with the designer as they did with the baker five years ago.

In an amicus brief they said this case gives the court the chance to clarify free speech issues it said the court fell short of doing in the previous case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
In a Sept. 21 court preview by the Federalist Society, one panelist described the website case as a sequel to the court’s bakery decision and noted that the initial case “didn’t actually address the big speech issues at play” and instead took an “off ramp narrowly in favor of the baker on very established religious liberty grounds.”

“Here we have a new court,” Amanda Shanor, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, continued.

One difference is that in the current case, the artist, Lorie Smith, is not fighting a specific incident, as was the baker who denied baking a custom cake for a same-sex couple. Smith wants the court to weigh in before she is even asked to design a website for a same-sex couple.

Even though she does not wish to provide a service based on her Christian beliefs about marriage, the case hinges on her freedom of speech claim.

Shanor said Supreme Court preview panels in 2017 likely didn’t predict the baker winning, but now she already is pretty sure the court will likely rule in the artist’s favor and said the case could have broad implications about who can be viewed as an artist.

The USCCB’s brief said there is a “pressing need for the court to clarify how the compelled speech doctrine applies to wedding-vendor cases and other disputes.” It urged the justices to do what they have done in the past: “Apply the Free Speech Clause to protect religious speech, thereby strengthening liberty not just for the religious but for all society.”

It also said the current case “provides an appropriate and especially important opportunity to invoke free speech protections again to address the ongoing tensions in wedding-vendor cases and in the current cultural context more broadly” and implored the court to “protect individuals from compelled speech and to provide space in the public square for minority voices.”

Other groups that filed briefs on behalf of the wedding vendor included Catholicvote.org, the Thomas More Society, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the Becket Fund.

DignityUSA, an unofficial Catholic support group for gay Catholics and their families, and New Ways Ministry, a Catholic pastoral outreach to LGBTQ people and their families, joined a brief filed by 30 religious and civil rights groups opposing the graphic artist’s case.

“Carving out this broad exemption would allow public businesses to legally exclude customers based on their identities,” it said, adding that “instead of safeguarding every citizen’s right to buy goods and services from businesses open to the public,” the proposed exemption “would further hurt the very people these civil rights laws were designed to protect.”

Another hot-button topic before the court this year involves affirmative action with two separate cases – from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina – challenging the way higher education institutions use race as a factor in their admission process.

The court chose to hear the two challenges Oct. 31 separately since Justice Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case because she just recently finished serving a six-year-term on the university’s board of trustees.

Georgetown University filed an amicus brief with 56 Catholic colleges and universities urging the court to uphold affirmative action in admissions in these cases that challenge a 40-year legal precedent.

The brief, joined by the University of Notre Dame, the College of the Holy Cross, DePaul University and Villanova University, among others, said the right to consider racial diversity in admissions is essential to their academic and religious missions and is “inextricably intertwined” with their religious foundations.
The brief also argued that this right is rooted in the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and free exercise of religion, particularly for Catholic higher education institutions, whose ability to have discretion in how they choose students is critical to their religious missions.

The challengers in both cases are urging the justices to overrule their 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, a ruling that said the University of Michigan could consider race in its undergraduate admissions process as part of its efforts to obtain a diverse student body.

Catholic leaders and immigration groups also will be paying attention to United States v. Texas, which does not have an argument date yet.

The case will once again examine the executive branch’s authority to set immigration policy, criticized by Texas and Louisiana leaders as too lenient. It specifically challenges federal policy that prioritizes certain groups of unauthorized immigrants for arrest and deportation.

In the last term, the court ruled 5-4 in Biden v. Texas that the administration could end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, or the Migrant Protection Protocols, that required people seeking asylum at the southern U.S. border to stay in Mexico until their asylum case could be heard.

Another Texas case, on the death penalty, has long had the attention of Texas Catholic bishops, Catholic opponents of capital punishment, as well as celebrities. The case, Reed v. Goertz, argued Oct. 11, will examine when prisoners can pursue post-conviction claims for DNA testing of crime scene evidence.

Rodney Reed, sentenced to death more than 23 years ago for the murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites, has maintained his innocence and his attorneys from the Innocence Project have brought forward crime scene evidence, not tested for DNA, that they say implicates someone else.

In 2019, five days before he was scheduled to be executed, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted an indefinite stay of Reed’s execution and said it was sending his case back to trial court for further review.

Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, who is a longtime opponent of the death penalty, has been drawing attention to Reed’s case for several years, citing lack of evidence of his guilt.

Similarly, Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin, Texas, said in a 2019 statement that if Reed’s execution proceeds, “there is great risk the state of Texas will execute a man who is innocent of this crime while allowing the guilty party to go free.”

Other big cases before the court this term involve voting rights, the Clean Water Act and a challenge to a California animal welfare law.

The court starts its new session amid low public support. A Gallup poll in June found just 25% of the public have confidence in the court.

A poll by Marquette University Law School this September found 40% of adults approve the job the court is doing, while 60% disapprove. A similar poll conducted by the Milwaukee Jesuit-run university in July showed 38% of adults favored the court’s work and 61% disapproved. Both results were down from court approval the poll found in 2020 and early 2021.

(Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim)

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade “is, without question, an answer to prayer,” but in a post-Roe world, “Catholics must now work together for another, even deeper paradigm shift,” said the U.S. bishops’ pro-life chairman.

“We must move beyond a paradigm shift in the law in order to help the people of our nation better see who we can be as a nation by truly understanding what we owe to one another as members of the same human family,” said Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities.

“To build a world in which all are welcome,” he said, Catholics “must heed” the words of St. Teresa of Kolkata “and remember ‘that we belong to one another.'”

“We must shift the paradigm to what St. John Paul II described as ‘radical solidarity,’ making the good of others our own good, including especially mothers, babies – born and preborn – and families throughout the entire human lifespan,” Archbishop Lori said.

He made the remarks in a Sept. 21 statement for the U.S. Catholic Church’s observance of Respect Life Month, which is October. The theme of the observance is “Called to Serve Moms in Need.”

The first Sunday of October is designated as Respect Life Sunday, which is Oct. 2 this year.
In their June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a majority of the justices ended the court’s nearly 50-year nationwide “regime of abortion on demand,” the archbishop said.

This “regime” was “based on the indefensible view that the U.S. Constitution implicitly forbids government from protecting the preborn child in the womb from the violence of abortion,” he said.

The court “concluded that there is nothing in the Constitution’s text, history, American legal tradition or the court’s precedents that justified the extreme holding of Roe,” he said.
Dobbs was a challenge to a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The court affirmed the law 6-3 and also voted 5-4 to overturn the 1973 Roe ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide, and 1992’s Casey v. Planned Parenthood ruling, which affirmed Roe.

The ruling returned the issue of abortion to the states.

With Dobbs, the high court “cleared the way for a paradigm shift in American law, allowing it to enlarge its boundaries to again welcome a segment of the human family that had been outside of its protections for close to half a century,” he added.

He called Dobbs “a victory for justice, the rule of law and self-governance.”

“But for those of us who have prayed for this moment to arrive, it is the time for a renewal and rededication of our efforts to build a culture of life and civilization of love,” he said. “Justice is, of course, essential to this end. But it is not sufficient.

“To build a world in which all are welcome requires not only justice, but compassion, healing, and above all, unconditional love.”

“Abortion is a gruesome sign of how we have forgotten our mutual belonging,” Archbishop Lori continued. “The logic of Roe v. Wade has framed our national discourse on the issue of abortion as a zero-sum conflict among individual strangers.”

But “mother and child are not strangers; they are already bound together by flesh and kinship,” he said. “The new life that is developing under the heart of the mother is already situated in a network of relations, including family, neighbors and fellow citizens.”

Roe‘s logic “offers the woman only the right to see lethal force used against her child, but it otherwise abandons her,” he explained.

But “the logic of the culture of life recognizes that the pregnant woman and her child are not alone – they are fellow members of our larger human family whose interwoven vulnerability is a summons to all of us, but especially Catholics because of the teaching of Jesus and his proclamation of the Gospel of life,” the archbishop said.

To practice “radical solidarity and unconditional love in a post-Roe world,” he said, means speaking and living the truth” with compassion – the truth that abortion not only “unjustly kills a preborn child, but also gravely wounds women, men, families and the nation as a whole.”

Through law, policy, politics and culture, society must do whatever it can to provide mothers, children and families in need “with the care and support necessary for their flourishing throughout the entire arc of life’s journey,” he said.

“Building a world in which women are esteemed, children are loved and protected, and men are called to their responsibilities as fathers, requires us to understand and address the complex and tragic tangle of affliction and strife that culminates in the violence of abortion,” Archbishop Lori said. “This is a massive and daunting undertaking.”

“Catholics already have a strong foundation in the church’s centuries-long encouragement of parental and societal duties,” he said. “Millions of individual Catholics from all walks of life are already personally endeavoring to build the bonds of solidarity and compassion throughout our society.”

Many also are engaged in parish and community initiatives such as pregnancy resource centers, post-abortion counseling, he said, as well as Walking with Moms in Need, an initiative of the U.S. bishops to connect pregnant women and their families with parishes and to a growing network of resources.

(Editor’s Note: The full text of Archbishop Lori’s statement and Respect Life Month materials from the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities can be found online at https://www.respectlife.org/respect-life-month.)

Por Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Todavía no se conocen todos los daños del huracán Ian en las diócesis católicas de Venice y St. Petersburg o en el resto de la Florida, pero el presidente Joe Biden dijo en una conferencia de prensa el 29 de septiembre que es probable que termine siendo uno de los huracanes más peligrosos en la historia de la Florida.

“Los números (de muertos)… aún no están claros, pero estamos escuchando los primeros informes de lo que puede ser una pérdida sustancial de vidas”, dijo el presidente.

No se reportaron muertes oficiales a principios del 29 de septiembre, pero las autoridades apenas estaban comenzando los esfuerzos de búsqueda y rescate, que se vieron obstaculizados por los escombros esparcidos en las carreteras y puentes dañados por vientos de 155 mph de Ian tras su pasó en la Florida el 28 y 29 de septiembre.

“Sabemos que muchas familias, muchas, muchas, están sufriendo hoy y todo nuestro país sufre con ellas”, dijo el presidente Biden durante la conferencia de prensa en la sede de FEMA en Washington.

Prometió visitar el estado en el futuro para no molestar durante esfuerzos iniciales de rescate, pero prometió ayuda económica del gobierno federal y ayudar a Florida a recuperarse.

El gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, en una conferencia de prensa del 29 de septiembre, dijo que el impacto del huracán Ian en su estado es histórico. Informó que más de 2 millones están sin electricidad en su estado.

“El daño que se hizo ha sido histórico y esto es solo de las evaluaciones iniciales… Nunca hemos visto un evento de inundación como este. Nunca hemos visto una marejada ciclónica de esta magnitud”, dijo.

Organizaciones como Catholic Charities USA dijeron que cuentan con sus equipos de respuesta para hacer frente a las secuelas de la enorme tormenta de categoría 4 que azotó el oeste y el centro de Florida.

Incluso en un estado acostumbrado a fuertes tormentas, la destrucción de Ian asombró, dejando recuerdos de su poder en forma de automóviles golpeados por el viento y agua, que quedaron flotando en las calles inundadas de la ciudad junto a árboles y partes de techos arrancados de los edificios en las ciudades de Fort Myers, Tampa y Punta Gorda.

Parte de un puente que conectaba la isla de Sanibel con el continente de Florida se derrumbó.

En una serie de actualizaciones para el Tampa Bay Times, el reportero Zachary T. Sampson escribió el 29 de septiembre que: “En la playa de Fort Myers, los funcionarios de emergencia esperan encontrar cuerpos entre los escombros. Saben que la gente no hizo caso a las órdenes de evacuación…”.

Las diócesis de las áreas afectadas cerraron sus iglesias, escuelas y otros centros. La Diócesis de Venice publicó un video de las Siervas de la Virgen de Matara el 28 de septiembre mientras los voluntarios ayudaban a tapar las ventanas de la Iglesia St. Michael en Wauchula, en la parte norte de la diócesis.

No hubo actualizaciones en las redes sociales o en los sitios web de esas diócesis a principios del 29 de septiembre.

El obispo Gregory L. Parkes de St. Petersburg, que incluye a Tampa, y el obispo Frank J. Dewane de Venice habían pedido oraciones, sabiendo que sus territorios diocesanos estaban en el paso de la tormenta.

Algunos otros obispos de EE. UU. mantuvieron un ojo en noticias del huracán y ofrecieron su solidaridad con el pueblo de Florida.

“Oramos por todas las personas en Florida, especialmente por las vidas de las personas afectadas”, escribió el arzobispo Gustavo García-Siller de San Antonio en Twitter justo antes de que el huracán tocara tierra. “¡Que tú, Señor, seas su fuerza! No controlamos todo”.

Más de 2 millones seguían sin electricidad cuando el huracán, el cual disminuyó a tormenta tropical a principios del 29 de septiembre, se dirigía al norte hacia Georgia, Carolina del Norte y Carolina del Sur. Personas en Twitter pidieron noticias sobre las condiciones en lugares como Venice, cerca de donde la tormenta tocó tierra y donde muchos, incluso sus familiares, permanecen sin comunicación.

Las autoridades comenzaron a inspeccionar los daños a principios del 29 de septiembre, buscando a aquellos que no habían logrado salir antes del paso del huracán. Pidieron a los que se quedaron en sus hogares que permanecieran adentro mientras se llevan a cabo rescates acuáticos pero aún luchaban por abrir camino entre los escombros y las inundaciones y el viento restantes.

Catholic Charities USA dijo en un comunicado que sus equipos de respuesta a desastres “tienen un largo historial de movilización rápida para satisfacer las necesidades de los afectados por eventos catastróficos en los EE. UU. y sus territorios”.

La organización pidió donaciones en https://ccusa.online/Ian para ayudar a quienes enfrentan a la destrucción de la tormenta.

El gobernador DeSantis dijo el 28 de septiembre que los esfuerzos de recuperación necesitan asistencia económica y pidió a las personas que no envíen artículos, como ropa, a la Florida y mejor den ayuda económica o se ofrezcan como voluntarios.

También dijo que le pidió al presidente Biden una declaración de desastre mayor para que el gobierno federal pague los esfuerzos de recuperación en el estado. Biden dijo en su conferencia de prensa que el gobierno ayudaría al pueblo de la Florida.

En Cuba, donde Ian causó estragos el 27 de septiembre antes de dirigirse a Florida, la diócesis más afectada publicó el 28 de septiembre en Facebook fotos de daños generalizados, cultivos destruidos, techos dañados y edificios derrumbados en Pinar del Río, donde niños ayudaban con los esfuerzos de limpieza en las iglesias católicas.

La agencia de noticias EFE dijo que se reportaron tres muertes en la isla hasta septiembre y Cuba permanece en gran parte sin electricidad. Su cultivo de tabaco, famoso por los cigarros de la isla, ha resultado dañado.

“Las imágenes son devastadoras. Un pueblo sumido en la miseria y la desesperanza ahora se enfrenta al embate de un fenómeno natural de gran magnitud”, dice la publicación de Facebook de la página de la Diócesis de Pinar del Río, donde el huracán tocó tierra. “El huracán Ian ha destruido viviendas, cultivos, centros estatales, etc, pero también ha sembrado tristeza y desolación”.

La publicación dijo que tanques de agua resultaron dañados, junto con ventanas y techos, y propiedad personal en muchas casas, y “personas que se han quedado sin lo poco que tenían”, dice la publicación, y agrega que hay “en medio de todo, la tristeza y preocupación por un futuro muy incierto”.

“Así está la Diócesis de Pinar del Río hoy”, dice la publicación, pero agrega que “en medio de esta realidad la Iglesia desea hacerse presente para decirnos que no estamos solos, que Dios no nos ha abandonado”.