Catholic Bishops Object to White House's Initiatives Creating Greater Access to IVF

In a Fact Sheet (full text) released October 16, the White House announced several initiatives designed to increase access to, and reduce the cost of, in-vitro fertilization. These include agreements with pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of existing fertility drugs and to speed up FDA approval of lower priced alternatives. The initiatives also include new methods for employers to offer benefit packages that would pay for a wide range of fertility-related services, from those that address the root causes of infertility to IVF. The U.S. conference of Catholic Bishops responded to the White House's announcements in an October 17 press release, saying:

Though we are grateful that aspects of the Administration’s policies announced Thursday intend to include comprehensive and holistic restorative reproductive medicine, which can help ethically to address infertility and its underlying causes, we strongly reject the promotion of procedures like IVF that instead freeze or destroy precious human beings and treat them like property.

Every human life, born and preborn, is sacred and loved by God. Without diminishing the dignity of people born through IVF, we must recognize that children have a right to be born of a natural and exclusive act of married love, rather than a business’s technological intervention. And harmful government action to expand access to IVF must not also push people of faith to be complicit in its evils.

We will continue to review these new policies and look forward to engaging further with the Administration and Congress, always proclaiming the sanctity of life and of marriage.

First Things in an article by Ryan Anderson analyzes this White House initiative, saying in part:

The Trump administration’s IVF policy unveiled on Thursday is perhaps the least bad that we could have hoped for.... [T]here will be no IVF mandate or direct government subsidies for IVF. Those who feared something akin to the Obama contraception mandate or taxpayer funding of abortion can breathe a sigh of relief. There will be no direct religious liberty or conscience violations, nor implications for taxpayer funding. 

But least bad is still bad.

Denial of Access to Clergy During Covid Lockdown Did Not Violate Inmate's Free Exercise Rights

In Johnson v. Ellis, (D NJ, Oct. 15, 2025), a New Jersey federal district court dismissed a claim by a pre-trial detainee that his free exercise rights were violated. The court said in part: 

Plaintiff essentially asserts that he was denied any and all access to ordained ministers and appropriate worship services for several months during the COVID-19 pandemic's height.... [T]hat claim does present an instance in which Plaintiff's religious exercise was substantially burdened. Plaintiff effectively could resort to nothing but private prayer for several months.... That said, the state did have a legitimate interest in controlling the flow of people into a county jail during a recognized pandemic.... Plaintiff does not allege that he was completely deprived of any ability to worship God, view televised worship services, or offer prayer during the lockdowns. Considered in total, Plaintiff has a borderline free exercise claim in which his rights to religious practice were burdened. That burden, however, was imposed as part of a neutral policy ... which was most likely sufficiently rationally related to the state's interest in slowing the spread of COVID-19 in its jails during an emergency situation. Plaintiff thus likely fails to state a plausible claim for a constitutional violation.

Even if Plaintiff did state such a claim, however, Plaintiff cannot show that the violation in question was clearly established.... [S]ome deference must be provided to jail staff in their response to the novel pandemic situation during its height, and courts should not infer constitutional violations where good faith efforts are being made to curtail what is perceived to be a deadly, difficult to contain, pathogen in the absence of clear guidance.... Defendant Ellis is therefore entitled to qualified immunity as to Plaintiff's free exercise claims.

New Oklahoma Superintendent Reverses Policies on Bibles in Classrooms

Oklahoma's new State Superintendent of Schools has announced he is reversing the policy of his predecessor Ryan Walters' plans to distribute Bibles to every Oklahoma classroom and incorporate Biblical stories into the curriculum. Walters' plans are the subject of pending litigation in the Oklahoma Supreme Court. In an October 15 press release captioned "Update on Bibles in Classroom and Pending Lawsuits", Superintendent Lindel Fields said in part:

A recent court order seeks the filing of a status update by October 28....

"We plan to file a motion to dismiss, and have no plans to distribute Bibles or a Biblical character education curriculum in classrooms....

News9 reports on these developments. [Thanks to Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]

Placing Patron Saint Statues on City Safety Building Is Enjoined

In Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy, (MA Super. Ct., Oct. 14, 2025), a Massachusetts state trial court issued a preliminary injunction barring installation, while the case proceeds, on a newly built public safety building of two ten-foot bronze statues depicting the Catholic patron saints of police and firefighters. The suit, filed by taxpayers, was brought under Art. 3 of the state constitution which requires equal treatment of all religious sects. The court held that while the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the Lemon test for federal Establishment Clause challenges, the Lemon test still applies to claims under Art. 2 and 3 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The court said in part:

The Complaint here plausibly alleges that the statues at issue convey a message of endorsing one religion over others.... The statues, particularly when considered together, patently endorse Catholic beliefs....

Defendants contend that the statues have a secular purpose of inspiring police officers and their display ... neither advance nor prohibit religion... [T]he mayor's professed secular purpose offers nothing more than semantics.... It is impossible to strip the statue of its religious meaning to contrive a secular purpose.... 

ACLU Massachusetts issued a press release announcing the court's decision. A WCVB News report carries photos of the statues in question.

Diocese Has Vested Right in Statute of Limitations That Has Run in Suit by Abuse Victim

In 2020, the New Hampshire legislature amended its statute of limitations by removing the limitation period for suits alleging sexual assault. In Ball v. Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, (NH Sup. Ct., Oct. 15, 2025), the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that a defendant has a vested right in a statute of limitations defense once the limitation period has run. Therefore, Art. I, Sec. 23 of the New Hampshire Constitution bars applying the 2020 amendment to claims where the prior limitation period had run before 2020.  In the case, plaintiff sued the Catholic diocese and Catholic camps alleging negligent hiring, retention, and supervision of an employee who sexually abused him when he attended camp in the 1970s.  AP reports on the decision. [Thanks to Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]

Court Dismisses Religious Challenges to Trump's Executive Order on Portraying American History

In Jeanpierre v. Trump, (D UT, Oct. 14, 2025), a Utah federal magistrate judge dismissed a suit challenging on RFRA, free exercise and Establishment Clause grounds President Trump's Executive Order 14253, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." Plaintiff is the founder of a religious organization called Black Flag whose tenets include prohibitions on prejudice and discrimination. The court said in part:

According to Mr. Jeanpierre, this executive order “effectively establishes a state sponsored religious doctrine of American historical exceptionalism” and, as a result, is “a direct attack on the foundational tenets of [his] sincerely held religious beliefs.” He alleges the order prevents Mr. Jeanpierre “from exercising his religious autonomy to perceive and interpret history according to his religious conscience.”  He alleges the order’s “prohibition against depicting American history as ‘inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed’” impedes his “religious mandate to identify and confront . . . historical realities” and interferes with his “religious practice of acknowledging and addressing systemic racism” by “imposing a sanitized historical narrative that contradicts [his] religious understanding of reality.”  The “restrictions on historical presentations,” according to Mr. Jeanpierre, force “compliance with a historical narrative that [he] religiously believes causes harm to marginalized communities” and “spiritual suffocation and respiratory distress to [his] religion by restricting the free breath of historical truth.”  Finally, Mr. Jeanpierre alleges the executive order’s imposed historical doctrine compels him “to violate his religious tenants regarding autonomy, truth-telling, and confrontation of systemic inequity,” forcing him “to choose between adherence to his religious principles and compliance with federal law.” 

The court concluded that plaintiff failed to state a cause of action under §1983 which applies only to state officials, or under the Bivens doctrine that does not apply to 1st Amendment claims. The court also rejected plaintiff's RFRA claim, saying in part:

... [T]he executive order ... does not demand any conduct from Mr. Jeanpierre or impose any consequence for his religious beliefs.  It orders federal agencies to remove race-centered ideology from the Smithsonian Institution and to restore public monuments, according to President Trump’s historical narrative that the country’s achievements, principles, and milestones are being undermined and cast in a negative light.  Mr. Jeanpierre does not assert he was made to alter his religious behavior in some way because of this order. 

The court also rejected plaintiff's 1st Amendment claims, saying in part that the Executive Order is neutral and generally applicable and does not target religion.

Plaintiff Lacks Standing to Claim Rutgers Engaged in Anti-Hindu Discrimination

In Bagal v. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, (D NJ, Oct. 14, 2025), a New Jersey federal district court dismissed for lack of standing a suit claiming the university, in violation of the 1st and 14th Amendments, Title VI and New Jersey law, discriminated against plaintiff because of his Hindu religious beliefs. At issue is a Task Force Report recommending that the University add "caste" as a protected category in its antidiscrimination policy. The University rejected the recommendation, saying that its current policy is broad enough to protect against caste discrimination. Plaintiff claimed that the chair of the Task Force had a history of discriminatory animus toward the Hindu religion. The court said in part:

Defendants argue that Plaintiff alleges two distinct injuries...: (1) Defendants discriminated against Plaintiff for his religious beliefs because the Report connects an oppressive caste system with Hinduism; and (2) Plaintiff has refrained from engaging in certain religious activities and from discussing his religious beliefs in class....  Defendants argue that Plaintiff was only a remote participant in an online certificate program, so he has not suffered any concrete injury as a result of the Report’s publication, and that Plaintiff’s allegations of harm to other Hindu students at Rutgers is improper.... 

Here, Plaintiff has not pled facts to demonstrate how the Report—which cannot be and will not be enforced—is burdening Plaintiff’s ability to exercise his religious rights.  The Report was a non-binding recommendation that carries with it no disciplinary weight.  And Rutgers expressly declined to include the term “caste” in its Policy, so the complained of governmental action apparently burdening Plaintiff’s religious activities does not exist.  Stated differently, Plaintiff’s self-censorship is based on “hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.”...

Plaintiff cannot manufacture standing by alleging a stigmatic injury, when that alleged stigmatic harm is not objectively reasonable based on the allegations...Simply being offended by the Report and Truschke’s alleged statements connecting Hinduism to the caste system are insufficient, without more, to confer Plaintiff with standing to bring his Establishment Clause claim....

Supreme Court Denies Review of School Policy on Hiding Students' Gender Dysphoria from Parents

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday denied certiorari in Lee v. Poudre School District R-1, (Docket No. 25-89, certiorari denied (10/14/2025) (Order List). In the case, parents of two 6th graders sued a Colorado school district for damages after their children were invited by teachers to a Gender and Sexuality Alliance meeting. After the meeting, one of the students decided that she was transgender and the other started to suffer from suicidal ideations. The parents claimed that the school's policy of discouraging disclosure to parents of a child's transgender status violates parents' substantive due process rights. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit because plaintiffs had not alleged the existence of a school policy that was the moving force behind their constitutional injury. Parents' petition for Supreme Court review framed the question presented as:

Whether a school district may discard the presumption that fit parents act in the best interests of their children and arrogate to itself the right to direct the care, custody, and control of their children

In denying certiorari, Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, filed a concurring Statement, saying in part:

I concur in the denial of certiorari because petitioners do not challenge the ground for the ruling below.  But I remain concerned that some federal courts are “tempt[ed]” to avoid confronting a “particularly contentious constitutional questio[n]”: whether a school district violates parents’ fundamental rights “when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process.”... Petitioners tell us that nearly 6,000 public schools have policies—as respondent allegedly does—that purposefully interfere with parents’ access to critical information about their children’s gender identity choices and school personnel’s involvement in and influence on those choices.... The troubling—and tragic—allegations in this case underscore the “great and growing national importance” of the question that these parent petitioners present....

CBS News reports on the Court's action

Death Row Inmate's RLUIPA Claim Rejected

In Shockley v. Adams, (ED MO, Oct. 11, 2025), a Missouri federal district court dismissed a death row inmate's RLUIPA lawsuit concluding that his religious exercise was not substantially burdened by a refusal to allow his daughters to be present in the execution chamber, administer communion, anoint him and pray over him there. Plaintiff has delayed his execution with decades of litigation. The court said in part:

Respondents claim that safety and security considerations, borne of their experience as corrections officials who have overseen several state-mandated executions, counsel strongly against allowing family members into the execution chamber....  Respondents have expressly agreed that Shockley’s daughters are welcome to be execution observers.  And, Respondents have offered various accommodations, including having a non-family minister of Shockley’s own choosing provide and perform the exact same religious sacraments and rituals that Shockley desires....

In finding that the accommodations Respondents have offered do not substantially burden Shockley’s free exercise of religion, the Court also emphasizes what’s not in the record: 

• Shockley does not assert that his daughters are his only spiritual advisors; 

 • Shockley does not assert that his daughters are the only ministers able or qualified to provide the religious sacraments and rituals he seeks;  

• Shockley does not articulate how the accommodations substantially burden, or burden at all, his exercise of religion. Instead, he leaves it to be assumed; 

• Shockley nowhere claims that he has a particularly unique spiritual bond with his daughters.  Again, he leaves it to be assumed.  

... Shockley has known of this issue for months and chose to file suit five days before his execution, so in this regard, the Court finds that Shockley’s delay and lack of development of the record are equitable considerations weighing against the extraordinary equitable relief of a stay of execution....

UPDATE: In Shockley v. Adams, (8th Cir., Oct. 13, 2025), the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Shockley's motion for a stay of execution. On Oct. 13, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe announced that he would not grant clemency to Shockley. In Shockley v. Adams, (Sup. Ct., Oct. 14, 2025), the U.S. Supreme Court denied Shockley's application for a stay of execution, denied certiorari, and permitted Respondent of file a supplemental appendix under seal. On Oct. 14, Shockley was executed. (CBS News).

Canceling Concert Because of Reaction to Jewish Musician's Pro-Israel Posting Is Not Religious Discrimination

In Pauker v. Heart Consciousness Church, Inc., (ND CA, Oct. 9, 2025), a California federal district court dismissed religious and racial discrimination claims brought by a Jewish musician against a concert venue that cancelled his Hanukkah concert because of negative community reaction to the musician's Facebook post in support of Israel. The court said in part:

All of Pauker’s claims require at least racial or religious discrimination to be actionable.  But the allegations in Pauker’s complaint fail to raise a reasonable inference of such discrimination.  To the contrary, the complaint offers an alternative basis for Harbin’s decision to cancel Pauker’s performance:  a severe, negative community reaction.  For that reason, among others, Pauker fails to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.....

The parties differ on whether Pauker’s Facebook post implicates his religion or race.  Pauker centers his allegations on his Zionist beliefs—insisting that Zionism is a proxy for Judaism or Jewish racial identity....  Heart rejects this argument, contending that Zionism is purely political....  The Court notes that the relationship between Zionism and Judaism is “hotly disputed.”...  But parsing this issue is ultimately unnecessary because Heart is correct that Pauker fails to allege Harbin targeted him because he is Jewish....  

... Pauker alleges that Harbin reiterated it was “canceling the event due to community complaints about” Pauker’s Zionism, particularly his Facebook post.... Harbin conveyed that the backlash to Pauker was widespread and came from “community members, including performers and presenters.”...Pauker does not allege that Harbin’s stated reasoning was pretextual or that Harbin commented critically on his beliefs or Jewish faith.

[Thanks to Eugene Volokh via Religionlaaw for the lead.] 

Recent Articles of Interest

From SSRN:

• Candice Kulbeth, Constitutional Black Holes: An Anti-Delegation Principle for Civil Adjudication, (September 15, 2025).
• Russell Bell, Fear as Foundation: A Structural Analysis of Christian Doctrine and the Path to Authentic Freedom, (September 26, 2025).
• Jeremy Christiansen, The Classical Legal Tradition as Our Tradition, (September 30, 2025).
• Russell Bell, The Price of Dogma: Religion's Impact on Freedom and Progress, (September 27, 2025).
• Russell Bell, Religious Reasoning in Nuclear Command Authority: Constitutional Crisis, Algorithmic Warfare, and Emergency Democratic Response During Real-Time Threshold War, (October 07, 2025).
• Giovanni Brescancini Picchiotti, Belief as the Architecture of Reality, (October 05, 2025).
• Andrea Martin, From Ambiguity to Accountability: The Case for a Legal Definition of Antisemitism in Academia, (October 08, 2025).
• Bruce N. Cameron, Let's Talk About Morality, (August 14, 2025).
• Stefanus Hendrianto, Comparative Constitutional Law and Abortion Constitutionalism: On the Legacy of Justice Scalia in Dobbs, (Creighton International and Comparative Law Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 2, 2025, 67 -128).
• Emily Suski, Title IX's Post-Skrmetti Peril & Promise, (August 27, 2025).
• Susan Frelich Appleton, Viability as Abortion-Rights Orthodoxy, (90 Mo. L. Rev. 713 (2025)).

From SSRN (Non-U.S. Law):

• Nitzan Caspi Shiloni & Ronit Irshai, "Why Didn't You Leave Him?": Epistemic Injustice in Israel's Rabbinical Courts, (Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, volume 45, issue 1, 2025).
• Seth Barrett Tillman, A U.K. Dialogue on Migration (Parody 2025), (October 06, 2025).
• Abba Elgujja & Umar Alkali, The Almajiri Child's Rights: Constitutional and International Obligations in Global Perspective, (October 01, 2025).
• Zubair Abbasi, Scaling Artificial Intelligence for Augmented Learning: Developing a Generative AI Evaluation Scale through a Case Study in Islamic Inheritance Law (August 01, 2025).
• Mohamad Janaby, Islamic International Humanitarian Law and the War Against ISIS in Iraq: Competing Interpretations and Legal Applications, (Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice Volume 21, Issue 2: 471-476, 2025 Special Section on Recent Legal Developments in Iraq).
• Ellis Kokko, The Politics of Transgender Suffering in the UK's Bell v Tavistock Court Case, (July 07, 2025).

From SmartCILP:

• 26 Georgetown Journal of Gender & Law (Annual Review, 2025).

NY Court Dismisses Suit by Parishes Challenging their Bishop's Decision to Close Them

In Rozak v Diocese of Buffalo, (NY Erie County Sup. Ct., Sept. 26, 2025), a number of Catholic parishes sued the Diocese of Buffalo in an attempt to prevent the Bishop of Buffalo from forcing the parishes to merge into other parishes. The parishes had already filed Canon Law appeals to the Vatican's Dicastery for the Clergy challenging the validity of the Bishop's merger decrees. The Dicastery issued an order suspending the merger decrees while the Canon Law appeals were proceeding. The parishes, however, also filed this suit in a New York civil court under the New York Religious Corporation Law asking for a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the Merger Decrees while the ecclesiastical appeals proceeded.

The New York trial court dismissed the suit on jurisdictional grounds, saying in part:

Central to the pending actions is the inescapable fact that while the plaintiffs make overtures and attempt to frame their complaints to include a companion reference that the "temporalities and property" of the subject parishes are contemporaneously at risk of misappropriation vis-à-vis the manner by which and the purpose for which the mergers were declared by Bishop Fisher, these are not per se typical or traditional common law property disputes under any provisions of applicable New York civil law. More compelling in these actions is the undisputed fact that the Suspension Letters have operatively controlled and stayed all aspects of the challenged Merger Decrees and more recently, the first Dicasterium Decree that has been issued makes a plain declaration of the matters raised in the complaints, to wit, formally "confirming the extinctive union, for which sufficient cause has been shown" and directing the treatment and handling of the "temporal goods of the suppressed Parish."

Though avidly and forthrightly argued by plaintiffs that the disposition rendered by the Dicastery in the Dicasterium Decree is supportive of their position for the Court to grant the relief sought in these actions, it is plain and obvious from the averments made in their supplemental papers that the plaintiffs acknowledge, accept and completely reconcile themselves to the decisional authority of the Canon Law and ecclesiastical governance of the Roman Catholic Church to be solely and ultimately responsible for the lawful disposition of all the issues raised in these actions....