The California legislature moved this month to require members of the clergy to report to the government some of what congregants tell them during confession. The bill, introduced by state Sen. Jerry Hill, a Democrat, would make clergy subject to criminal prosecution if they didn’t report suspicions of child abuse or neglect that arise during confession or other confidential conversations. The Senate Committee on Public Safety passed the bill on to the Appropriations Committee on April 2.

St. Vincent Catholic Charities last week sued to keep the Michigan and U.S. departments of Health and Human Services from taking action against it for not placing children for foster care or adoption with same-sex couples.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators agreed last week that someone should hold tech platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google accountable for the roles they play as gatekeepers of public speech. But who should do it and how remains a source of disagreement and misunderstanding.

After the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to a Buddhist prisoner in Texas, the state moved to restrict the religious exercise of all death row inmates. Chaplains can now watch executions from the viewing room, but they will no longer be allowed to accompany condemned prisoners to their deaths, the state announced last week.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution March 25 to a Buddhist prisoner on Texas’ death row after state officials refused to allow his spiritual adviser to accompany him in the death chamber. The decision could pave the way for more high court rulings in favor of individuals’ religious liberty.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week denied a Catholic bed-and-breakfast owner’s plea for due process following a lower court’s ruling that her private home in Hawaii is actually a public hotel.

The U.S. Department of Education announced last week it will stop enforcing a ban on working with religious contractors to provide services to at-risk private school students. In an official notice to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Education Secretary Betsy DeVos explained that under the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in Trinity Lutheran vs. Comer, the ban was a form of religious discrimination.