Carol Zimmermann

Cokie Roberts, a broadcast journalist and political commentator who spoke publicly about her Catholic faith and her admiration for the Sacred Heart sisters who taught her, died Sept. 17 due to complications from breast cancer. She was 75.

The Supreme Court issued an unsigned order late Sept. 11 that will temporarily allow the Trump administration to enforce its new rule preventing many Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States, while the legal battle over this issue continues to work its way through the courts.

"You have to have faith; it's a miracle our home is still even standing," a Bahamian resident said. 

Toni Morrison, award-winning author of 11 novels whose words brought to life the experiences of African American women, died Aug. 5 at age 88 in New York due to complications from pneumonia.

The July 25 announcement by the Justice Department that it is reinstating the federal death penalty for the first time in 16 years was unwelcome news for Catholic leaders who have advocated against capital punishment.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who served on the court for nearly 35 years, died July 16 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at age 99 after suffering complications from a stroke the previous day.

The Supreme Court, for now, blocked the Trump administration's added citizenship question to the 2020 census, sending the case back to a lower court.

The Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Mississippi African American man who had been tried six times for a quadruple murder. In the 7-2 decision June 21, the court cited racial discrimination against Curtis Flowers. 

In a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of preserving a historic cross-shaped memorial in Bladensburg, Maryland saying the cross did not endorse religion.

Although the U.S. bishops' spring assembly in Baltimore was mostly devoted to responding to the sexual abuse crisis in the church, the bishops also considered something described as the second-most important issue currently facing U.S. church leaders: How to get religiously unaffiliated, or "nones," particularly young people, back to the Catholic Church.

During their June 11-13 meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops are looking at what the U.S. church teaches its adult members about the death penalty and they will vote about adding a revised passage to the U.S. Catechism for Adults about this.

In response to the Supreme Court's May 30 decision to allow the execution of an Alabama death-row inmate, a Catholic group seeking to end the death penalty said in a tweet: "Our work to build a more restorative criminal justice system continues."

An expected vote from the U.S. Supreme Court on the added U.S. citizenship question in the 2020 census just hit a potential twist with newly submitted evidence that could influence the court's decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on two different aspects of Indiana abortion laws May 28.

During his installation ceremony as the new archbishop of Washington, Archbishop Wilton Gregory acknowledged the struggles that have recently impacted the Catholic Church and urged Catholic leaders and laity not to lose faith.

Although the Supreme Court justices chose not to take up two petitions for review submitted by death-row inmates from Alabama and Tennessee May 13, they didn't do so with a simple one-sentence rejection.

Catholic leaders are calling for prayer and action in response to the May 7 school shooting inside a charter school near Denver. One teenager died and eight other students were wounded.

During April 23 oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the majority of justices seemed in favor of an added question about U.S. citizenship on the 2020 census questionnaire.

Lawyers for The Washington Post filed a motion in federal court April 9 seeking the dismissal of the $250 million defamation lawsuit filed against the newspaper by Nick Sandmann.