HEROES
Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett U.S. Supreme Court
After controversial votes on the freezing of USAID funds and the enforcement of immigration laws, Justice Barrett had some folks concerned about her conservative credentials. But in recent high-profile cases, she surprised skeptics who feared she had become a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Justice Barrett joined the majority in strongly affirming that states have a right to protect minors from irreversible gender-change procedures, that states have a right to restrict minors’ access to pornography, and that District Judges may not usurp the power of the Executive Branch with injunctions. Writing for the majority in that case, Justice Barrett took the unusual step of calling out a fellow Justice for wrong thinking: “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg Diocese of Reno, NV
Bishop Mueggenborg contributed greatly to defeating legislation that would have mandated insurance coverage of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) throughout the State of Nevada. His signature added significant weight to a coalition letter organized by Nevada Right to Life and CatholicVote. In addition to citing the obvious mistreatment and destruction of millions of human embryos, the letter addressed the protection of women: “The IVF industry currently operates in a wild west, with little to no regulation or restraint on its activities. It is already legal in Nevada. The bill would allow IVF practitioners to operate with complete impunity and hinder the state’s ability to enact health and safety regulations to protect women undergoing what is already a physically and mentally taxing process.”
Bishop James Conley Diocese of Lincoln, NE
Bishop Conley issued a strong statement denouncing a drag performance that mocked the Mass. The performance was produced by a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Calling the event “both disturbing and appalling” Bishop Conley went on to say, “Such a blatant public display of faith-based discrimination that led to the student earning a doctorate degree reflects poorly on the University of Nebraska, its faculty and our community.” His statement also included, “I call on the University of Nebraska to do more than ignore such a vile display of hatred. Have the courage to stand up and declare your institution will not tolerate or reward such inappropriate behavior and take action against the faculty who encouraged it.”
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Secretary of Health and Human services
Parents who are skeptical of vaccines in general, and hesitant about the mammoth vaccine schedule to which children are currently subjected, got good news from Secretary Kennedy in June. He retired all 17 members of the influential committee that advises the government on vaccine practices in order to restructure the group in a way that ensures an unbiased, scientific approach to the committee’s work.
Vatican Web Team
This is outside the U.S. but it deserves recognition, since the Internet is everywhere. Someone at the Vatican made a great decision by removing artwork by former Jesuit priest, and accused serial predator, Marko Ivan Rupnik from its official websites.
ZEROES
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
CatholicVote has been saying for months that there is good news for Catholics in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and we have been working hard to secure its passage. But fellow Catholics have been pushing in the opposite direction. Senator Thom Tillis, in yet another effort to stifle President Trump’s agenda, refused to compromise on Medicaid reforms and voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Pro-abortion Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, held onto her vote until she secured tons of pork for her home state of Alaska. We are left wondering, however, if pork was the only price paid to secure Senator Murkowski’s critical vote. You will notice that the House bill defunded Planned Parenthood for 10 years and eliminated all federal funding for transgender surgeries. The Senate bill – which passed without any help from Tillis but relied heavily on Murkowski’s vote – only defunds Planned Parenthood for one year, and contains no provisions to end taxpayer funding of transgender surgeries.
Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA
Santa Clara University is an ostensibly Catholic institution “with a social consciousness grounded in the Jesuit educational tradition.” The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece by a Santa Clara University graduate student who revealed cringe-worthy details of university courses in which students were exposed to deviant sexual imagery and required to write assignments revealing intimate personal sexual information. What’s more, when she sought alternative coursework on ethical and religious grounds, her request was denied with a suggestion that she seek a different license in her field than the one she had chosen. The author also discovered something about her chosen profession, in general: “The entire field of educating therapy has been hollowed out and filled in with critical theory. Therapists are no longer trained to be neutral; they’re trained to be agents of political change. Concepts like modesty and marital privacy aren’t merely treated as optional or even dismissed. They’re seen as oppressive norms to be actively combated.”
