Angelus News | September 6, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 18

NATION
■ Supreme Court blocks
controversial Title IX
changes for schools
The Supreme Court temporarily
blocked a new Biden Administration
rule that would expand Title IX anti-discrimination
protections to students who
identify as transgender.
Several states sued the Department of
Education after it released the revised
regulations in April, arguing that the
change could defeat the Title IX’s intended
purposes of protecting women’s sports.
While the nine justices differed in their
concerns about the changes — scheduled
to take effect Aug. 1 — all agreed they
could remain blocked for now.
Religious liberty advocates say the
change would force educational institutions
that receive federal funding — including
Catholic ones — to go against
their beliefs.
“This administration is ignoring biological
reality, science, and common sense,”
Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending
Freedom told OSV News. “Female
athletes, students, and teachers across the
country are right to stand against the administration’s
adoption of extreme gender
ideology, which would have devastating
consequences for students, teachers,
administrators, and families.”
■ Experts confirm Kansas nun’s
body hasn’t decomposed
A new scientific investigation of the remains of a Benedictine sister from Kansas
seems to support claims that she is incorrupt.
When the remains of Benedictine Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster were transferred
in April 2023, four years following her death, her body appeared to have
undergone no decomposition, despite being buried in an unsealed wooden
casket with no embalming.
Preliminary investigations found no elements that would have impacted the
decomposition rate of the sister’s remains, giving credence to initial thoughts
that the remains may be “incorrupt,” often interpreted as a sign of holiness.
On Aug. 22, Bishop James Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph
released results of an investigation by medical experts who confirmed the body
“does not appear to have experienced the decomposition that would have normally
been expected under such previous burial conditions.”
Bishop Johnston said that no canonization cause for Lancaster has been started,
and that “incorruptibility is not considered to be an indication of sainthood.”
The body of Sister Mary Wilhelmina
Lancaster, foundress of the Benedictines of
Mary, Queen of Apostles, lies in repose in
May 2023. | OSV NEWS/MEGAN MARLEY
■ New Jersey diocese sues over green
card change affecting priests
The Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, is suing the federal
government over changes to visa rules that are forcing foreign
priests to leave the U.S.
The suit challenges changes made by the State Department
to the Immigration and Nationality Act in April 2023.
The changes expanded the immigration category that
oversees religious workers to include some juvenile migrants
— adding up to 100,000 extra applications to the category,
despite retaining the annual cap of 10,000 green cards a
year.
The result has been a growing backlog of permanent
residency applications for clergy and religious working in
U.S. dioceses on R-1 religious visas, which require workers to
return to their country of origin after five years.
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, chairman of the U.S. bishops’
Priests pray with parishioners at St. Mary Church in East Islip, New York, in April 2024
at a “Keep Our Priests” rosary rally. More than 300 people gathered to pray for changes
in U.S. immigration procedures forcing priests to leave the country. | OSV NEWS/GREG-
ORY A. SHEMITZ
committee on migration, told fellow bishops in June that priests could have to wait 15 years for a green card as a result.
“This is simply not sustainable for our ministries,” Seitz said, “and it is devastating for parishes that will be left without a
pastor when he is forced to depart the country at the end of his R-1 visa.”
September 6, 2024 • ANGELUS • 5