In the News (September 2026)
riz. churches not bound to report abuse confessions
The Arizona State Supreme Court unanimously ruled July 30 that church leaders do not need to report to authorities cases of sexual abuse disclosed during confessions.
The lawsuit was brought against a man who confessed to Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bishops to sexually abusing his daughter.
“We hold that the First Amendment generally prohibits fact finders from inquiring into a clergy member’s application of his particular religious doctrine — absent fraud or collusion for secular purposes — in determining whether reporting should be withheld if ‘reasonable and necessary,’” wrote Vice Chief Justice John Lopez in the court’s opinion.
The Mormon Church praised the ruling, saying it affirmed the confidential nature of religious confession.
The ruling sends the case back to lower courts and reverses a July 2025 decision of the state’s Court of Appeals. Arizona’s reporting statute compels anyone who reasonably believes a minor has been the victim of abuse to immediately report it. But the statute exempts clergy who deem it necessary to not report it for religious reasons.
Greg Locke’s congregation down to just hundreds
Christian nationalist and Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke, who is under federal investigation for allegedly misappropriating church funds, says his “tent” church, which drew up to 3,000 people in its heyday, is now down to a few hundred in the wake of his ongoing challenges.
Despite the loss of in-person worshipers at his Global Vision Bible Church in Lebanon, Locke said he’s been experiencing “freedom.”
In a Facebook post, he alluded to the challenges facing his ministry, including the nearly two-year federal investigation into alleged financial mismanagement that culminated in a pre-dawn raid of his home by up to 60 FBI and IRS agents on July 12.
Atheists only 0.07% of federal prison population
Self-described atheists make up less than one-tenth of a percent of the federal prison population, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Hemant Mehta, “The Friendly Atheist,” filed a Freedom of Information Act request and found that of the 153,834 people in the U.S. federal prison system as of May 30, only 101 identify themselves as atheist, which amounts to 0.066 percent.
Mehta points out that he has made “similar requests in the past and the numbers have been roughly the same each time, though this year’s numbers are the lowest I’ve ever seen. That suggests this proportion isn’t changing even as the percentage of non-religious Americans in the general population has (mostly) increased over the past two decades. (Self-identified atheists now represent about 5 percent of the population. “Nones” are about 29 percent.) More to the point, it means the presence of atheists in U.S. federal prisons is significantly lower than what we find in the general population.”
Australian census: 39% have no religion
Australians are increasingly unlikely to worship a god, according to results from the most recent countrywide census.
For the first time, fewer than half of Australians identified as Christian, though Christianity remained the nation’s most common religion (declared by 43.9 percent of the population). Meanwhile, the number of Australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 percent (from 30.1 percent in 2016 and 22.2 percent in 2011).
The number of nonreligious Australians — a number that has been on the rise for decades now — may be even larger than the census results show in part because of how the question was phrased in the survey.
Woman kicked off flight for preaching to passengers
Florida evangelist Whitney Lynn was removed from a flight for safety reasons after preaching to fellow passengers during a delay.
The incident occurred before takeoff on Alaska Airlines Flight 708, which was bound for San Diego from Orlando, Fla., on July 30.
“Our flight crew became increasingly concerned about a guest’s behavior on board the aircraft, which was also affecting other guests,” a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines said in a statement.
“The passenger was asked to deplane the aircraft for safety reasons,” the spokesperson continued, adding that the traveler will not be permitted to travel on Alaska Airlines flights for “the foreseeable future.”
Moms challenge Texas’ Ten Commandments law
Three Houston mothers have sued to stop displaying the Ten Commandments in Texas public school classrooms, arguing it violates the state’s religious freedom law and a voter-approved parental rights amendment.
Their lawsuit is the latest challenge to Senate Bill 10 — this time under Texas law.
FFRF and a coalition are representing Texas plaintiffs in mutliple other suits.
The mothers’ suit, filed in Harris County on July 30, demands that the displays be taken down and that the court act before mid-August, when the school year begins. The bill was signed by the governor last year.
They are also suing under the recently approved Texas Proposition 15 — also known as the Parental Rights amendment — which ensures parents have the right “to exercise care, custody, and control of the parent’s child, including the right to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”
Senate Bill 10 requires all Texas classrooms to display donated posters of the King James Version of the Ten Commandments. The posters must be visible in the classroom and cannot be smaller than 16 by 20 inches.
Fla. Catholic schools may lose vouchers over vaccines
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier told the Catholic Church that if it takes taxpayer-funded vouchers for its schools, it needs to accept vaccine rules for students, too.
In a letter sent to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, Uthmeier argued that Catholic doctrine does not allow its schools to reject vaccine exemptions for religious reasons.
Many Catholic schools in Florida accept students who pay tuition with help from the state’s private school vouchers. Currently, more than 500,000 students across the state participate in the program. As of March, about a quarter of the state’s education budget goes to voucher programs, up from 12 percent in 2021.
The bishops conference issued a statement saying they are reviewing the letter and will respond to the attorney general.
Rick Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, said that the letter “reflects a misunderstanding of Americans’ fundamental right to religious freedom and is a glaring and dangerous government overreach.”
53% have unfavorable view of Supreme Court
Just over half of Americans (53 percent) currently have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, while a smaller share (45 percent) views the court favorably.
Opinions of the court have been relatively stable over the last few years, and favorable views remain close to a three-decade low, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults. The survey was conducted shortly after the court’s 2025-26 term ended.
The court’s favorable rating is 20 percentage points lower today than in April 2021, when 65 percent of Americans held a positive view. Equal majorities of Democrats and Republicans (87 percent) said the justices should not bring personal politics into decisions.
Young Latinos abandoning churches to be ‘Nones’
Young Latinos are abandoning organized religion at a faster rate than any other demographic in the United States, a new Axios analysis finds.
The declining religious affiliation of Latinos ages 18 to 29 — particularly among Catholics — is challenging long-held assumptions that their explosive growth would boost traditional religious values in American culture.
The percentage of Hispanic Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated rose steadily from 18 percent in 2013 to 23 percent in 2025, according to data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
Among Catholic Latinos, the declines were historic. The share of Latino adults identifying as Catholic plummeted from 67 percent in 2010 to 43 percent in 2022.
Kim Davis sued for avoiding to pay $565K
In Kentucky, former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is facing a new lawsuit accusing her of hiding inherited assets to avoid paying the $565,000 federal civil rights judgment against her for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Attorneys for the two Kentucky men whose case drew international attention after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015 filed a lawsuit in Rowan Circuit Court in July. They want a judge to void the transfer of Davis’ half-interest in property she inherited from her mother last year and later gave to her husband, son, brother and sister-in-law.
The attorneys claim Davis lied under oath about the inheritance to defraud David Ermold and David Moore of the money a federal jury awarded them in 2023.
The lawsuit marks the latest chapter in the decade-long legal battle that began when Davis, then Rowan County clerk, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision. While courts ultimately found Davis personally liable for violating the couples’ constitutional rights, the new case shifts the fight from the courtroom to her finances, alleging she deliberately transferred inherited assets to family members to shield them from collection as the plaintiffs seek to enforce the six-figure judgment.
