In this week’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds and imposed a legal definition which promotes a confused understanding of the nature and design of the human person. In seeking to address an employment issue, the majority opinion assigns to the word “sex” a meaning that those who passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act never would have imagined, and which Congress itself has declined to adopt. Indeed, the Court’s definition of “sex” is so broad that it effectively empties the word of any real significance whatsoever. 

I join with my brother bishops in welcoming the U.S. Supreme Court decision that prevents the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. 

This week we remember in a special way refugees from around the world, particularly on June 20, a date designated as World Refugee Day by the United Nations. This observance is an opportunity for all of us to pray, support and welcome men, women and children who have been forced to flee their homelands because of war, persecution, environmental catastrophes or violations of their human rights.  

On June 22, the feasts of two martyrs for the faith, St. Thomas More, the patron of our diocese, and St. John Fisher, the Diocese of Arlington will join the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in celebrating Religious Freedom Week.