Carol Zimmermann

In response to the current spike in COVID-19 cases across the United States due to the omicron variant, many colleges and universities have changed plans for the spring semester, making much of January a back-to-virtual learning experience.

This past year was busy for the nation's high court, particularly with issues of interest to Catholics regarding abortion, religious liberty, COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the death penalty.

After the election of Joe Biden as the second Catholic president of the United States, U.S. bishops planned a document broadly seen as an attempt to deny Communion to the pro-choice politician. The resulting document "endeavors to explain the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the church."

For next year's spring semester, some Catholic colleges are joining other colleges across the country in requiring students to receive COVID-19 vaccine booster shots.

The Supreme Court turned down emergency requests from New York health care workers seeking a religious exemption from the state's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its health care employees.

 The Supreme Court said that clinics can continue to challenge a Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy but in the meantime the law would remain in effect.

 The Supreme Court's last case of the year looked at when death-row inmates can raise claims that they were given ineffective counsel.

A majority of the Supreme Court justices viewed a Maine school choice program that excludes religious schools as discriminatory.

In the oral arguments for the U.S. Supreme Court's first major abortion case in decades -- which looked at Mississippi's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy -- the majority of justices on Dec. 1 seemed willing to let that ban stay in place.

The unanimous decision by the appellate court's panel allows the initial lawsuit filed by the teacher, who was fired from a Catholic school, to move forward.

Catholic opponents of the death penalty, including Oklahoma City's archbishop, praised the Nov. 18 announcement that Gov. Kevin Stitt granted Julius Jones clemency — just hours before he was scheduled to be executed.

The U.S. bishops approved a motion Nov. 17 during their general assembly to host the National Eucharistic Congress in 2024 in Indianapolis; it will be the culmination of a planned three-year eucharistic revival.

The Supreme Court's consideration of spiritual advisers praying aloud with death-row inmates or placing hands on them in prayer during executions faced an uphill battle Nov. 9.

This fall, as the number of COVID-19 cases has decreased, some dioceses, particularly in the South, are loosening restrictions on mask mandates for Catholic schools.

The Supreme Court sent a case back to a lower court asking it to reconsider a ruling against the Diocese of Albany, New York, and other religious groups that challenged the state's mandate requiring employers to provide abortion coverage in their employee health insurance plans.

The Supreme Court Nov. 1 turned down an appeal from a Catholic hospital in California that was sued for refusing to perform a hysterectomy on a transgender patient.

During oral arguments just shy of three hours Nov. 1, the Supreme Court closely examined — and seemed to have concerns about — how the new abortion law in Texas was framed and is enforced.

During an online panel about the death penalty Oct. 19, panelists stressed how capital punishment goes against church teaching.

John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America in Washington since 2010, announced Sept. 22 that he will be stepping down from the role he described as "an honor and a privilege" at the end of June

The Supreme Court ruled against blocking a Texas law banning abortions at six weeks of pregnancy. The 5-4 vote said the challengers to the Texas law — which went into effect Sept. 1 — did not adequately address the "complex and novel antecedent procedural questions" in this case.