Welcome to the June 24, 2020 edition of Just 3 Things, the weekly social action newsletter of the Office of Human Life & Dignity. This is Religious Freedom Week, June 22-29, and there is still time to sign up for our special June 25, 10 a.m. seminar with the head of AsiaNews on religious persecution in China. Go here to sign up--registration is free.

Here are some of the social justice news items of the week. If this email was forwarded to you and you'd like to receive it each week, click here to visit our website to subscribe.     __________________________________________________________________

Fifty percent of the COVID-19 deaths in Sweden are nursing home residents and multiple news reports indicate that some nursing home residents were denied treatment and instead given palliative care that included drug cocktails that depress breathing. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the story and anti-euthanasia advocate Wesley Smith also wrote about this issue.

"A renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism," Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said in a statement after a crowd of mostly white young adult vandals clad in black toppled the statue of St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park Friday night (the anniversary of Juneteenth) and pulled down statues of Francis Scott Key and Union General and President Ulysses S. Grant. San Francisco police stood by with riot gear during the incidents. In response to the vandalism, San Francisco Mayor London Breed issued a statement saying:"Every dollar we spend cleaning up this vandalism takes funding away from actually supporting our community, including our African American community. […] I say this not to defend any particular statue or what it represents, but to recognize that when people take action in the name of my community, they should actually involve us. And when they vandalize our public parks, that's their agenda, not ours.”  Read the Archbishop's entire statement on our Combatting Racism web page.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump Administration from dissolving the Deferred Action for Early Childhood Arrivals program, but left room for President Trump to present another executive order. U.S. bishops continue to call for Congress to pass immigration reform legislation. The ruling affects nearly 700,000 young adult immigrants, DREAMers, who came here as children without documents and were granted a stay from deportation and the right to work and go to school under President Obama.