Chief justice: the ruling "confuses maintenance of a highway median and monument in a state park with excessive religious entanglement.”

Cardinal Wuerl: the legal agreement provides a "level of assurance as we move into the future."

Religious groups that had opposed the mandate were pleased with the administration's action.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith said that IS militants began committing genocide against Yezidis and Christians in Iraq in 2014, and "three years later, they are still not receiving the assistance they need from the United States and so their survival in their ancient homelands is in jeopardy."

About 100,000 Christians -- among them more than 60,000 Syriac Catholics -- were expelled from the Ninevah Plain by the Islamic State group in the summer of 2014 as the militants campaigned to expand their reach into Iraq.

The "revolting reality" of recent wars shows just how urgent it is that the international community act to protect religious minorities in situations of conflict, a top Vatican official told the U.N. General Assembly.