Government now ‘presuming to interpret church canon’
(Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash)
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]
By Maggie MacFarland Phillips
Real Clear Wire
For over a century, the Catholic Charities Bureau of Superior, Wis., has aided people of all faiths: the developmentally disabled, seniors, and children, many of them low income. As Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki recently noted, since the time of Jesus Christ, the Church has had “a mandate from Scripture to serve the poor.”
The state of Wisconsin disagrees. Its labor division has ruled that the charity is not eligible for a religious exemption from contributing to the state’s unemployment insurance system, because it offers its services free of proselytizing, regardless of clients’ religious background. As a result, Wisconsin’s Labor and Industry Review Commission determined it was essentially a secular organization, not operated for “primarily religious purposes.”
The charity’s appeal, which contends that the state is determining for itself which activities are and are not within the scope of religious obligation, looms as a possible watershed for religious liberty. Proceedings open May 18 before the Supreme Court of Wisconsin – before the August swearing-in of Justice-elect Janet Protasiewicz, a progressive who will give the court a 4-3 leftward tilt after a costly, high-profile election this spring to replace a conservative. A close watcher of the case said it seems likely that it will be heard in the fall term, after Protasiewicz is sworn in.
Daniel Vitagliano of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, representing the charity, said the state is presuming to interpret church canon and internal church policies, to determine for itself which services fall under the tenets of a religious faith. That’s an idea the Wisconsin Supreme Court previously rejected in a 1995 decision, Pritzlaff v. the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
“Saying Catholic Charities Bureau is not religious is like saying the Milwaukee Bucks is not a basketball team,” said Vitagliano. “It’s as absurd as it sounds. The Wisconsin Supreme Court should intervene and correct the lower court’s error.”
Wisconsin is not the only government challenging religious groups, and those challenged don’t fall neatly on one side of the political spectrum. Texas is bearing down on groups it suspects may be aiding illegal border crossings. Similarly, four Republican members of Congress accuse Catholic Charities USA of supporting illegal border crossings, threatening an investigation. Catholic Charities USA denied the allegations, noting that the federal government determines who enters the country, and the charity’s humanitarian care (“food, clean clothes, bathing facilities, overnight respite”) is typically provided after migrants are processed and released.
Also stirring concern at the federal level is opposition to a rule proposed in January by the Biden Health and Human Services Department. According to two Notre Dame lawyers objecting in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the rule “would require religious hospitals and doctors to perform deeply contested procedures – including abortion and ‘gender transition’ surgery – even though two federal appeals courts have rejected similar regulations on religious-liberty grounds.” The article also said “this proposal, and another, would also scale back conscience protections, pressuring healthcare providers to choose between their professional obligations and their faith.”
In each instance, concerns hinge on this question: To what extent can religious organizations manage their own personnel according to the dictates of their faith?
