A win for religious exercise

Last month the Supreme Court found unanimously that Catholic Charities is exempt from a state-level unemployment scheme in Wisconsin. Progressives have sought to minimize the significance of the decision as “narrow.” But in reality the court’s finding is far more significant. In siding with the institutional religious liberty claims of Catholic Charities, the court recognized definitively that religion cannot be circumscribed narrowly to particular teachings, beliefs, or ideas, and even less to particular spaces or activities. Religious liberty is about far more than mere “freedom to worship,” understood as a place for corporate gathering in a particular time and for a particular purpose.

This case serves as an important corrective to the findings of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which held that Catholic Charities was not “operated primarily for religious purposes.” Catholic Charities is incorporated separately from the Roman Catholic hierarchy, but this distinction in civil formation cannot rightly be seen to inform a radical distinction between religious and non-religious, or secular, activity. As Justice Clarence Thomas properly observed, whatever its incorporation status in civil terms, Catholic Charities is still a Catholic organization. And its non-sectarian and general offering of charitable service and works of mercy is still properly characterized as intrinsically religious, in motivation as well as execution.

For too long and in too many places a logic of radical secularism still reigns in America. Religion is certainly about belief. But it is not merely about subjective faith or ideas about the transcendent and divine. Religion is also about action and service, works of love and mercy. And these religious acts cannot justly be circumscribed by other authorities. The government cannot rightly tell a Christian charity that it must only serve Christians or that it must restrict its work to a particular class of persons, particularly when the tenets of that religion require universal expressions of charity.

Tax status certainly matters, and religious organizations must robustly assert and protect their autonomy, for reasons of principle as well as in pursuit of prudent financial responsibility. But radical secularist logic has important practical consequences to the point where lives are at stake.

Consider the case of a church ministry in Bryan, Ohio, known as Dad’s Place. In response to the plight of many homeless people in town, the church decided to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, offering a place of refuge and solace from the outside world. The town authorities responded by engaging in a campaign to shut down the church. The officials of Bryan, Ohio, have harassed and humiliated the pastor, Chris Avell, and those served by the ministry. They have brought criminal charges against Pastor Avell, along with numerous other civil charges and acts of intimidation.

All of this while the most vulnerable people in Bryan were being ministered to by a congregation devoted to providing shelter, safety, and relief from hunger and harsh weather. The fallout of difficult economic conditions in recent years has only exacerbated America’s homelessness crisis. Some estimates find those experiencing homelessness to be at the highest levels in more than 15 years, with increases of over 30 percent from 2022 to 2024 alone.

The Supreme Court’s vindication of Catholic Charities in Wisconsin is a clarion call to states and localities across the country, including Bryan, Ohio, to robustly affirm and respect religious liberty and to celebrate rather than to prosecute acts of mercy and charity. Christianity has always affirmed that religion is about having true faith. But it is also about being faithful. And that faithfulness requires manifesting belief in action. As we read in James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

The “pollution” that James warns us about can be understood to include captivity to the way the world thinks about the role of religion in society. From the church’s earliest days, in the apostolic age as well as the patristic period, Christians related to the world around them in distinctive ways. And for that reason, pagans criticized Christians sharply for their charity. Christians were identified as those who cared for the poor, tended to the sick, and took in exposed infants. They took seriously the biblical mandate to manifest true religion in acts of service to the most marginalized. And we have to do the same thing today. The Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Catholic Charities helps to dissolve the world’s dangerous, secularist logic. Churches and city councils around the nation should take note.