Washington Wants a Say Over Your Minister (SCOTUS weighs whether the feds can decide who is clergy)

Today, the Obama administration will invite the Supreme Court to open a new front in the culture wars. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC concerns a commissioned minister, Cheryl Perich, who taught elementary school and led chapel devotions at a small Lutheran school outside Detroit. Ms. Perich became ill and was replaced in the classroom by a substitute. In the middle of the school year she sought to return and then, instead of attempting to work out the dispute through the church's reconciliation process, she threatened to sue.

As relations broke down, the church congregation voted to withdraw her "call" to the ministry, and she ceased to be eligible for her prior job. She sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with the support of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The federal statutes outlawing employment discrimination based on race, sex, age and disability contain no express exception for church employers. But for 40 years lower courts have applied a "ministerial exception," which bars the government from any role in deciding who should be a minister. Courts have reasoned that the separation between church and state protects the ability of churches to choose their own clergy just as it protects the state from any control by churches. The Supreme Court has never spoken to the issue.

But who counts as a minister? Cheryl Perich's duties included leading students in prayer and worship, but she also taught secular subjects, using ordinary secular textbooks. The sole disagreement in the lower courts was whether her job was sufficiently religious to be considered ministerial. The Supreme Court will consider, for the first time, how to make that determination.

But the Obama Justice Department has now asked the court to disavow the ministerial exception altogether.

Good points, Bismark is a particularly good comparison now that you mention it. I was Lutheran for about thirty years, and than began a few years of trying to find a reason why someone wouldn't be Catholic. Now I'm in RCIA and consider myself Catholic. It's really great to be going back through many things I studied years ago and now see them in their entirety, if you know what I mean, rather than the way I saw them before.

Regards

Impressive! Welcome to 2000 years of Christianity!

I think the aspect of continuity and “the big picture” is probably one of the most wonderful things about being Catholic.

Best wishes...when will you be received?

Easter of 2012 I think, but the leader of the RCIA group said he would try to “move me along pretty fast” so I'm not real sure. Seems the more history you know the more likely you are to realize the Catholic Church is THE Church. For a good many years I would have periods of being haunted by the feeling that continuity would be the hallmark of what Christ started and that he wouldn't just hide His Church for fifteen hundred years then spring it on a horny guy in what's now Germany. So, it's obvious that there is only one Church with that sort of continuity.

Finally, once when my son and I were talking about the lack of a connection back to the Apostles, my son asked why we weren't Catholic. Of course, there isn't a really good answer to that question only shallow answers or emotional answers. Besides, he was always accusing me of sounding like the friars at his school, so, ... there really is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church but some of us are just dense and take a while to recognize that fact.

Regards

Newman wrote that to know history is to cease to be Protestant.

Luther was a bit obssessive, especially towards the end of his life (when he seems to have gone off the rails and was urging polygamy and all sorts of odd things), and while there were legitimate complaints against the Church of that time - or of any time, in fact - a lot of his rebellion against the Church was based on a desire to assure himself that he had been saved, which he did not seem to believe. I think this was more of a personal problem than anything else, and in fact, if he had read the Church fathers more or been better educated, he would probably have found words very similar to his own in them.

But Luther came along at a time of great unrest, when different forces were jockeying for power, and in many ways Luther or “Lutheranism” (although he had not originally intended to found his own sect) was something that was very useful to one or another of these forces. So his very personal concerns got caught up in the battle between the peasants, the rising merchant middle class, the nobles, and the royals, with each one trying to claim the Church as its own.

That said, the current Pope has been wonderful on dealing with this. He was very kind, respectful and inclusive, but he said that the theological differences must be discussed honestly. He gave a couple of excellent talks on this matter during his recent visit to Germany, his home country and that of Luther as well.

If you’re coming in before Easter, let us know (you can Freepmail me personally) so we can all rejoice for you!

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