January 2012
Monthly Archive
Mark Your Calendars: St. Thomas Aquinas, OP
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 31 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Dominicans, Liturgical Feasts
Our upcoming events surrounding the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. Indeed, we just celebrated St. Thomas’s feast on the 28th. But due to the use of the Dominican Rite we can do it again on the old day of our brother’s memorial, 7 March. His Mass will be preceded by Fr. Mansini’s lecture on 6 March.
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 30 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
St. Thomas Aquinas, OP
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 28 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Dominican Saints
Please stay tuned for information about our St. Thomas Lecture this year, which will be in March, around his old feast day. For now, here is a post from one of our student brothers on the Saint.
St. Timothy & St. Titus
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 26 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts
A happy Feast Day to our local shepherd, His Excellency Timothy M. Dolan! He wrote an op-ed in yesterday WSJ.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 24 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Liturgical Feasts
The prior of our convent, Fr. John Langlois, O.P., delivers the homily at the 8 am.
Land of the Free
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 21 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
And if you’re unfortunately tempted to think this is just the opinion of a new guard conservative, consider these words by Cardinal Mahoney and think again:
In probably the most expansive decision on the part of the US Federal government ever, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued an “interim final rule” to require virtually all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives, female sterilization procedures, and related “patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”
These are listed among “preventive services for women” that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost sharing–even if the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or the woman herself object to such coverage….
And I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster….
As Bishops we do not recommend candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not receive my vote.
St. VF Film Forum
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 20 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Culture, Parish Events
Of Stem Cells
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 18 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
Emerging Biotechnologies and Human Self-Understanding
Father Thomas Berg, a professor at St Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie, Yonkers) will offer reflections on where we have come in the past 15 years since work on human embryonic stem cells began in earnest and how this is impacting us in our own self-understanding.
Thursday, January 19, 2012 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
The Church of Saint Catherine of Siena
411 East 68th Street New York, NY
Free – Donations are welcome
Contact: Joseph Sullivan Phone: 212.988.8300
The State’s Acknowledgment of Religion’s Proper Authority
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 12 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
In effect, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled in such wise as to protect religious bodies in the practical exercise of their doctrines regarding official/authoritative representatives. Judge Alito wrote this impressive concurring and further specifying opinion, with Justice Kagan adjoined, and with some highlighting added by me. (To read Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion on SCOTUS’s 9-0 ruling, go here.)
I join the Court’s opinion, but I write separately to clarify my understanding of the significance of formal ordination and designation as a “minister” in determining whether an “employee”1 of a religious group falls within the so-called “ministerial” exception. The term “minister” is commonly used by many Protestant denominations to refer to members of their clergy, but the term is rarely if ever used in this way by Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists. In addition, the concept of ordination as understood by most Christian churches and by Judaism has no clear counterpart in some Christian denominations and some other religions. Because virtually every religion in the world is represented in the population of the United States, it would be a mistake if the term “minister” or the concept of ordination were viewed as central to the important issue of religious autonomy that is presented in cases like this one. Instead, courts should focus on the function performed by persons who work for religious bodies.
The First Amendment protects the freedom of religious groups to engage in certain key religious activities, including the conducting of worship services and other religious ceremonies and rituals, as well as the critical process of communicating the faith. Accordingly, religious groups must be free to choose the personnel who are essential to the performance of these functions.
The “ministerial” exception should be tailored to this purpose. It should apply to any “employee” who leads a religious organization, conducts worship services or important religious ceremonies or rituals, or serves as a messenger or teacher of its faith. If a religious group believes that the ability of such an employee to perform these key functions has been compromised, then the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom protects the group’s right to remove the employee from his or her position.
I
Throughout our Nation’s history, religious bodies have been the preeminent example of private associations that have “act[ed] as critical buffers between the individual and the power of the State.” Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 619 (1984). In a case like the one now before us—where the goal of the civil law in question, the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities, is so worthy—it is easy to forget that the autonomy abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws. To safeguard this crucial autonomy, we havelong recognized that the Religion Clauses protect a private sphere within which religious bodies are free to governthemselves in accordance with their own beliefs. The Constitution guarantees religious bodies “independence from secular control or manipulation—in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, mat¬ters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.” Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U. S. 94, 116 (1952).
Religious autonomy means that religious authorities must be free to determine who is qualified to serve in positions of substantial religious importance. Different religions will have different views on exactly what qualifies as an important religious position, but it is none the less possible to identify a general category of “employees”whose functions are essential to the independence of practically all religious groups. These include those who serve in positions of leadership, those who perform important functions in worship services and in the performance ofreligious ceremonies and rituals, and those who are entrusted with teaching and conveying the tenets of the faithto the next generation.
Applying the protection of the First Amendment to roles of religious leadership, worship, ritual, and expression focuses on the objective functions that are important forthe autonomy of any religious group, regardless of its beliefs. As we have recognized in a similar context,“[f]orcing a group to accept certain members may impair [its ability] to express those views, and only those views, that it intends to express.” Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U. S. 640, 648 (2000). That principle applies withspecial force with respect to religious groups, whose very andpropagation of shared religious ideals. See Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 882 (1990) (noting that the constitutional interest in freedom of association may be “reinforced by Free Exercise Clause concerns”). As the Court notes, the First Amend¬ment “gives special solicitude to the rights of religiousorganizations,” ante, at 14, but our expressive-associationcases are nevertheless useful in pointing out what thoseessential rights are. Religious groups are the archetypeof associations formed for expressive purposes, and their fundamental rights surely include the freedom to choose who is qualified to serve as a voice for their faith.
When it comes to the expression and inculcation of religious doctrine, there can be no doubt that the messen¬ger matters. Religious teachings cover the gamut frommoral conduct to metaphysical truth, and both the contentand credibility of a religion’s message depend vitally on the character and conduct of its teachers. A religion can¬not depend on someone to be an effective advocate for its religious vision if that person’s conduct fails to live up tothe religious precepts that he or she espouses. For this reason, a religious body’s right to self-governance must include the ability to select, and to be selective about,those who will serve as the very “embodiment of its message” and “its voice to the faithful.” Petruska v. Gannon Univ., 462 F. 3d 294, 306 (CA3 2006). A religious body’scontrol over such “employees” is an essential component ofits freedom to speak in its own voice, both to its own members and to the outside world.
The connection between church governance and the freedissemination of religious doctrine has deep roots in our legal tradition:
“The right to organize voluntary religious associations to assist in the expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the deci¬sion of controverted questions of faith within the asso¬ciation, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the individual members, congregations, and officers with¬in the general association, is unquestioned. All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submitto it. But it would be a vain consent and would lead to the total subversion of such religious bodies, if anyone aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal tothe secular courts and have them reversed.” Watson
v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 728–729 (1872).
The “ministerial” exception gives concrete protection to the free “expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine.” The Constitution leaves it to the collective conscience of each religious group to determine for itself who is qualified to serve as a teacher or messenger of its faith.
II
A. The Court’s opinion today holds that the “ministerial” exception applies to Cheryl Perich (hereinafter respond¬ent), who is regarded by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as a commissioned minister. But while a ministerial title is undoubtedly relevant in applying the First Amendment rule at issue, such a title is neither necessary nor sufficient. As previously noted, most faiths do not employ the term “minister,” and some eschew the conceptof formal ordination.3 And at the opposite end of the speca very large percentage of their members. Perhaps thisexplains why, although every circuit to consider the issue has recognized the “ministerial” exception, no circuit has made ordination status or formal title determinative of the exception’s applicability.
The Fourth Circuit was the first to use the term “ministerial exception,” but in doing so it took pains to clarify that the label was a mere shorthand. See Rayburn v. General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 772 F. 2d 1164, 1168 (1985) (noting that the exception’s applicability “does not depend upon ordination but upon the function of the position”). The Fourth Circuit traced the exception back to McClure v. Salvation Army, 460 F. 2d 553 (CA51972), which invoked the Religion Clauses to bar a TitleVII sex-discrimination suit brought by a woman who was described by the court as a Salvation Army “minister,” id., at 554, although her actual title was “officer.” See McClure v. Salvation Army, 323 F. Supp. 1100, 1101 (ND Ga. 1971). A decade after McClure, the Fifth Circuit made clear that formal ordination was not necessary for the “ministerial” exception to apply. The court held that the members of the faculty at a Baptist seminary were covered by the exception because of their religious function in conveying church doctrine, even though some of them were not ordained ministers. See EEOC v. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 651 F. 2d 277 (1981).
The functional consensus has held up over time, withthe D. C. Circuit recognizing that “[t]he ministerial exception has not been limited to members of the clergy.” EEOC v. Catholic Univ., 83 F. 3d 455, 461 (1996). The court in that case rejected a Title VII suit brought by a Catholic nun who claimed that the Catholic University ofAmerica had denied her tenure for a canon-law teaching position because of her gender. The court noted that “members of the Canon Law Faculty perform the vital function of instructing those who will in turn interpret, implement, and teach the law governing the Roman Catholic Church and the administration of its sacraments. Although Sister McDonough is not a priest, she is a member of a religious order who sought a tenured professorship in a field that is of fundamental importance to the spiritual mission of her Church.” Id., at 464. See also Natal v. Christian and Missionary Alliance, 878 F. 2d 1575, 1578 (CA1 1989) (stating that “a religious organization’s fate isinextricably bound up with those whom it entrusts withthe responsibilities of preaching its word and ministering to its adherents,” and noting “the difficulties inherent in separating the message from the messenger”).
The Ninth Circuit too has taken a functional approach, just recently reaffirming that “the ministerial exception encompasses more than a church’s ordained ministers.” Alcazar v. Corp. of Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, 627
F. 3d 1288, 1291 (2010) (en banc); see also Elvig v. Calvin Presbyterian Church, 375 F. 3d 951, 958 (2004). The Court’s opinion today should not be read to upset this consensus.
B. The ministerial exception applies to respondent because,as the Court notes, she played a substantial role in “conveying the Church’s message and carrying out its mis¬sion.” Ante, at 17. She taught religion to her students four days a week and took them to chapel on the fifth day. She led them in daily devotional exercises, and led them in prayer three times a day. She also alternated with the other teachers in planning and leading worship services at the school chapel, choosing liturgies, hymns, and read¬ings, and composing and delivering a message based onScripture.
It makes no difference that respondent also taught secular subjects. While a purely secular teacher would not qualify for the “ministerial” exception, the constitutional protection of religious teachers is not somehow diminished when they take on secular functions in addition to their religious ones. What matters is that respondent played animportant role as an instrument of her church’s religious message and as a leader of its worship activities. Because of these important religious functions, Hosanna-Tabor had the right to decide for itself whether respondent was reli-giously qualified to remain in her office.
Hosanna-Tabor discharged respondent because she threatened to file suit against the church in a civil court.This threat contravened the Lutheran doctrine that dis¬putes among Christians should be resolved internally without resort to the civil court system and all the legalwrangling it entails.5 In Hosanna-Tabor’s view, respondent’s disregard for this doctrine compromised her religious function, disqualifying her from serving effectively as a voice for the church’s faith. Respondent does not disputethat the Lutheran Church subscribes to a doctrine of internal dispute resolution, but she argues that this was a mere pretext for her firing, which was really done for nonreligious reasons.
For civil courts to engage in the pretext inquiry that respondent and the Solicitor General urge us to sanction would dangerously undermine the religious autonomy thatlower court case law has now protected for nearly fourdecades. In order to probe the real reason for respondent’sfiring, a civil court—and perhaps a jury—would be required to make a judgment about church doctrine. The credibility of Hosanna-Tabor’s asserted reason for terminating respondent’s employment could not be assessed without taking into account both the importance that theLutheran Church attaches to the doctrine of internal dispute resolution and the degree to which that tenetcompromised respondent’s religious function. If it could be shown that this belief is an obscure and minor part of Lutheran doctrine, it would be much more plausible forrespondent to argue that this doctrine was not the real reason for her firing. If, on the other hand, the doctrine is a central and universally known tenet of Lutheranism,then the church’s asserted reason for her discharge wouldseem much more likely to be non pretextual. But whatever the truth of the matter might be, the mere adjudication of such questions would pose grave problems for religious autonomy: It would require calling witnesses to testify about the importance and priority of the religious doctrinein question, with a civil factfinder sitting in ultimate judgment of what the accused church really believes, and how important that belief is to the church’s overall mission.
At oral argument, both respondent and the United States acknowledged that a pretext inquiry would sometimes be prohibited by principles of religious autonomy, and both conceded that a Roman Catholic priest who is dismissed for getting married could not sue the church and claim that his dismissal was actually based on a ground forbidden by the federal antidiscrimination laws. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 38–39, 50. But there is no principled basis for proscribing a pretext inquiry in such a case while permitting it in a case like the one now before us. The Roman Catholic Church’s insistence on clerical celibacy may be much better known than the Lutheran Church’s doctrine of internal dispute resolution, but popular familiarity with a religious doctrine cannot be the determinative factor.
What matters in the present case is that Hosanna-Tabor believes that the religious function that respondent performed made it essential that she abide by the doctrine of internal dispute resolution; and the civil courts are in noposition to second-guess that assessment. This conclusion rests not on respondent’s ordination status or her formal title, but rather on her functional status as the type of employee that a church must be free to appoint or dismissin order to exercise the religious liberty that the First Amendment guarantees.
Bresson Film Festival
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 11 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
This Festival began last Friday at the Film Forum, and is going on until the 19th. Writing for the WSJ, Kristin Jones says, “How can the invisible be portrayed onscreen? Through a mysterious alchemy of sound and image, the rigorous and elliptical films of the French director Robert Bresson (1901–1999), which often address sin and redemption in a fallen world, manage to do just that.” Some of us may know Bresson only from his Diary of a Country Priest, an amazing film adaptation of Bernanos’s modern masterpiece of trial and faith, hope, and love.
Googling Glory
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 11 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Culture
Forwarded by a parishioner:
In the late 1980s, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II. He had converted from Lutheranism to the Catholic faith in 1675. The Google doodle pays tribute to his work by presenting the letters of the search engine’s name as geological representations featuring colored layers embedded with fossils. [UPDATE: Yes, Google fails to note that Nicolas was a Catholic Priest, and beatified as stated above.]
Today, Google is celebrating the 374th birthday of the founder of modern geology, Nicolas Steno with a special logo.
As you can see, the logo looks like exploration of the ocean to the earth and it’s inhabitants. It is a great symbolism of Nicolas Steno work. Nicolas Steno was born on January 11, 1638 in Denmark and died on December 5, 1686 in Schwerin, Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Shepherd in Red
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 09 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Events in the Archdiocese
Cardinals wear red, which is a sign of their intimate connection with the vicar of Christ as the pope’s closest advisers. The red not only symbolizes the Holy Spirit, but moreover martyrdom–the proper form of Christian witness. So, there is also the long-standing custom that the pope wears red shoes. Consider Our Savior’s words to St. Peter at the close of John 21:18-19, “You will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” This path is in the footsteps of the Crucified One: “[Jesus] said this signifying by what kind of death [Peter] would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’”
Given that connection, our Archbishop’s words to us are uniquely significant:
Yes, I am honored, humbled, and grateful, …but, let’s be frank: this is not about Timothy Dolan; this is an honor from the Holy Father to the Archdiocese of New York, and to all our cherished friends and neighbors who call this great community home.
It’s as if Pope Benedict is putting the red hat on top of the Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty, or on home plate at Yankee Stadium; or on the spires of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral or any of our other parish churches; this is the successor of Saint Peter saying to the clergy, sisters, brothers, lay faithful of this archdiocese, and to all of our friends and neighbors of New York…
Our frank Archbishop adds, “I sure need your prayers.”
Let us pray for him and for each other in this great City, whose significance calls us in a special way to a crimson commitment–which is indeed, a very unique and Christian kind of honor.
Word to Life – Epiphany (B)
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 07 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Word to Life
Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP was back in town for a couple of days! Just long enough to get him on the air…
Biblical Poetics
Posted by Fr. Bruno M. Shah, O.P. on 02 Jan 2012 | Tagged as: Parish Events
Tonight, we’ll be discussing elements of a biblical poetics, i.e., central ways the Bible presents language (rather speech!) as intentionally made and making, as intentionally crafted and creative, as something that is performed and something that is performing. Of course, we’ll make sure to show the way in which these elements lay groundwork for apocalyptic beauty!
As always, this conference is at 7 PM in the Church Hall and is open and free to everyone.