Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior, which has programs for the disabled, elderly, and impoverished, argued caring for those in need is part of its religious mission. / Credit: Catholic Charities Bureau
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 13, 2024 / 19:18 pm (CNA).
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision to remove its religious organization designation and bar it from receiving a religious tax exemption.
The agency, which operates under the purview of the Diocese of Superior and has programs for the disabled, elderly, and impoverished, argued caring for those in need is part of its religious mission.
“Catholic Charities Bureau carries out our diocese’s essential ministry of caring for the most vulnerable members of our society,” Bishop James Powers of Superior said in a statement released on the day of Catholic Charities’ appeal to the Supreme Court.
“We pray the court will recognize that this work of improving the human condition is rooted in Christ’s call to care for those in need,” Powers added.
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior is appealing a March ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that said the organization isn’t entitled to receive a religious exemption and must pay into the state unemployment system. The 4-3 ruling said that because Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior’s activities are not “primarily” religious the group does not qualify as a religious organization.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court also said that to successfully challenge the state’s primarily religious standard, Catholic Charities would have to prove it was unconstitutional “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
On Aug. 9 Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior appealed the March ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The group is being represented by Becket, a firm that specializes in religious liberty cases and has been involved with several high-profile Supreme Court cases.
In its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Catholic Charities called the Wisconsin court’s ruling “absurd” and argued that it curtails its First Amendment rights by “penalizing Catholic Charities for engaging in critical parts of its ministry” including “serving those in need without proselytizing.”
“The state denied Catholic Charities an exemption precisely because its religious beliefs and exercise differed from what the Wisconsin Supreme Court thought were ‘typical’ religious activities,” Catholic Charities wrote in its appeal. “That wrongly disfavors those religious traditions that ask believers to care for the poor without strings attached.”
The appeal states that a ruling by the Supreme Court would resolve religious liberty questions impacting churches and faiths beyond just Wisconsin.
The questions Catholic Charities, represented by Becket, are posing to the Supreme Court are: 1) whether a state violates the First Amendment by denying tax breaks to one religious group while denying them to another; and 2) whether a state can impose a beyond a reasonable doubt standard for constitutional challenges.
According to the appeal, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision “deepens a split among lower courts over whether federal constitutional violations must be proven ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’”
The appeal argues that this case is the “ideal vehicle” to resolve the split and to “set this important area of law onto a firmer — and constitutionally sounder — footing.”
“It shouldn’t take a theologian to understand that serving the poor is a religious duty for Catholics,” Eric Rassbach, vice president of Becket, said in a statement. “But the Wisconsin Supreme Court embraced the absurd conclusion that Catholic Charities has no religious purpose. We’re asking the Supreme Court to step in and fix that mistake.”
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City skyline in Sydney, Australia. / Irina Sokolovskaya/Shutterstock
CNA Newsroom, Apr 15, 2024 / 07:30 am (CNA).
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A young woman holds a pro-life sign during a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. / Joseph Portolano/CNA
Washington D.C., Jun 25, 2023 / 06:40 am (CNA).
Marking the first anniversary of Roe being overturned, a group of pro-life leaders rallied hundreds to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Saturday with the message that they were united around the fight for full, legal protection for the unborn from the moment of conception in all 50 states.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told those gathered on a sunny, hot summer day that while she celebrated the 25 states that have passed strong pro-life laws, “we are in fact living in a divided states of America” where “a person’s location determines if they will survive the abortion gauntlet as we did.”
Hawkins said the country must become “an America where every human being is recognized as the unrepeatable person as they are with equal rights and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed, not because of what state their mother resides in or if they are perceived to be convenient or the circumstances of their conception.”
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Hawkins told CNA that pro-life leaders are uniting around the belief “that every human being is a human person at conception” and that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal justice clauses should be equally applied to persons in the womb.
“At a very minimum if you’re running for federal office, you should be able to acknowledge that abortion is a federal issue,” she said. “We want to see every presidential contender join with us to acknowledge what is so clearly written in the Fourteenth Amendment: that all human beings are human persons and deserve equal protection of our laws.”
Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called the Fourteenth Amendment “one of the most beautiful notes in our national song” and lamented that “when it comes to preborn children we have failed to extend these protections.”
Speaking at a rally in front of of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children.”. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Rose called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children. It is inconceivable that we would selectively deny these rights to one group of human beings solely based on their location: the womb.”
Republican presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently called on his fellow GOP presidential candidates to join him in backing a “minimum” nationwide 15-week abortion limit, made an appearance at the rally.
“As we celebrate this anniversary, let us here resolve that we will work and we will pray as never before to advance the cause of life in the laws of the land in every state in America. That we will support women in crisis pregnancies with resources and support for their care, for the unborn, and for the newborn as never before,” Pence said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
“We stand for the babies and their unalienable right to life,” he said, pledging that he and his family “will never rest and never relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-life America, shared words of advice for the growing list of 2024 presidential candidates: “Get your act together. Figure out what you’re for and advance it. Don’t wait,” she urged.
“We have consensus in this country,” she added. “Start with that and be the president you’re called to be in justice and love for moms and justice and love for their babies.” Consistent Gallup polling shows that the majority of Americans would prefer to limit abortion to the first three months of pregnancy.
There were many young people in the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, including Katriel Nyman, a 17-year-old from Washington state who is with Students for Life Tri-Cities. She told CNA that it was “really encouraging to see a bunch of people who believe in rights from conception.”
She said she’d “like to see more pro-lifers continue to persevere through this” post-Dobbs fight because “even if abortion isn’t legal in your state, you should be fighting for the rights of infants that are soon to be born in other states.”
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, holds a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that reads “We have dignified the children of Adam,” at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023. Lauretta Brown/CNA
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, held a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that read “We have dignified the children of Adam.”
She told CNA that she wanted to make her voice heard as a Muslim who believes, based on her faith, that abortion is wrong in most cases. She said many Muslims followers feel, as she does, that life begins “in the first couple weeks after conception.”
Munshi said that in the year since the Dobbs decision, “a lot of people that I know who don’t have strong opinions on abortion have been coming out either in favor or against” abortion. She sees it as valuable that there’s more discourse about the abortion issue and people are “coming to more conclusions for themselves as opposed to maybe rhetoric that they’ve seen in the news or rhetoric that they feel has been a part of their political platform.”
Jessica Newell, a Catholic student who is interning with Live Action and entering her third year at Coastal Carolina University, told CNA that “it’s so important for people who are indoctrinated by this culture to learn the truth about biology and the truth about God and that they’re made in the image of God.”
She emphasized that the pro-life movement still has so much to do and part of that work is “letting people know that they’re loved, that is a big step in changing the culture to a culture of life.”
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stands alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stood at the rally alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, and a sign which read “Babies survive abortions. I am one of them.”
“This was a very personal thing for Roe to be overturned,” she told CNA, “It is a day that we can celebrate, but it has not been a chance to pause, take our breath, it has been a time of continuing to hit the ground running.”
In her work heading the Abortion Survivors Network, Ohden said that since the Dobbs decision she’s heard from “more women than ever reaching out to us after their chemical abortions have failed.” She said it’s important to reach moms who are vulnerable to chemical abortions which make up the majority of abortions in the country.
Ohden said that since Dobbs the pro-life movement “has continued to be the side that is providing resources and support whether it’s in communities, at the state level, pushing for federal policy that supports mothers and children and families in a greater way.”
Her daughter Olivia said it was “amazing” to be at the rally with her mom and called the issue an emotional one because “people like my mom should be protected no matter who they are, where they are.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 8, 2022 / 15:17 pm (CNA).
For Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Sunday Mass will become obligatory once again after a general dispensation was granted at the beginning of the COVI… […]
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