A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service building in downtown Washington, D.C. / Credit: Rob Crandall/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Aug 29, 2024 / 13:04 pm (CNA).
A coalition of religious broadcasters and churches is suing the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over a long-standing rule that forbids certain nonprofits, including churches, from supporting politicians and political campaigns.
The complaint, filed on Wednesday in U.S. district court by the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), argues that churches “are placed in a unique and discriminatory status” by the Internal Revenue Code.
That code automatically classifies almost all churches as 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. Since 1954, the Johnson Amendment of the tax code — named after then-Texas Sen. Lyndon Johnson — forbids 501(c)(3) nonprofits from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
In their lawsuit, meanwhile, the religious broadcasters — along with two churches and the nonprofit Intercessors for America — argue that the tax code punishes churches by “silenc[ing] their speech while providing no realistic alternative for operating in any other fashion.”
The plaintiffs assert in the suit that the 501(c)(3) rules are applied unevenly and that there is “no apparent rational basis for determining which 501(c)(3) organizations will be permitted to proceed and which will be penalized for violating the Johnson Amendment.”
“The IRS acts in an arbitrary and capricious manner vis-à-vis electoral statements by nonprofit organizations,” the suit says, further arguing that the agency “operates in a manner that disfavors conservative organizations and conservative, religious organizations” in its enforcement of the code.
The suit noted that not all of the plaintiffs in the filing want to openly endorse political candidates. Yet all of them “desire to communicate their views about candidates’ positions that are relevant to the issues [they] care about.”
The plaintiffs’ free speech rights are “clearly chilled” by the IRS rule, the suit argues. It posits that the Johnson Amendment violates several constitutional provisions including the First and Fifth Amendments as well as the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The suit asks the court to declare the Johnson Amendment unconstitutional.
In a press release, NRB said the plaintiffs “are making no attempt to obtain a decision prior to the 2024 election.”
“They are not filing a motion for a preliminary injunction or any other motion to expedite the litigation. They do not expect any hearings in the matter prior to the 2024 election,” the release said.
NRB President and CEO Troy Miller said the group believes “that all nonprofits should have the constitutional right to freely express their point of view on candidates, elections, and issues on the ballot.”
“Our challenge to the Johnson Amendment is about securing the future of free expression for all Americans, particularly those standing in the pulpit,” Miller said.
NRB and Intercessors for America are joined in the suit by the Texas churches Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom.
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Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Recent American guidelines for human gene modification have raised important ethical questions, especially with regard to modifying the genes of unborn children and of reproductive cells.
The National Academy of Sciences last week released a 261-page report on guidelines for editing the human genome to treat diseases and other applications. The report covers a wide array of topics, from the editing of adult cells for therapies such as cancer treatment, to the editing of embryos and germ cells (reproductive cells, i.e. ova and sperm), to the question of human enhancement.
John DiCamillo, an ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, spoke to CNA about the perils and the promises of gene editing, as well as the oversights contained in the National Academy of Sciences’ report.
“Gene editing generally can be morally legitimate if it has a directly therapeutic purpose for a particular patient in question, and if we’re sure we’re going to limit whatever changes to this person,” DiCamillo explained. In this regard, the report’s guidelines for laboratory treatment of somatic – or non-reproductive – cells and human trials of somatic cell treatments were reasonable, he noted.
DiCamillo pointed to upcoming clinical gene therapy trials for cancer and proposed gene therapy treatments for disorders such as sickle cell disease. However, it’s important to limit these trials to non-embryonic persons, to ensure that the modifications – intended as well as unintended – are not carried in the patient’s reproductive cells.
While this would mean that patients treated for inheritable diseases “could still transmit it to their children,” any children who then developed the disease could themselves be treated through the same process.
The question of transmission to descendents opens up two more points discussed in the National Academy of Sciences report: the modification of ova and sperm, as well as edits to the genomes of embryos. Both of these changes would mean that people would maintain these edits in all of their cells for all of their lives – and could pass on these edited genes to new generations.
“There could be limited situations that could exist where the germ line could be legitimately edited. In other words, making changes to sperm, to eggs, or to early embryos as a way of potentially addressing diseases – inheritable diseases and so forth,” DiCamillo stated.
However, permitting edits to germ line cells could also be “very dangerous on multiple levels,” he warned.
There are considerable, and not yet fully controllable, risks to genetic manipulation. A person conceived with edited genes could experience a range of “unintended, perhaps harmful, side effects that can now be transmitted, inherited by other individuals down the line.” An embryo who experiences gene modification could also carry and pass on edited genes, particularly if edits were performed before his or her reproductive cells began to differentiate themselves.
The National Academy of Sciences’ regulations surrounding germ cells and embryos are also problematic for what they overlook, DiCamillo commented.
Manipulating sperm and ova requires removing them from a person’s body; if conception is achieved with these cells, it is nearly always through in vitro methods. This practice of in vitro fertilization is held by the Church to be ethically unacceptable because it dissociates procreation from the integrally personal context of the conjugal act.
In addition, scientific researchers rarely differentiate between experimentation on sperm or ova – which are cells that come from a human subject – and embryos, which are distinct persons with their own distinct genomes, DiCamillo noted.
The National Academy of Sciences’ guidelines reflect this lack of distinction between cells and embryos. “That’s very misleading because embryos are not germ line cells; they are new human beings,” DiCamillo said.
For research on embryos to be ethical, he continued, therapies should be ordered to treating and benefitting that “that particular embryo, not just for garnering scientific knowledge or seeing what’s going to happen.” DiCamillo condemned policies that see destruction of embryonic persons as a back-up if research does not go as planned, as well as current policies that require destruction of embryos as standard procedure.
“We’d be in that area of very dangerous exploitation of human life and destruction of human life,” he warned.
While the guidelines stumble across ethical roadblocks in regards to gamete and embryo research, the new report’s rules regarding human enhancement are strong, DiCamillo said.
The ability to edit genomes could also be used for purposes other than medical treatment. A whole host of human traits could be enhanced or changed, such as vision, intelligence, or abilities. “There’s any number of things that we could do to change the qualities of human beings themselves and make them, in a sense, super-humans … this is something that would also be an ethical problem on the horizon,” he warned.
The existence of these gene altering therapies raises a question of how much modification and enhancement is permissible. DiCamillo praised the report for its recommendation “entirely against enhancement efforts and that these should not be allowed.”
Currently, gene editing of both germ cells and somatic cells is legal in the United States, including on embryos. However, various US government institutions have policies in place prohibiting federal funding of such research efforts on germ cells and on embryos.
Furthermore, Food and Drug Administration regulations prohibit gene modification on viable human embryos – meaning that human embryos who receive gene modification are always destroyed.
The new guidelines from the National Academy of Sciences are significant because they lay a groundwork for future policy on human gene modification. They cautiously welcome the use of gene therapy on human embryos who are not later targeted for destruction after experimentation concludes.
DiCamillo recalled, however, that “they are merely guidelines – they are advice from the National Academy of the Sciences to the government in regards to future policy. This is not itself a new regulation or policy that the government has established.”
The ethics of gene editing has been questioned for several years – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addressed the issue in Dignitas personae, its 2008 instruction on certain bioethical questions. It has become more pressing recently, however, because a new technique known as CRISPR is easier to use and less expensive than previous means of gene editing.
Although the ethical questions surrounding gene modification are many and there are a number of problematic applications of these technologies, DiCamillo cautioned Catholics not to renounce completely human gene modification: “We don’t want to be hyper-reactive to the dangers. We have to realize there’s a great deal of good that can be done here.”
He pointed again to the kinds of modifications that can treat deadly genetic diseases and treatments that can be done in an ethical manner, with full respect to the dignity of human persons.
“We do need to be attentive to where the dangers are,” he warned, “but we don’t want to … automatically consider any kind of gene editing to be automatically a problem.”
Pope Francis at the general audience in the Vatican, Aug. 24, 2022 / Pablo Esparza / CNA
Rome Newsroom, Aug 24, 2022 / 07:37 am (CNA).
In a message Wednesday, Pope Francis warned against letting ideology influence the Church’s ordained and lay … […]
Legatus President Stephen Henley is pictured here speaking at the organization’s 2025 annual conference last month in Naples, Florida. / Credit: Courtesy of Legatus
Miami, Fla., Mar 13, 2025 / 07:20 am (CNA).
In today’s culture, often hostile to expressions of faith, many Catholics struggle with how to hold true to their values within the workplace. That’s why, in 1987, Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan started the Catholic organization Legatus.
From the Latin word for “ambassador,” Legatus aims to empower Catholic presidents, CEOs, and managing partners to become what St. Paul coined “ambassadors for Christ,” explained Stephen Henley, president of Legatus.
Offering peer support groups, networking, speakers, pilgrimages, and an annual international summit, Legatus’s goal is to “inspire members to live out their faith in all aspects of their life.” There are currently about 90 Legatus chapters in North America.
Chapter meetings are held once a month, providing the opportunity for members and their spouses to participate in confession and Mass, the recitation of the rosary, a cocktail reception dinner, and a speaker’s presentation.
“All of this is to help fortify the members’ marriage, the peer support group, the networking of this group, and then embolden them to go out and live their faith,” said Henley. “Tom felt that if we can bring together these Catholic CEOs, how much more can we change society with these people that have high impact and high influence?”
In interviews with Catholic News Agency, Hawkins, Dean Abela, and Henley covered three tips for bringing the Catholic worldview into the workplace.
Commit to your priorities
Dean Andrew Abela’s Catholic faith wasn’t always as important to him as it is now. As a teenager, he even stopped practicing.
“I came back in my mid-20s, funnily enough, while I was in business school,” he recalled. As a student in 1991, he encountered Pope John Paul II’s new encyclical letter Centesimus Annus, and the pope’s reflection on economics changed the trajectory of his life.
“Just a few months after, I returned to the Church,” he said. “When I reverted to the faith, I wanted to know what my newly rediscovered Catholic faith meant for a life in business.”
Andrew Abela is dean of the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. Credit: Legatus
After working for companies including Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and the Corporate Executive Board, in 2002 Dean Abela eventually began teaching at the Catholic University of America. He is also a consultant to Fortune 100 corporations.
“The reason I left business and switched to academia was that I wanted to dedicate myself full-time to studying questions about what it means to be a faithful Catholic in the workplace,” he explained.
A member of Legatus since 2000, Dean Abela mentioned that members can follow what the organization terms a “spiritual plan” to attend daily Mass, recite the rosary daily, and do monthly confession.
Known as Tres Magna, or the “Big Three,” this plan was inspired by Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula, who “attributed the perfect season to him going to daily Mass,” explained Stephen Henley. “Tom [Monaghan] thought, well, if he can go, there’s no reason why I can’t go.”
“Daily Mass, daily rosary, and monthly confession will align your life and priorities,” added Henley.
Find a supportive community
When Kristan Hawkins first encountered Legatus, she was not a Catholic. Hawkins was raised an Evangelical. After Students for Life’s 2006 launch, she began speaking at Legatus events.
In 2014, Hawkins decided to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, “a pilgrimage Legatus had sponsored.” “I was the only Protestant there,” she recalled. “I decided there that I was going to enter RCIA.”
She became a full-fledged member of Legatus soon after becoming Catholic.
“As a pro-life activist who starts a pro-life organization, I want to save babies, I want to end abortion, I want to help as many families and women. You don’t start a non-profit because you’re necessarily a great business leader or have all these skills. You started this non-profit, this mission, because you want to see this mission accomplished,” Hawkins said. “For me, that’s one of the powerful benefits of being in Legatus, is having friends and mentors who were successful in the for-profit world who I can call on and ask questions.”
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. Credit: Legatus
“It’s very powerful and important to have those relationships. For me, in the work I’m doing, it’s a constant spiritual attack,” she added. “One of the best things about Legatus is I can call any of my Legatus friends at any moment, and they’ll be there for you. They know the power of the work we do and the resistance we face.”
Dean Abela also finds a sense of community in Legatus and also strives to build a supportive Catholic community at the Catholic University of America.
“We share with students the principles of Catholic social doctrine, things like human dignity and solidarity, and try to embed these principles into all of our classes,” he explained. “We’re also increasingly trying to give them opportunities to practice different virtues as part of their studies and schoolwork.”
For instance, Dean Abela explained, “To teach graduate students about decision-making, we go through a couple of survivor simulations, where you crash land in the north of Canada and you have to decide what you’re going to do. We have them go through decision-making exercises explicitly practicing the virtue of prudence or practical wisdom, the habit of making wise decisions. We break apart the components of practical wisdom, which include things like alertness, preparedness, and reasoning, and we have them try to exercise those as part of the decision-making process.”
These skills built in the classroom can be applied not only in business, but also in students’ personal lives.
Model the behavior you expect from others and celebrate your co-workers’ integrity
For Henley, giving authentic witness to the Catholic faith in the workplace can start with a simple “hello.”
“First, live the golden rule,” he said. “When you’re walking down the hall, say hello to the janitor, to the executive, and to everyone in between. It matters a lot.”
He added: “Another practical thing: take the opportunity to pray before meals. If you’re going on business lunches, you’ll be surprised at how many people say, ‘Yeah of course, let’s pray.’ It’s more common than not for people to pray before meals. The fact that you’re doing it shows that you’re a bold leader and that you’re spiritual.”
Dean Abela agrees that these types of habits make all the difference, and were the subject of the presentation he made of his book Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life last month during the 2025 Legatus Summit.
“The main focus of the book is understanding that things like diligence, honesty, and resilience are not genetic characteristics. They are habits that anyone can acquire through practice,” Dean Abela explained. “Companies can focus on one of the most important virtues and give employees opportunities to practice those virtues.”
For instance, Dean Abela explained the GrowVirtue App, an AI-driven app “based on the work of the book,” which organizations can use to evaluate which virtues their company has already made a habit of, which virtues they might target, and tips for how to make progress.
“The important thing is that the company would choose a virtue that they think would be directly beneficial to the company right now,” said Dean Abela. “Although personal results are private, the whole company can see what employees as a whole are weakest in. So, if you’re trying to grow in customer service, you might encourage the virtue of friendship or friendliness.”
Dean Abela discussed the value of recognizing virtue both inside and outside the company.
“See examples in action or read about examples,” he suggested. “You can have employees watch videos or you can share articles that demonstrate examples of a particular virtue in action. And you can make sure senior folks are role models for junior employees.”
“Most importantly, give the employees the opportunity to practice the virtues, and give feedback,” he added. “When companies give awards, they tend to do this more with core values. They should shift to core virtues and give it to people who are exemplars of that virtue.”
Ultimately, the goal for Catholics is to live authentic lives that draw others to Christ.
“Stay true to who you are, don’t give in,” said Hawkins. “They’ll know you by your fruits. I think that’s very important. You don’t have to work in the pro-life movement or specifically in an apostolate to be a good Catholic, a faithful Christian in the workplace. You can do that in any job, in any position you have – in McDonald’s or in a Fortune 500 company.”
The problem seems to be that the government has classified them as 501(c)3 churches, and there is no way to designate themselves as something else, which would allow them to pay taxes like other organizations and have free speech.
Your idea is illegal, until the government makes it legal, hence the lawsuit.
If they would like to have political speech, then they should be taxed like the rest of us with political speech.
One or the other.
Not both.
The problem seems to be that the government has classified them as 501(c)3 churches, and there is no way to designate themselves as something else, which would allow them to pay taxes like other organizations and have free speech.
Your idea is illegal, until the government makes it legal, hence the lawsuit.