Washington D.C., Jan 30, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Longstanding court precedent has recognized religious schools’ right to pursue their mission in faculty employment decisions, and so the National Labor Relations Board wrongly claimed jurisdiction over Duquesne University, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has said in a decision vacating the board’s recognition of a labor union for adjunct faculty.
“Just like churches, schools may pursue a religious mission. Indeed, education is at the core of religious activity for many Americans,” Judge Thomas Griffith said in the 2-1 decision issued Jan. 28. Court precedent has recognized teachers’ “critical and unique role” in “fulfilling the mission of a church-operated school,” he said.
“This holds true regardless of whether the teacher provides instruction in religious or secular subjects,” Griffith continued. “Given this vital role played by teachers, exercising jurisdiction over disputes involving teachers at any church-operated school presented a ‘significant risk that the First Amendment will be infringed’.”
He cited the NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago 1979 Supreme Court decision, which sided with the Catholic schools’ refusal to recognize a teachers’ union. The Supreme Court held that the labor board lacked jurisdiction over all teachers at church-operated schools.
Similar cases said this reasoning applied to religious colleges and universities, according to Griffith. Various precedents deny the labor board the ability to inquire about the relationship of faculty to religious mission for fear of chilling effect on the free exercise of religion and disrupting a community’s ability to define itself.
Duquesne is a Catholic school of about 6,000 undergraduates and 3,000 graduate students. It is the only U.S.-based university affiliated with the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.
Adjunct faculty organizing efforts formalized in 2012, when a majority of about 88 adjuncts at Duquesne’s McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts sought to unionize through the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Allied-Industrial and Service Workers International Union. At present they teach 44 percent of all credit hours in the university’s core curriculum, including math, science, writing, philosophy, theology, and ethics, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
Duquesne asked the national labor relations board to vacate the election, but the board’s regional officials asserted jurisdiction on the grounds Duquesne did not hold out to the public that its adjunct faculty performed specific religious roles at the school.
In 2018, the university challenged the labor board’s ruling in federal court.
Gabriel Welsch, a spokesman for Duquesne University, welcomed the Jan. 28 decision.
“The university is grateful that the court recognized the importance of our religious mission in rendering this significant decision,” Welsch said. “The Constitution’s First Amendment protection of religious freedom from government intrusion and regulation is one of America’s most important rights, and we are pleased that the court upheld the religious rights of Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit.”
Welsch said the university has deep respect and appreciation for unions, citing its long-term relationships with four unions which represent several hundred non-faculty employees.
“The university looks forward to continuing those positive and fruitful relationships in every way,” the spokesman said.
United Steelworkers spokeswoman Jess Kamm Broomell said the union is “disappointed with the court’s decision and even more concerned that Duquesne’s administration would fight this hard to keep their workers from having a voice on the job.”
“Unlike other Catholic universities that recognized adjunct faculty unions, the Duquesne administration decided to invoke its status as a religiously affiliated institution in an effort to stop adjuncts from joining together to improve their working conditions and the university community,” Kamm Broomell said.
It is unknown whether the national labor board will appeal the ruling, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Catholicism in America has had a long tradition of supporting labor unions. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issues a statement every Labor Day. The U.S. bishops were critical of a major 2018 Supreme Court ruling striking down mandatory fees paid to public-sector unions undermines workers. They cited Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in veritate, which defends labor unions and objects to limits on their freedom.
In her dissent from the appellate court ruling, Judge Cornelia Pillard argued that the ban on unionization under national labor board rules applies only to full-time faculty, not part-time adjuncts who “often have a very different role.”
“It is not at all apparent that temporary, part-time adjuncts whom the school does not even hold out as agents of its religious mission necessarily fall within an exemption from the National Labor Relations Act that was drawn to account for the ‘critical and unique role’ of faculty in ‘fulfilling the mission of a church-operated school’,” she said.
Welsch said that in the wake of the court decision, Duquesne president Ken Gormley is “committed to taking a fresh look” at the university’s engagement with adjunct faculty.
“The university looks forward to working with our adjuncts, and indeed with all of our faculty and staff, to identify the right solutions for our wonderful community of scholars, teachers, and learners in the context of our unique mission,” Welsh said. “Our Catholic and Spiritan mission requires nothing less.”
The court also recognized the Catholic identity of the school.
“Duquesne holds itself out as providing a religious educational environment by publicly identifying itself as a Catholic institution guided by Catholic principles, providing regular Catholic religious services on campus, and encouraging students to participate in religious study groups, lectures, and projects,” the appellate court’s ruling said.
The court cited the danger of labor board intervention if a school took action against teachers for failing to comply with religious principles and of entanglement in questions like judging the content or application of religious principles.
The lack of jurisdiction similarly means the labor board “will not get involved in disputes between churches and their employees for fear of interfering with the churches’ religious missions.”
The court faulted the labor board’s framing of the issue, saying it pitted academic freedom against religious mission, both because this view entangled the board in adjudicating religious claims, and because it excluded the possibility that the faculty’s exercise of academic freedom might be understood as serving a religious mission.
The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, which filed an amicus brief in support of Duquesne, said the case was about how the government decides to recognize faith-based institutions. The labor board, in the association’s view, “chose to limit the designation of ‘Catholic’ strictly to the work that is done by professors teaching religion or other narrow corners of our institutions to be decided, institution-by-institution, by the NLRB itself.”
“No government office should ever have the power to decide, department-by-department, course-by-course, which ones are doing the Church’s work and which ones are not,” the association said.
Court precedents articulate “the problems that can arise when a government office decides what activity is religious and what is not.” While acknowledging that a number of its Catholic campuses welcome labor unions, the association said that “empowering government offices to decide which components of a university are faith-based is simply the wrong way to protect faculty.”
The appellate court ruling said that because the court has established that the labor board does not have jurisdiction over religious schools and faculty, it did not need to address the plaintiff’s claims that the board lacks jurisdiction for other reasons and claims that the board violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
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It’ll be named a cardinal by F1 in 3,2,1…while the bishop will still be a bishop, but a good one… There are just a few around…
I agree that the St. Michael Prayer should not be forced on people at the end of Mass in a public manner. When I’ve seen this done, it precedes the recessional song and precedes the exit of the clergy, so the prayer is in fact Mass-adjacent and forced upon people in the pews. I also disagree with public praying of the rosary in the nave immediately before or after Mass. Don’t foist your preferred spiritual expressions on others in the nave.
Let the Mass be the Mass. Let people pray in silence before and after Mass.
The practice smacks of superstition, as if we need to add something more to the Mass because Mass isn’t enough.
Why would you say that praying to St. Michael smacks of superstition? What is superstitious about praying to St. Michael?Exorcists are warning that evil is ramping up and that the demonic is increasing all across our country. We need St. Michael now more than ever. And then your comment about praying the Rosary, it sounds like you don’t appreciate the power of the Rosary or how often Our Lady in her apparitions has asked that the Rosary be prayed. As Teresa of Avila once said, “Lord, deliver us from sour-faced saints.”
It’s not an extension of the mass, it’s imploring a saint for help. It’s a short prayer so couldn’t anyone literally hold their breath and then exhale to do their meditation afterwards?
EWTN does it and also begs for laborers; I don’t think it diminishes the mass effect and worship in the least.
So don’t pray them. What could be easier.
Your thought that praying the Rosary and/or the prayer to St. Michael demonstrates a superstitious attempt to add something to the Mass seems to me a kind of spiritual blindness.
Superstition? You need to evaluate your Catholic teaching and knowledge.
When we pray the Rosary before Mass we are meditating on Our Lords life, it prepares us for the celebration of Mass
God bless the good bishop for speaking up in defense of St. Michael’s
prayer. I attend a church where once the Mass is ended and dismissal offered,
the priest and people, myself included, fervently say the prayer. Given the
horrors of contemporary wars, the dishonesty of so many of our institutions,
the tragic loss of innocent lives, the prayer is most appropriate. As Fr.
deSouza wrote in the original column, “evil abounds.” The prayer, which I
well remember as a child, should never have been removed from the liturgy.
The article is unfortunately 1) vague and 2) incorrect in that it states 1) the prayer was used liturgically “until the Vatican II era” and 2) was a “feature of the mass.” As many on here already well know, the so-called Leonine (Leo XIII) prayers were imposed only for low masses (which didn’t even include any procession or singing to be interrupted – to respond to Scott Walker’s comment – and were done by the priest and people, with the priest kneeling on the altar steps, already having ended mass and typically while carrying the sacred vessels in hand. It was a public devotion outside the mass, and included several other prayers, such as the Hail Holy Queen, three Hail Marys, a prayer for the Church, the St. Michael prayer, and ending with three invocations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (therefore ending on a God-centered note). Low masses already ended with the “last gospel” – the first chapter of John, so the issue of “being sent forth” being interrupted makes little sense (yes, I realize the last gospel was suppressed in the revised mass, but still). St. Paul VI suppressed the public Leonine prayers as a required practice in 1964, yes, but it was hardly “banned.” Given the onslaught of evil that is glaringly obviously spreading throughout the world, a quick St. Michael prayer done by the people spontaneously (which is how I usually encounter it) is most welcome. Who could have a problem with that? Snobs? Purists? People who are emotionally allergic to traditional prayers or piety? If the latter, that might be something to take up with a spiritual director.
Yes, everyone is agreed that evil abounds and has been growing all around us for some time. This despite the growth of such devotions as the Rosary and the prayer to St Michael. And there is a Mass said every second of every day somewhere in the world.
How come evil does abound then ?
The evil in the world does not have to become man’s resting place. We are free to develop the alternative, to pray and to act with grace, out of the pit of sin. The Resurrection teaches that. Our first parents, choosing sin instead of paradise, led to us being where we are. The life, death and Resurrection of the Incarnate Word, together with His Church, however, offer us the faith, hope, and love as the alternative to the sinful world.
How do we know that devotional prayer has ‘grown’ over time? The efficacy of prayer relies on the grace of God and the holiness of the prayer.
Imagine the state of evil in the world if there were no Mass and no prayer. I would guess that we hain’t seen nothing yet of the power of evil if we were to stop entreaties to the Power of grace to compensate and to overcome.
Yeah, the St. Michael’s prayer at the end of Mass is the most egregious liturgical abuse today. Give me a break. Clearly the priest has an agenda.
For the priest objecting to the St. Michael prayer, where is his objection to clapping for the cookie ladies and the choir and everyone else at Mass? There are real abuses to be concerned about rather than praying for St. Michael’s guardianship. Get a grip.
the cookie ladies? who said Catholics don’t have a sense of humor; thank you for the chuckle
It reminds me of the lunch ladies 1-8 grades at the Catholic school I attended; good food and they worked for little money but mostly gratitude. We were not allowed to waste food – now food waste is almost a mortal sin in many schools
Fr. Bednar is clearly from the generation of priests who believe Vatican II is the be all and end all of Catholicism. His generation and their fanatical adoption of the “spirit of Vatican II” have literally emptied the pews. The damage done to souls is astronomical. Pray for them; they will have one heck of an accounting to make at their judgment.
The St Michael prayer was written by a holy Pope who warned of Freemasonry seeking to destroy the Church.
The St Michael prayer was cancel-cultured once the Freemasonic destruction of the church was underway 1962-2024.
I read the article in the Wall Street Journal. I did not think it deserved a response.
Now we see these debates over the liturgy.
I was an usher in a Catholic Church in the 1960’s. We agreed if we encountered a serious threat, we would defer to our usher was a police officer.
Fast forward to 2024.
We now live, or die, with gun violence.
St. Micheal is the Patron Saint of Police Officers. The “TOP COP”.
We can use St. Michael and local Police Officers to protect us from gun violence at religious events.
When I was growing up in the 70’s I don’t remember our church being locked, maybe it was at night.
Mr Schmiedeler:
I hope you meant criminal violence in your comment above. A gun is a tool, with no mind or will of its own. It’s a tool that is often unfortunately used for evil and violent acts against mankind, but it’s a tool nonetheless. There is literally is no such thing as gun violence. That terminology is a fabricated lie created by liberals and the mainstream media to distract from the real problem of criminal violence which is stemming from drugs, human trafficking/exploitation,
gangs, (coming across our wide-open southern border) and our increasingly Godless society. If there were such a thing, we’d have to build prisons and for pistols, rifles and shotguns.
I believe that ushers and sacristans should be trained and armed in the event of a violent act by some crazy criminal during Mass, especially if a bishop is present.
Fr.Bednar is a bit suspect.Why should he object to a prayer that has been in the church for so many years.What is his agenda??!! His background should be looked into….
Fr. Bednar comes with a lot of backstory baggage. Currently a retired priest in residence at a parish in Cleveland, he once penned a book lauding Jesuit theologian William Lynch. If I understand correctly, Lynch believed, controverting scholastic and Church teaching on faith and on imagination, that imagination somehow analogically is akin to faith. America has republished a 1943 Lynch article at http://www.americamagazine.org/voices/william-lynch. Commonweal also has an article lauding Lynch. A synopsis of Bednar’s book can be read at http://www.ebay.com/itm/Faith-as-Imagination-The-Contribut-Bednar-Gerald.
Long and short, Fr. Bednar is likely near his life’s end, after a probable lifetime of having seen modernist dreams of his church wafting away as his own lifeblood waned. Then someone offered him the WSJ venue as a means of renewing an aged and infirm man so blood running cold could flow more freely on imagined faith.
Bednar, Lynch, and the ilk of the faith of such fellows speaks against Church practices which arose long before them and VCII. The praying of this prayer will survive long after our day.
Neither Lynch, Bednar nor any progressive modernist can cite evidence against its efficacy on anything other than imaginary grounds.
See the ancient history, beauty, and validity of the St. Michael Prayer at catholiceducation.org/en/culture/the-prayer-to-st-michael.html
The prayer is ***NOT PART OF THE MASS***. ANY PERSON SUBJECTED TO IT against his will AFTER MASS HAS ENDED IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH IS FREE TO VISIT THE REST ROOM, PLUG IN EARPHONES, OR EXIT THE CHURCH, AND GOOD RIDDANCE.
Good and victorious St. Michael the Archangel, as guardian of nations, we thank you for your protection. We praise and thank God for you.