CNA Staff, Jul 8, 2025 / 13:54 pm (CNA).
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) this week backed off a decades-old rule first established during the Eisenhower administration, declaring for the first time since the 1950s that churches and other nonprofits can openly endorse political candidates without risking their tax-exempt status.
The order resolves a lawsuit launched in August 2024 by a coalition of religious broadcasters, one that challenged the 1954 Johnson Amendment, which says that 501(c)(3) nonprofits may not “participate in or intervene in” political campaigns.
Advocates have argued that the rule shields the nonprofit industry from caustic politics. The National Religious Broadcasters, meanwhile, said in its suit that the tax rule punished churches by “silenc[ing] their speech while providing no realistic alternative for operating in any other fashion.”
In a filing on Monday with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas, the IRS agreed with the religious broadcasters in that “communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services” do not run afoul of the amendment’s prohibition on “participating in” campaigns.
The rule “imposes a substantial burden on plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion,” the filing states.
The document points to numerous nonprofits that are allowed to opine on political candidacies even as churches remain barred from doing so. The Johnson Amendment is “not a neutral rule of general applicability,” it says.
Religious entities “cannot fulfill their spiritual duties to teach the full counsel of the Word of God if they fail to address such issues and to inform their listeners how the views of various political candidates compare to the Bible’s position on such matters,” it states.
The Monday filing asked the court to accept the agreement, which will bar the IRS from enforcing the rule. The court accepted the decision shortly after its filing.
The National Religious Broadcasters did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump said at the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast that he aspired to “get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.”
When proposed in 1954, the Johnson Amendment was passed with no debate, according to the congressional record.
A 2017 effort in the House of Representatives to repeal the amendment died at committee.
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Harris was speaking at churches during her campaign – how was this compliant?
Dream City Church, Phoenix, 180 Church Detroit: Trump on campaign!!! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!
Black protestant churches have been entertaining Democrat politicians running for office for almost a hundred years and no one in government ever did a damn thing about it. Who’s kidding whom? Democrats make up their own rules.
It might be more accurate to say that the IRS gag rule has now been lifted for white, conservative/traditional churches. Black churches and progressive churches have been overtly political with no consequences for decades.
But what about those who FAIL to endorse?
So it was never a statutory restriction but a regulatory interpretation? Happy if it is, but then it says a lot about the Catholic Church’s toeing the line all these decades to remain in the good graces of auditors. (Maybe the Catholic press will also discover its “voice” on matters political?)
I doubt the timidity of priests and bishops has much to do with the IRS. I hope I’m wrong, but I think that was just an excuse, and the real reason has always been a desire for that “friendship with the world” (James 4:4) that is part of the “spirit of Vatican II”.
Johnson was very aggresive; probably the tone he set stuck around
The practical effect of this as far as Catholic Church is concerned, for the time being, will likely be minimal. In Ohio a couple of few ago, the abortion legalization referendums on the ballot were often hardly brought up at all from the pulpit. That was certainly the case at my parish, staffed by two youngish and moderately conservative priests. When they mentioned it all, the comments were brief and vague. Once called it a “difficult” matter. This happened despite the fact that these issues were not subject at all to the rules regulating political speech at churches since they didn’t involve candidates for office. In other words, speaking openly on the issues would not have jeopardized the Church’s exempt status and many priests still declined to speak about them.
If anything, the wrong people will feel even more emboldened to inject their ill-considered SJW views into their homilies and petitions. We’ll probably hear more on migration, climate change, capital punishment, racism and all the rest. Meanwhile, most of the conservatives will remain reticent and timid.
I think you’re right. Bear in mind, though, that the problem with putting your faith in princes is not fixed by putting it in different princes.
By my count there are things that are not talked about in sermons: Abortion, the importance of going to confession and the Rosary. The change in the IRS interpretation only effect the first of these. What has prevented the preaching of the last two.
You can add the reality of hell to your list. It is also the most inexcusable omision.