A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service building in downtown Washington, D.C. (Credit: Rob Crandall/Shutterstock)
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.”
A 2017 effort in the House of Representatives to repeal the amendment died at committee.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 10, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) are urging lawmakers in the House of Representatives to approve t… […]
An Easter Vigil procession at St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco. / Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Lorelei Low
CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Five years ago this week, public health orders issued amid the uncertainty of the novel coronavirus turned Mass schedules across the country and the world upside down.
In those early days following the WHO’s March 11, 2020, declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, the bishops of every U.S. diocese issued some form of dispensation, suspending the obligation that Catholics must attend Sunday Mass in person.
Thousands of parishes and ministries scrambled to develop plans to offer livestreamed Masses, deliver the sacraments in a “socially distanced” manner, and live out the Church’s life as best they could under extraordinary circumstances. Public Masses at most parishes were suspended entirely for a time, and those that were able to reopen were subject, in many areas, to distancing requirements and numerical or percentage-based attendance caps.
As Catholics nationwide adapted to the changes — not knowing how long this new reality might last — observers feared that many Catholics, barred from their parishes for so long and now accustomed to attending from the comfort of home, might not return after the parish doors reopened.
A study from the Pew Research Center found that most Catholics continued participating in Mass throughout the pandemic — but many were only able to do so virtually. In November 2022, when the survey was done, only about 4 in 10 U.S. Catholics said they attended Mass in person as often as they did before the pandemic.
Indeed, from the start of the COVID pandemic lockdowns in the U.S. to the declared end of the pandemic in May 2023, in-person Mass attendance averaged just 15% — a dismal figure, but not markedly lower than the 24% it was before. (The Catholic Church teaches that Catholics are obligated to attend Mass in person every Sunday, except for a serious reason such as illness or if they’ve been dispensed from their obligation by their pastor or bishop.)
Some bishops lifted the dispensations they had issued as early as late 2020, while a few held out until 2022. In lifting the dispensations they issued amid the lockdowns, many U.S. bishops implored Catholics to return to Mass in person.
While Mass attendance today among Catholics in the U.S. remains much lower than among Catholics in other countries, recent data has suggested that U.S. in-person Mass attendance levels have quietly returned to where they were in 2019 after years of uncertainty over whether they would ever rebound.
For some thriving parishes in the U.S., the lockdowns — while challenging — presented an opportunity to continue sharing the faith in a creative manner and come out even stronger than they were before.
Father John Mosimann, pastor at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Fredericksburg, Virginia, told CNA that the parish has seen its numbers grow since the pandemic.
On a typical weekend, Mosimann and his four parochial vicars celebrate 11 total Masses in English, plus another in Spanish at a different parish where they are kick-starting a Spanish Mass ministry.
All told, roughly 3,800 people attended St. Mary’s weekend Masses on a typical week in 2019. According to headcounts, the parish had already exceeded its pre-pandemic levels by 2023, with around 4,300 attendees on average. The parish, which is about 55 miles south of Washington, D.C., has 6,700 registered families and nearly 100 active ministries.
Father John Mosimann poses with altar servers and Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia. Credit: Photo courtesy of Father John Mosimann
During the pandemic, St. Mary’s added extra Masses — since for a time, Masses were limited to a smaller-than-usual number of attendees — and continued hosting adoration. Like so many other parishes, the parish had to quickly adapt to a livestreaming paradigm in order to stay connected with the community.
“I was in the office and I was looking at Facebook and I said, ‘What if I hit this button and go live, what would happen?’” Mosimann remembers thinking as the lockdowns began.
“And so I started streaming on Facebook Live and everybody started jumping in … ’What’s going on, Father? What’s going to happen?’ And I didn’t have answers, because I wasn’t that great a prophet. But we did immediately start streaming.”
He said parishioners were grateful for the effort the priests made to stay in touch, despite the occasional technical challenge — a problem far from unique to St. Mary’s.
“If you want perfect sound and you want a studio, go to EWTN. They’ve got professional equipment. If you want to see your priests, come talk to us,” Mosimann said he told his parishioners.
“We’re not going to be anxious over having studio quality, because what’s important is for us to be connected to you. People responded to that. People were very grateful for that. It was very frequently cited by parishioners, how grateful they were for our staying in touch with them during that difficult moment.”
Father John Mosimann baptizes a child at his parish, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Credit: Ginny Foreman
The last of Virginia’s capacity-restricting public health orders on venues was lifted in late May 2021, and Bishop Michael Burbidge of the local Diocese of Arlington in the following month lifted the dispensation he had issued, inviting Catholics to return to Mass throughout the diocese. So far, as in most U.S. dioceses, Mass attendance overall in Arlington has risen significantly but has not quite returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Since the pandemic’s end, Mosimann said his focus has been on encouraging parishioners to use their time and talents generously to help rebuild and grow the parish community.
For Mosimann, the pandemic experience was proof that by remaining faithful even through troubling and difficult times, God can and does bring good out of bad situations through his grace.
“[We] did everything we could to provide the sacraments to God’s people and to make it available as much as possible with all the restrictions. That should be the goal of every parish, every day, whether there’s a pandemic or not,” Mosimann said.
‘We are proud to be who we are’
Father Michael Hurley, OP, pastor of St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco, said his parish, which offers what he believes is the largest young adult presence in the entire archdiocese, regularly sees attendance numbers today that are similar to pre-pandemic levels.
The parish was able to safely provide the sacraments to those in need during the pandemic and had, providentially, already set up livestreaming for Masses shortly before the start of the pandemic. To this day the parish maintains a healthy online base of Dominican laypeople who tune in for Masses and prayer.
Father Michael Hurley, OP, (left) and his fellow priests from St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco cross the street in a homage to “Abbey Road.” Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Ivi Fandino
Hurley said he personally never worried during lockdown about people not returning to Mass, instead trusting that Catholics would return when they could. He said his main concern was keeping the church building open safely during the pandemic — in a state with some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country — to maintain sacramental support.
California finally lifted all capacity restrictions on religious gatherings in April 2021 after previously implementing a near-total ban on indoor services that was contested all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The sanctuary of St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco. Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Alex Mizuno
Though the demographics of St. Dominic Parish has changed somewhat, in-person worshippers, many of whom work in the Bay Area’s high-tech sector, have returned in large numbers.
“The Lord is always searching for the strays, right? … All you have to do is open the doors and do what you’re doing, and people will come,” Hurley told CNA.
That said, Hurley said he believes St. Dominic’s beautiful church building, welcoming atmosphere, and a strong sense of identity — as a Dominican-led parish that aims to “radiate the joy of the Gospel in the heart of the city” — helps to make it an attractive place for Catholics, especially young adults. They also keep the church building open for personal prayer throughout the day, a rarity in a city that occasionally struggles with crime.
“We are proud to be who we are as Catholics, and for us as clergy, as Dominicans. And that makes a huge difference,” Hurley said.
Denver, Colo., Oct 30, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- As a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America continues its trek north to the United States, the U.S. bishops’ conference and leaders of Catholic aid agencies have urged government offic… […]
12 Comments
Harris was speaking at churches during her campaign – how was this compliant?
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.