Last week the United States Supreme Court released an opinion in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission which represents another major win for religious liberties. The Court reaffirmed that any state law which establishes a denomination preference is inherently suspect and must be subject to strict scrutiny.
The facts of this case are simple. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin created Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. to serve as its social ministry arm. Catholic Charities provides services to the poor and disadvantaged. Importantly, and as required by Canon Law, Catholic Charities and its subsidiaries do not engage in any proselytism. That is the charity work is not used to coerce others into joining the Catholic Church.
This however was a problem for Wisconsin. The state denied Catholic Charities request for an exemption, as a religious employer, from the Wisconsin unemployment compensation program. This decision was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who held that to qualify the entity must be operated primarily for religious reasons. The Wisconsin court instructed courts to determine this based “on whether an organization participated in worship services, religious outreach, ceremony, or religious education.” Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Indus. Rev. Comm’n, 411 Wis. 1d 1, 34–35, 3 N.W. 3d 666, 682 (Wis. 2025). Since Catholic Charities did not limit its services to Catholics and did not attempt to convert the recipients to Catholicism, the Court held it was not operated primarily for religious reasons because the services “could be provided by organizations of either religious or secular motivation[].” Id. at 35–36.
The United States Supreme Court reversed this decision. First, the Court noted that any law which differentiates between religions along theological lines “is textbook denominational discrimination.” Here the Court found that the Wisconsin law grants a denominational preference because it differentiates between religions based on theological practices. Since Canon Law forbids proselytism, Catholic Charities is only disqualified from the exemption because of its theological practice.[1] Such a result is antithetical to our country’s commitment to religious liberty. A law cannot apply, or not apply, to a religious organization based solely on decisions of the organization which are inherently religious.
This is a profound win for religious liberty. Had the Wisconsin court’s decision been allowed to stand, it would have allowed state and local governments to condition receipt of many protections offered to religious organizations on the organization behaving in a certain way.
However, it could have gone further. At oral argument, there were a number of questions about the constitutionality of courts, and state administrative agencies, evaluating religious beliefs. Said differently, the Court left unanswered the question of whether courts can decide whether actions are religious. Typically, the sincerity of religious beliefs is accepted if pleaded. But cases like Catholic Charities demonstrate a growing trend of courts and state and local administrative bodies deciding for themselves whether an individual or organization’s beliefs are religious. Hopefully, the Court will address this in a future case as the government similarly has no business deciding what activity or belief is sufficiently religious in any situation.
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[1] The Wisconsin Supreme Court acknowledged that Catholic Charities is controlled and directed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior and therefore satisfied the other prerequisites for exemption.
