Two cases, highlighted below, where individuals, institutions, and a whole diocese have fallen short of the Church’s teaching on Labor.
From IWJ: Healthcare workers in Michigan–and across the country–need our support!
In his recent Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly speaks of the “grave dangers for the rights of workers” that today imperil so many of our friends and neighbors who struggle daily to provide security for their families. It is imperative that people of faith stand with those workers hoping to secure wages and benefits consistent with their dignity as children of God.
Ascension Health is the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system, comprised of 37 health systems or centers in 20 states, totaling over 570 hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centers, labs, and other facilities. The employees of Genesys Health System, a member of Ascension Health, provide health care services in the Flint, Michigan area.
The management of Genesys is proposing severe wage, benefit, and pension cuts for several hundred of its employees. These healthcare workers are men and women committed to serving the health and welfare of the members of their communities.
On Friday, March 12, Genesys workers and their supporters traveled to the Ascension headquarters in St. Louis, Mo. to protest these wage and benefit cuts. Workers also gathered at Ascension centers in seven cities across the country – Washington, D.C., Buffalo, N.Y., Tucson, Ariz, Detroit, Flint, Mich. and Kansas City, Mo. – and held vigils before the management of Ascension and its subsidiary, Genesys Health System.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reminds us that “among the elements of a just and fair workplace [in medical and health care centers] are: fair wages, adequate benefits, safe and decent working conditions…” (See A Fair and Just Workplace: Principles and Practices for Catholic Health Care.) These things are indispensible if we hope to assure quality care for patients and dignity for working people.
As has been seen in several Labor issues over the past few years, the message often does not translate into action. While the R.C. Church is not unique in pushing out Unions, or resisting employee efforts to unionize, it should hold itself to a higher standard, especially in light of Encyclicals exhorting fair treatment of workers going back to Leo XIII.
From the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit via BNA: Ninth Circuit Nixes Seminarian’s Wage Claim, Says Exception Applies to Priest-in-Training
The First Amendment’s “ministerial exception” barred a Catholic seminarian from bringing his claim for unpaid overtime compensation against the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle under the Washington Minimum Wage Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled March 16 (Rosas v. Corp. of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, 9th Cir., No. 09-35003, 3/16/10 [pdf]).
Judge Robert R. Beezer wrote for the unanimous panel that the “ministerial exception helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here.” “The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars [Cesar] Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings,” Beezer wrote.
In affirming the lower court, Beezer found that the interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses carves out an exception to otherwise applicable statutes if enforcing them would interfere with religious organizations’ employment decisions about their ministers.
Seminarian in Ministry Training Program
Rosas was a Mexican seminarian who was required to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Wash., located in Snohomish County, as part of the ordination process for the Catholic priesthood.
Rosas and another Mexican seminarian, Jesus Alcazar, worked under the supervision of St. Mary’s parish priest, Horatio Yanez, performing some pastoral duties and doing maintenance work for the church in 2002.
In February 2006 both Rosas and Alcazar filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese alleging Yanez had sexually harassed Alcazar and that the Archdiocese fired them in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for complaining and reporting the conduct. The two men also claimed the Archdiocese had failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the Washington Minimum Wage Act.
Trial Court Dismisses Wage Claims
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed Rosas’s harassment claim because he had not indicated that he had been sexually harassed but allowed Alcazar’s sexual harassment claim to proceed (4 DLR A-10, 1/8/07).
Alcazar subsequently settled his sexual harassment claim against the Archdiocese and was dismissed from the lawsuit.
The district court dismissed all other claims on the pleadings as barred by the First Amendment’s ministerial exception. “This exception prohibits a court from inquiring into the decisions of a religious organization concerning the hiring, firing, promotion, rate of pay, placement or any other employment related decision concerning ministers and other non-secular employees,” the trial court said.
Ministerial Exception Applies to State Law Claims
Rosas argued on appeal that the district court had erred in dismissing his state law claim without first determining if requiring the church to pay overtime wages actually burdened the church’s religious beliefs. Second, Rosas argued that requiring the church to pay overtime wages did not implicate a protected employment decision. Finally, he claimed that the district court erred in determining on the pleadings that he was a “minister” to whom the exception applied.
The appellate panel disagreed. Beezer first clarified that although the district court had relied on precedent involving only Title VII cases, the exception also applied to state law claims.
Beezer wrote that the ministerial exception encompassed “all tangible employment actions” and barred lawsuits seeking damages for lost or reduced pay.
“Our previous cases focus on Title VII, but our analysis in those cases compels the conclusion that the ministerial exception analysis applies to Washington’s Minimum Wage Act as well,” Beezer wrote. “Because the ministerial exception is constitutionally compelled, it applies as a matter of law across statutes, both state and federal, that would interfere with the church-minister relationship.”
Next, Beezer disposed of Rosas’s assertion that the trial court should have considered if the law “actually” burdened the church. “The [ministerial] exception was created because government interference with the church-minister relationship inherently burdens religion.”
Overtime Claim Triggers Exception
In addition, Beezer said that Rosas had misinterpreted Ninth Circuit precedent in arguing that the payment of overtime wages was not a protected employment decision that would trigger the exception.
Beezer said that Rosas admitted that his case involved the training and selection of the Catholic Church’s priests-issues the Ninth Circuit had expressly addressed in Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F. 3d 940, 81 FEP Cases 660 (9th Cir. 1999); (232 DLR AA-1, 12/3/99).
“This case thus quintessentially follows Bollard’s explanation,” Beezer wrote. “Rosas interprets our case law too narrowly. Bollard refers not only to the selection of ministers but more broadly to ’employment decisions regarding … ministers,’ ”
Beezer wrote that the ministerial exception therefore encompassed “all tangible employment actions” and barred lawsuits seeking damages for lost or reduced pay.
Finally, Beezer rejected Rosas’s argument that the district court erred in ruling on the pleadings that the exception applied because Rosas claimed that his primary duties at the church primarily involved maintenance rather than ministerial duties…
Here is some text from Judge Beezer’s decision (emphasis mine and discussed below):
“The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947). The interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses creates an exception to an otherwise fully applicable statute if the statute would interfere with a religious organization’s employment decisions regarding its ministers. Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F.3d 940, 944, 946-47 (9th Cir. 1999). This “ministerial exception” helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here. In this case, plaintiff Cesar Rosas seeks pay for the overtime hours he worked as a seminarian in a Catholic church in Washington. The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, 1 and we affirm.
…
Cesar Rosas and Jesus Alcazar were Catholic seminarians in Mexico. The Catholic Church required them to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Washington as their next step in becoming ordained priests. At St. Mary, Rosas and Alcazar allegedly suffered retaliation for claiming that Father Yanez
Currently Pastor of Holy Family Parish in Seattle, WA. sexually harassed Alcazar, and they eventually sued Father Yanez and the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle (“defendants”) under Title VII. 2 In addition, Rosas and Alcazar sued under supplemental jurisdiction for violations of Washington’s Minimum Wage Act for failure to pay overtime wages. See Wash. Rev. Code § 49.46.130. The district court dismissed the overtime wage claims on the pleadings, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c), and Rosas’s overtime wage claim is the only issue on appeal.…
Because the judgment was on the pleadings, the pleadings alone must be sufficient to support the district court’s judgment. We thus base our decision on the very few allegations in Rosas’s complaint. Rosas alleges as follows:
1.3 … The Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle hosted [Rosas] as [a] participant[ ] in a training/pastoral ministry program for the priesthood.
. . . .
2.2 Cesar Rosas entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest in 1995 in Mexico.
2.3 As part of [his] preparation for ordination into the priesthood, the Catholic Church required [Rosas] to engage in a ministerial placement outside [his] diocese, under the supervision of a pastor of the parish into which [he was] placed. The Archdiocese of Seattle sends seminarians to Mexico and has Mexican seminarians come to its parishes. [Rosas was] placed in St. Mary Parish in Marysville, Washington under the supervision of defendant Fr. Horatio Yanez.
. . . .
2.10 … [Rosas] was hired to do maintenance of the church and also assisted with Mass. He … worked many overtime hours he was not compensated for.
First, I think the Court erred in defining exactly what a minister is. Is a seminarian a minister of the R.C. Church? It could be argued that in the Roman Church, prior to Vatican II, most seminarians were ministers of the Church since they were likely tonsured and deemed clerics entitled to beneficences (the civil benefits then enjoyed by clerics)
In this day and age a R.C. seminarian is no more a minister than your average lay person. They receive no beneficence from the Roman Church (health care, salary, stipend, room and board), nor are they entitled to carry out any ministry different than your average lay person (men and women both who may serve at the altar, distribute the Holy Eucharist – yuk, read the lessons, etc.). The average seminarian is just a student and a “civilian” with a vocational choice.
Next, seminaries are open to any lay person who may engage in a variety of ‘ministries’ or jobs in the Church. It is definitely no exclusive club and there is no real differentiation any longer. Any person may be in a training program related to their studies (an internship/externship) which makes the work these seminarians were doing no different from your average pew dweller. The Court, and likely the defendant’s lawyers, missed that point
Additionally, look at the work they were “hired” to do. The Archdiocese of Seattle took these university educated Mexicans, and in typically American fashion, made them maintenance men who also happened to serve as altar boys from time-to-time. It would only have been worse if the Archdiocese would have had them go out and pick crops. There is definitely something wrong here. If the ministerial teaching was to be about menial labor and humility, why not send them to a monastery?
Judge Beezer quoted the Fifth Circuit’s holding that if a person (1) is employed by a religious institution, (2) was chosen for the position based ‘largely on religious criteria,’ and (3) performs some religious duties … that person is a ‘minister’ for purposes of the ministerial exception,” What was missed was that the choice of these individuals for this service had very little to do with religious criteria and more to do with whether they had strong backs. Further, the religious duties portion of the test likely fails because the ministerial or religious portion of the training was so de minimis as to be almost non-existant.
So did the Court err in finding that these men were engaged in ministerial training? Absolutely! There was no ministerial training going on. These two young men were merely janitors, and the whole escapade a scam aimed at obtaining cheap labor. What happened here was wage theft, all disguised as “ministerial training;” another example of actions inconsistent with teaching.
As the Seattle Herald reported:
The two seminarians became disillusioned by the experience and have given up their quest to become priests…
“Both these young men had a lifelong dream of being priests,”… “It’s emotionally damaging when your lifelong dream and your spiritual vocation is shattered by the very people you entrusted that dream to.”
So much possibility wasted in a world plagued by a shortage of men willing to offer their lives for worship of God and service to His people. A sad case, and a case teetering on the edge of going the other way if all the facts had been established.
and 
.
Holy Cross Church —” which had been the only Polish National Catholic Church building in Washington state —” lost its battle against time, age and a variety of other factors as crews cut the main timbers out and let the sagging building fall to the ground.