holding that the ministerial exception exists not only to safeguard a church’s decision to fire a minister “when it is made for a religious reason,” but to ensure that “the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful -- a matter ‘strictly ecclesiastical’ -- is the church’s alone”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the ministerial exception exists not only to safeguard a church’s decision to fire a minister “when it is made for a religious reason,” but to ensure that “the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful -- a matter ‘strictly ecclesiastical’ -- is the church’s alone”
- holding that the First Amendment guarantees “a spirit of freedom for religious organizations, an independence from secular control or manipulation — in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.”
- holding, on grounds rooted in the Religious Clauses, that the ministerial exception bars employment discrimination *823claims brought by ministerial employees, but expressing "no view of whether the [ministerial] exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees"
- explaining that with respect to 15 ministers, the First Amendment bars an order of reinstatement, which would 16 ʺrequire[] the Church to accept a minister it did not want,ʺ and damages, which 17 ʺwould operate as a penalty on the Church for terminating an unwanted 18 ministerʺ
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Thomas,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion. I write separately to note that, in my view, the Religion Clauses require civil courts to apply the ministerial exception and to defer to a religious organization’s good-faith understanding of who qualifies as its minister. As the Court explains, the Religion Clauses guarantee *197 religious organizations autonomy in matters of internal governance, including the selection of those who will minister the faith. A religious organization’s right to choose its ministers would be hollow, however, if secular courts could second-guess the organization’s sincere determination that a given employee is a “minister” under the organization’s theological tenets. Our country’s religious landscape includes organizations with different leadership structures and doctrines that influence their conceptions of ministerial status. The question whether an employee is a minister is itself religious in nature, and the answer will vary widely. Judicial attempts to fashion a civil definition of “minister” through a bright-line test or multifactor analysis risk disadvantaging those religious groups whose beliefs, practices, and membership are outside of the “mainstream” or unpalatable to some. Moreover, uncertainty about whether its ministerial designation will be rejected, and a corresponding fear of liability, may cause a religious group to conform its beliefs and practices regarding “ministers” to the prevailing secular understanding. See Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327, 336 (1987) (“[I]t is a significant burden on a religious organization to require it, on pain of substantial liability, to predict which of its activities a secular court will consider religious. The line is hardly a bright one, and an organization might understandably be concerned that a judge would not understand its religious tenets and sense of mission. Fear of potential liability might affect the way an organization carried out what it understood to be its religious mission” (footnote omitted)). These are certainly dangers that the First Amendment was designed to guard against.
The Court thoroughly sets forth the facts that lead to its conclusion that Cheryl Perich was one of Hosanna-Tabor’s ministers, and I agree that these facts amply demonstrate Perich’s ministerial role. But the evidence demonstrates *198 that Hosanna-Tabor sincerely considered Perieh a minister. That would be sufficient for me to conclude that Perich’s suit is properly barred by the ministerial exception.