First Amendment
Catholic Law School Claims Profs Are Ministerial Employees
Posted Jul 10, 2009 9:59 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The Ave Maria School of Law claims in court papers that three former professors suing the school were ministerial employees, making the Catholic institution exempt from their legal claims.
The school contends it is protected from suit by the professors under the First Amendment's establishment and free exercise clauses, the National Law Journal reports. The school also claims courts should refuse to hear the case because of "ecclesiastical abstention.”
The professors are represented by Bloomfield Hills, Mich., lawyer Deborah Gordon, who says her clients were fired for questioning how the law school was being run. She takes issue with the legal theory advanced by Tom Monaghan, the school's founder and financier. “Are you people kidding or what?” she said in an interview with the NLJ.
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Comments
B. McLeod
Jul 10, 2009 1:08 PM CST
Yet another instance of lawyers and courts having to remind the church that the medieval period has passed, and yes, they are subject to the civil law of the nation and states.
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Justin
Jul 12, 2009 7:34 AM CST
Actually, B. McLeod, if the church successfully makes the argument that the professors were ministerial employees, then they are correct in asserting privilege from civil suit. In the United States, because of the First Amendment, civil courts have no jurisdiction in internal church matters.
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B. McLeod
Jul 12, 2009 9:43 PM CST
So the church is free to racially discriminate then as well? I can remember when pedophile priests were also “internal church matters.” It has been the church’s attitude (for centuries, actually) that clerics should be accountable only to the church for any and every misdeed. You know, the church should be above the law as God is above the law. I don’t think it’s working. Didn’t work for King Charles I either, but we’ll see what the court says in this particular case.
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