By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
In a ruling that could have a major impact on colleges that want to uphold Catholic teaching, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled on Tuesday that Manhattan College, which is recognized as Catholic by the Archdiocese of New York City, cannot call itself Catholic because “the purpose of the College is secular and not the ‘propagation of a religious faith’.”
The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), an organization devoted to restoring the Catholic identity to the nation’s Catholic colleges and univerities, is reporting that this ruling could have devastating consequences on those institutions who are truly Catholic.
“For decades since the infamous Land O’Lakes declaration, too many Catholic colleges and universities have straddled the line between Catholic and secular,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of CNS.
“While the Vatican and bishops have patiently encouraged the renewal of Catholic identity, state and federal regulators are increasingly demanding that Catholic colleges justify their claims to be religious. For all but a handful of faithful Catholic colleges, this is a difficult if not impossible task. The great danger is that colleges faithful to the Magisterium will have their religious liberties stripped from them and that the slow process of renewal at other Catholic colleges will be short circuited by the government.”
As a result of the ruling, Manhattan College cannot prevent its faculty from unionizing, which it tried to do based on the fact that it is a religious institution.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time the federal government has interfered in Catholic higher education. CNS cites several other occasions in the past year, such as when the new U.S. Department of Education issued regulations encouraging state intrusion into higher education, when an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled against faithful Belmont Abbey College for refusing to cover contraceptives in its employee health plan, and recent cases concerning state-mandated contraceptive coverage in student and employee health insurance.
In November 2010, CNS hosted a closed-door meeting with bishops and presidents of faithful Catholic colleges to discuss ways to defend the religious liberty of Catholic institutions of higher education.
“Federal and state laws are increasingly being used to coerce religious institutions into actions and commitments that violate deeply held religious convictions and moral principles,” warns Kevin Theriot, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, who was present at the meeting and has authored “Protecting Catholic Colleges from External Threats to Their Religious Liberty,” which is posted at CatholicHigherEd.org.
Theriot suggests ways Catholic educators can defend against laws that require health insurance coverage for contraception or employee benefits for same-sex couples.
“It must be noted, however, that any available exemptions for religious institutions will not apply if a college that was founded as a religious institution has become largely secular,” Theriot cautions. “It is therefore vital that Catholic colleges and universities maintain their Catholic identity in all of their programs in order to best protect their religious character and mission.”
As Theriot warns in his paper:
“Catholic colleges and universities have an advantage over other religious institutions in that the Catholic Church’s Canon Law and the Apostolic Constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae lay out the requirements for a college to be considered Catholic. While Church law is beyond the purview of this paper, it should be noted that a college that does not faithfully adhere to and apply the Catholic Church’s own law might find it difficult if not impossible to convince a secular court that it is a Catholic institution deserving protection.”
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