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Page Number: 26.0

22 

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE SCHOOL v. 
MORRISSEY-BERRU 
Opinion of the Court 

Mass with the students, and prepared the children for their 
participation  in  other  religious  activities.    Their  positions
did not have all the attributes of Perich’s.  Their titles did 
not include the term “minister,” and they had less formal
religious training, but their core responsibilities as teachers
of  religion  were  essentially  the  same.  And  both  their 
schools expressly saw them as playing a vital part in carry-
ing out the mission of the church, and the schools’ definition
and  explanation  of  their  roles  is  important.  In  a  country
with the religious diversity of the United States, judges can-
not be expected to have a complete understanding and ap-
preciation of the role played by every person who performs 
a particular role in every religious tradition.  A religious in-
stitution’s explanation of the role of such employees in the 
life of the religion in question is important. 

III 
In  holding  that  Morrissey-Berru  and  Biel  did  not  fall 
within  the  Hosanna-Tabor  exception,  the  Ninth  Circuit 
misunderstood  our  decision.    Both  panels  treated  the  cir-
cumstances that we found relevant in that case as checklist 
items  to  be  assessed  and  weighed  against  each  other  in
every case, and the dissent does much the same.  That ap-
proach is contrary to our admonition that we were not im-
posing any “rigid formula.”  565 U. S., at 190.  Instead, we 
called on courts to take all relevant circumstances into ac-
count  and  to  determine  whether  each  particular  position 
implicated the fundamental purpose of the exception.26 

—————— 

26 The  dissent  charges  that  we  transform  the  holding  in  Hosanna-
Tabor, but that is what the dissent does.  Post, at 8.  According to the 
dissent: “Hosanna-Tabor charted a way to separate leaders who ‘person-
ify’  a  church’s  ‘beliefs’  [and]  ‘minister  to  the  faithful’  from  individuals 
who may simply relay religious tenets.”  Post, at 7 (quoting 565 U. S., at 
188, 195). 

The  dissent  cobbles  together  this  new  test  by  taking  phrases  out  of 
context  from  separate  passages  and  inserting  a  proposition  never  sug-
gested in Hosanna-Tabor, namely, that an individual cannot qualify for