Opinion ID: 718187
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did the Ministerial Exception Survive Smith?

Text: 30 Appellants argue that the district court erred in dismissing this case under the ministerial exception because, in their view, that exception did not survive the Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division, Dep't of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990). In Smith, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether the Free Exercise Clause ... permit[ted] the State of Oregon to include religiously inspired peyote use within the reach of its general criminal prohibition on use of that drug. Id. at 874, 110 S.Ct. at 1597. In holding that the Clause did not require Oregon to permit the religious use of peyote, the Court explained that 31 the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes ... conduct that his religion prescribes.... 32 Id. at 879, 110 S.Ct. at 1600 (internal quotation marks omitted). 33 Relying on this language, appellants argue that because Title VII is a religion-neutral law of general applicability, the Free Exercise Clause does not bar its application to ministers employed by religious organizations. They assert that the ministerial exception was based on a test applied in Free Exercise Clause cases before Smith that required the Government to demonstrate the existence of a compelling governmental interest that would justify the burden placed on the right of free exercise by a particular statute. They then argue that Smith rejected the compelling interest test in the case of religion-neutral laws of general application with the result that the ministerial exception has been stripped of its constitutional foundation. Catholic University does not challenge this reasoning; rather, it replies that the compelling interest test has been reinstated by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which was enacted by Congress in response to Smith. For her part, Sister McDonough challenges both the constitutionality of that act and its retroactive application to this case. 34 Whatever the constitutionality and effect of this statute, which we will address later, we disagree with appellants' conclusion that Smith requires the rejection of the ministerial exception. We acknowledge that the Court stated that it has never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate, id. at 878-79, 110 S.Ct. at 1600 (emphasis added), and that it has 35 consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes). 36 Id. at 879, 110 S.Ct. at 1600 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis added). It does not follow, however, that Smith stands for the proposition that a church may never be relieved from such an obligation. We say this for two reasons. First, the burden on free exercise that is addressed by the ministerial exception is of a fundamentally different character from that at issue in Smith and in the cases cited by the Court in support of its holding. The ministerial exception is not invoked to protect the freedom of an individual to observe a particular command or practice of his church. Rather, it is designed to protect the freedom of the church to select those who will carry out its religious mission. Moreover, the ministerial exception does not present the dangers warned of in Smith. Protecting the authority of a church to select its own ministers free of government interference does not empower a member of that church, by virtue of his beliefs, 'to become a law unto himself.'  Id. at 885, 110 S.Ct. at 1603 (quoting Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 167, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1879)). Nor does the exception require judges to determine the 'centrality' of religious beliefs before applying a 'compelling interest' test in the free exercise field. Id. at 887, 110 S.Ct. at 1604. 37 Second, while it is true that some of the cases that have invoked the ministerial exception have cited the compelling interest test, e.g., McClure, 460 F.2d at 558, all of them rely on a long line of Supreme Court cases that affirm the fundamental right of churches to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine. Kedroff, 344 U.S. at 116, 73 S.Ct. at 154. See, e.g., Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 679, 727, 20 L.Ed. 666 (1871) (questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law [that] have been decided by the highest of .. church judicatories ... must [be] accept[ed] ... as final); Gonzalez, 280 U.S. at 16, 50 S.Ct. at 7 (it is the function of the church authorities to determine what the essential qualifications of a chaplain are); Kedroff, 344 U.S. at 107-08, 73 S.Ct. at 150 (Legislation that regulates church administration, the operation of the churches, the appointment of clergy ... prohibits the free exercise of religion.); Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 672, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1413, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970) (we have been able to chart a course that preserved the autonomy and freedom of religious bodies). 38 We agree with the Fifth Circuit that throughout these opinions there exists a spirit of freedom for religious organizations, an independence from secular control or manipulation.... McClure, 460 F.2d at 560 (internal quotation marks omitted). We have considered the autonomy of a religious body in the selection and training of its own clergy to be of critical importance. Thus, in Minker, we stated that [w]e cannot imagine an area of inquiry less suited to a temporal court for decision; evaluation of the 'gifts and graces' of a minister must be left to ecclesiastical institutions. 894 F.2d at 1357. We also reaffirmed that [t]he Free Exercise Clause precludes governmental interference with ecclesiastical hierarchies, church administration, and appointment of clergy. Id. (quoting King's Garden, Inc. v. FCC, 498 F.2d 51, 56 (D.C.Cir.1974)) (emphasis added). 39 We acknowledge that Kedroff and the other Supreme Court cases that we and other courts have cited in support of the ministerial exception did not involve neutral statutes of general application. Nevertheless, we cannot believe that the Supreme Court in Smith intended to qualify this century-old affirmation of a church's sovereignty over its own affairs. See Douglas Laycock, Towards a General Theory of the Religion Clauses: The Case of Church Labor Relations and the Right to Church Autonomy, 81 Colum.L.Rev. 1373, 1397 (1981) (noting that the Supreme Court has been willing to extend the right of church autonomy as far as necessary to include the cases before it.). 40 We conclude from our review of the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence that whereas the Free Exercise Clause guarantees a church's freedom to decide how it will govern itself, what it will teach, and to whom it will entrust its ministerial responsibilities, it does not guarantee the right of its members to practice what their church may preach if that practice is forbidden by a neutral law of general application. But even if we misread Smith, our finding that the application of Title VII would violate the Free Exercise Clause nevertheless survives under an exception to the general rule in Smith that we discuss below at the conclusion of our Establishment Clause analysis. 41