Court Opinion

ID: 9628933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:34:36.968701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:13.318989
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree that we cannot consider the commercial exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 USC § 1605(a)(2). But, Judge Berzon does not and has, therefore, gone on to opine that all (or virtually all) activities by churches are actually commercial activity. While I recognize that her opinion cannot be prec-edential and that a response from me cannot be either, I am loath to leave her disquisition standing alone. Thus, I cannot (or at least will not) refrain from offering my own view on the rather oxymoronie proposition that church functions are commercial.
As I see it, Doe’s claim that church functions are simply commercial transactions because parishioners do give donations to the church bespeaks the veriest cynicism about religion and a church’s position within religion.1 Could a church spread the word of God without some funds? Would that it could, but the need for support does not mean that the holy activity is commercial. Is the Mass the marketing of a form of edifying entertainment? Is hearing confessions and giving religious advice — an age-old function of churches — really no more than a commercial activity similar to psychological counseling? Is the sacrament of Holy Eucharist the marketing of bread and wine or is the sacrament of Extreme Unction the marketing of oil? I think not. Normal legal usage and common sense recoil from those possibilities. See United States v. Lamont, 330 F.3d 1249, 1254-55 (9th Cir.2003).
Nor does the statute or the case law suggest that the Holy See’s religious activities must be commercial. The FSIA tells us that “[a] ‘commercial activity’ means either a regular course of commercial conduct or a particular commercial transaction or act.” 28 U.S.C. § 1603(d). That does not help much, but it also does not say that every possibly private activity is commercial. It says only that commercial behavior is commercial activity. As the Supreme Court has, somewhat more helpfully, stated:
[W]e conclude that when a foreign government acts, not as a regulator of a market, but in the manner of private player within it, the foreign sovereign’s actions are “commercial” within the meaning of the FSIA. Moreover, because the Act provides that the commercial character of an act is to be determined by reference to its “nature” rather than its “purpose” ..., the question is not whether the foreign government is acting with a profit motive or instead with the aim of fulfilling uniquely sovereign objectives. Rather, the issue is whether the particular actions that the foreign state performs ... are the type of actions by which a private party engages in “trade and traffic or commerce!.]”
Republic of Arg. v. Weltover, Inc., 504 U.S. 607, 614, 112 S.Ct. 2160, 2166, 119 L.Ed.2d 394 (1992) (citations omitted). Some have focused on the “private player” language, *1098but what is truly significant is the emphasis on the market and on “trade and traffic or commerce.” Id.
I fail to see how engaging in providing religious counseling is “trade and traffic or commerce.” Id. Nor, by the way, can a mere private actor give priestly counseling or consolation to a believer. This does not require a focus on purpose; it goes to the very nature of the religious activity itself. Similarly, we have noted that: “[t]he commercial activity exception applies only where the sovereign acts ‘in the market in the manner of a private player.’ ” Holden v. Canadian Consulate, 92 F.3d 918, 920 (9th Cir.1996). Again, Holy See has not acted in the market at all. It has simply supplied religious counseling to a church communicant, a service that this unique sovereign entity is designed for.2
I think that the problem this case seems to present lies in the fact that Holy See is an unusual type of foreign sovereign. Most governments do, indeed, exist to afford their citizens a degree of physical protection and guidance, so that they may thrive in this world. Holy See is more focused on the next world, and that makes a universe of difference. Because of that, Holy See’s sovereign activities are not simply the passage of mortal laws and the enforcement of those. They, basically, encompass the furnishing of the kinds of services that only Holy See can give: its own kind of religious help, guidance and counseling. It may do more than most sovereigns do, but it is not engaged in the market or in commerce.3
In short, Holy See may not be your typical sovereign, but neither is it your typical merchant. Does that lead to some kind of impasse? Of course not. It leads back to the statute itself. Holy See is a foreign state and the commercial activity exception does not strip its immunity from it. Something else may do so, but not that exception.4 We hierophants of the law are adept at redefining ordinary concepts, but it is no more appropriate to declare that religious services are commercial activities than it would be to declare that ponies are small birds.5
Therefore, if we had jurisdiction I would not apply the commercial activity exception to this case.

. It may be suggested that whether parishioners donate matters not at all. If so, the result is even more jarring than Doe’s proposition.

. Similarly, Father Ronan was not simply supplying commercial advice and services, nor was he a domestic servant. Cf. Park v. Shin, 313 F.3d 1138, 1140-41 (9th Cir.2002) (domestic servant service); Holden, 92 F.3d at 919 (commercial officer). Rather, he held his position for the purpose of giving the very kind of ecclesiastical services to the faithful that lie at the heart of this sovereign's reason for being.

. That is not to say that Holy See could not participate in commercial activities. It is only to say that the activities of the type that are involved here cannot be so dubbed.

. The Sixth Circuit has reached the same result but for different reasons. See O’Bryan v. Holy See, 556 F.3d 361, 377-81, 2009 WL 305342, at *9-12 (6th Cir.2009). So, too, did the district court in this case. See Doe v. Holy See, 434 F.Supp.2d 925, 946-47 (D.Or.2006).

. See Regina v. Ojibway, 8 Crim. L.Q. 137 (Oct. 1965).