June 10, 2025 // National

Bishop Rhoades Cheers Ruling on Wisconsin Catholic Charities

OSV NEWS

As chairman of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty, Bishop Rhoades cheered a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that affirmed the work being done by a Catholic Charities agency in Wisconsin was religious in nature.

On Thursday, June 5, all nine Supreme Court justices ruled in favor of the Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, which had asked the high court to overturn a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that discounted its religious identity. The Catholic Charities agency previously appealed a ruling that stated the organization was not exempt from paying into the state’s unemployment insurance system because its operations aren’t primarily religious under the definition in the statute requiring certain employers to do so.

The dome of the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison is pictured in an April 2, 2023, photo. On June 5, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior, Wis., which had asked the high court to overturn a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court the agency argued discounted its religious identity. (OSV News photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)

“Catholic Charities carries out ministries of the Catholic Church, the Body of Christ, in the world today,” Bishop Rhoades said in a statement. “Through Catholic Charities, the Church feeds the hungry and clothes the naked. The Church engages in these activities in obedience to Jesus, informed by millennia of tradition from the apostles.”

Bishop Rhoades continued: “The Catholic Charities agency of the Diocese of Superior applied for a religious exemption from the state’s unemployment tax program so that it could participate instead in a Church-run program that offers the same level of benefits. Catholic Charities was denied the exemption, because according to the state, it is not religious. This was a ludicrous claim, and the court has rightly reversed. The court has unanimously affirmed that the government cannot discriminate against our ministries simply because they do not conform to the government’s narrow idea of religion. I am grateful the court has recognized that basic principle here.”

Wisconsin law states religious employers in the Badger State are eligible for an exemption from paying into its unemployment benefit program if they operate primarily for religious purposes. The state argued, however, that the Catholic Charities Bureau does not meet that standard since it employs non-Catholics and does not make its service to the less fortunate contingent on Catholic religious practice, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court previously sided with the state, drawing a distinction between its mission or purpose and its “activities.”

However, in an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling violated the First Amendment by creating a preference for some religious practices over others.

“It is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion,’” Sotomayor wrote, quoting previous Supreme Court precedent in Epperson v. Arkansas. “There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one.”

At oral arguments in the case in March, the justices appeared to note that the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law would appear to favor religions that would limit their hiring or services to co-religionists.

Justice Elena Kagan said at that time that it might be a “matter of religious doctrine” that some religions “don’t require people to say the Lord’s Prayer with us before we give them soup.”

“I thought it was pretty fundamental that we don’t treat some religions better than other religions, and we certainly don’t do it based on the content of the religious doctrine that those religions preach,” she said.

Bishop James P. Powers of Superior celebrated the ruling in a statement.

“At the heart of Catholic Charities’ ministry is Christ’s call to care for the least of our brothers and sisters, without condition and without exception,” Bishop Powers said. “We’re grateful the Court unanimously recognized that improving the human condition by serving the poor is part of our religious exercise and has allowed us to continue serving those in need throughout our diocese and beyond.”

Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, a religious liberty law firm that represented the Catholic Charities bureau, said, “Wisconsin shouldn’t have picked this fight in the first place.”

“It was always absurd to claim that Catholic Charities wasn’t religious because it helps everyone, no matter their religion,” Rassbach said. “Today, the court resoundingly reaffirmed a fundamental truth of our constitutional order: the First Amendment protects all religious beliefs, not just those the government favors.”

OSV News contributed to this report.