Ill Nun Expelled From Church, But State is Little Help
By Neelesh Jain ‘10
News Reporter
Recently, a nun-in-training, Mary Rosati of Mansfield Ohio, was dismissed by her church. Ms. Rosati was fired because she had breast cancer. According to the mother superior of the church, “We will have to let her go. I don’t think we can take care of her.” Is this fair? Is it right for someone to be dismissed because of an illness? Mrs. Rosati certainly didn’t think so, and filed a lawsuit against her former employers. It seems so black-and-white: Ms. Rosati was fired because of a physical illness that, apart from treatment sessions, would not have affected her ability to do her job. Such discrimination is clearly against the spirit of American law. Yet Northern District Court Judge James G. Carr dismissed Ms. Rosati’s case on the basis that it was “beyond the reach of the court.” It is cases like this that highlight our country’s ineffective relations with the church and other spiritual institutions. In the quest to maintain a separation of church and state, our government has done more than foster freedom of religion—it has turned a blind eye to behavior that is obscenely inappropriate.
Ms. Rosati’s case is not an isolated one. Judges often apply “ministerial exception” to lawsuits against religious employers, allowing them to commit illegal acts with impunity. In the pursuit of separation between church and state, as laid out in the First Amendment, the government has created a loophole through which the church and its officials can commit moral outrages like the firing of Ms. Rosati. Were these individuals not affiliated with the church, however, they would no doubt be sent to court. Not only do employers get away with crime, but the pleas of people as weakly connected to the church as church secretaries and administrators at religious colleges are ignored. Ms. Rosati’s job should have been protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act, but her rights were overridden by the prerogatives of the church. Many of the people who suffer at the hands of the church aren’t even aware that their employers are protected by law until an employee tries to file a lawsuit.
Religious employers have even gotten away with discrimination in the hiring process, a highly sensitive topic in courts. There have been cases in which employers have turned away lesbians, gays and minorities—again, an action that is blatantly against the law. Mrs. Petruska, another nun-in-training, was dismissed from Gannon University, a coeducational Catholic college in downtown Erie, Pa., after complaining about a senior official’s sexual misconduct to the university administration. Mrs. Petruska filed a lawsuit, but the case was dismissed when Judge Sean J. McLaughlin ruled a ministerial exception. Another unfortunate example of discriminatory dismissals on the part of the church is the story of John Paul Hankins of Stony Brook, NY. Even though everyone in Mr. Hankins’ congregation was fond of him and wished him to continue working, the denomination’s mandatory retirement age was seventy; consequently, Mr. Hankins was forced to leave the pulpit. Mr. Hankins sued the church—and lost. Of his case, Mr. Hankins said that the discrimination he faced was as “senseless” as the racial and sexual discrimination that used to be mandatory policies of his church.
I certainly agree that the separation of church and state is necessary for the preservation of a pure government and a pure church. But sometimes this rule can be interpreted too rigidly and taken too far. Separation of church and state means that we shouldn’t tell a church or other religious institution how to worship—but it doesn’t mean that members of such organizations are exempt from the laws that shape our lives. We all have basic rights that need to be protected by the law, whether or not we are employed by the church. We have the right not to be discriminated against, and we have the right to feel confident that justice will be upheld. By ignoring the rights of church employees, our government is effectively punishing people for seeking employment from a religious institution. New measures need to be taken to provide a clearer, less forgiving definition of ministerial exception;, and judges need to crack down harder on illicit behavior, no matter who the culprit is. In the words of Mr. Hankins “I feel, and have long felt, that discrimination in any form has no place in the life of a faith community.”
