The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit involving what one Catholic claims is the Churchʼs misleading representation of an ancient papal offering.
In January, lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asked the Supreme Court to consider the case, which was originally brought by Rhode Island resident David OʼConnell against the bishops over the Peterʼs Pence offering.
Peterʼs Pence, variants of which date back centuries to around at least the early Middle Ages, is an annual donation the USCCB describes as “a gesture of solidarity” with the popeʼs charitable undertakings.
The donation is geared toward “humanitarian initiatives and social promotion projects, as well [as] the support of the Holy See,” according to the bishops.
OʼConnell filed a class action suit against the bishops in January 2020, alleging that the prelates had misled Catholics about the nature of the donation. He claimed he had been led to believe that the offering was strictly for emergency assistance to victims of war and poverty but that he subsequently found out it was used in part to “defray Vatican administrative expenses.”
The U.S. bishops argued in court that the suit should be dismissed on the grounds of the “church autonomy doctrine,” a long-standing principle in U.S. case law that bars the government from exercising control over internal church decisions.
Yet a district court and an appeals court both ruled against the bishops, leading lawyers with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who represent the bishops, to appeal to the Supreme Court in January over the matter.
Daniel Blomberg, the vice president of Becket and a senior attorney there, told EWTN News on April 30 that popes have been using the Peterʼs Pence fund for centuries to “carry out the ministry of the Church in a variety of different ways.”
The plaintiff in the suit, however, contends that he “heard something during Mass” that “made him think that his offering to Peterʼs Pence would only go to one purpose and no others,” Blomberg said.
“He not only wants his own offering back, but he also wants the offerings returned for millions of other Catholics around the country,” he said.
Blomberg said both of the lower courts ruled against the bishops on the grounds that the case could be decided under “neutral principles of law” that do not implicate the First Amendment. But he described the demands sought by the lawsuit as “wildly unconstitutional.”
The plaintiff “wants the courts to tell the Catholic Church how to talk about Peter’s Pence and how to preach about Peter’s Pence,” he said.
Multiple religious advocates have come out in favor of the bishops in the dispute. A coalition of organizations including the Thomas More Society, the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, and several other groups filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court in January arguing that their respective religious beliefs involve “matters of internal governance that must be protected from government entwinement.”
In another amicus filing to the Supreme Court in March, John Garvey, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said the lawsuit “requires courts to resolve inherently religious questions about church polity, doctrine, and governance.”
The suit would force the court to “decide for itself who within the Church controls (or who can control) the contents of homilies, whether a particular homily is inconsistent with Catholic teaching about Peter’s Pence, what a reasonable parishioner should believe about Catholic doctrine, and — most importantly — how donated funds should be administered by the pope,” Garvey argued.
The suit “effectively invites a civil court to second guess the pope — the successor of St. Peter — on directing Peter’s Pence toward keeping the lights on in St. Peter’s itself,” Garvey wrote.
Blomberg, meanwhile, said the bishops expect to hear from the Supreme Court in the next month or so.
“We’re in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to ask them to put the First Amendment first, not last, and to treat it as the threshold of the case,” he said.
“We want the court to not force the Church to go through years of litigation just to determine that the First Amendment applies here,” he added.
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