Credit: Wolfgang Schaller/Shutterstock Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 31, 2025 / 16:40 pm Several U.S. Supreme Court justices across ideological lines during oral arguments Monday morning expressed concerns about a Wisconsin agency’s refusal to legally recognize a Catholic charity — run by the Diocese of Superior — as a religious organization. The dispute between Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) and the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (LIRC) will determine whether the charity is required to pay taxes into the state’s unemployment system or whether the organization can enroll workers in the Church-run unemployment system and avoid the tax. State law allows organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes” to qualify for the tax exemption if it provides its own unemployment system. Yet, the LIRC asserts that CCB is not operated primarily for a religious purpose because it offers charitable services to people of all faiths and does not focus its efforts on converting the people it serves to Catholicism. Religious freedom advocates have warned that the denial of CCB’s recognition as a religious entity could have a ripple effect that leads to the denial of other legal rights afforded to religious organizations, such as exemptions from mandates that conflict with an […]

By : Markus McDowell