The news from the I.R.S. — that it believes that churches can endorse political candidates to their congregations without risking the loss of their tax-exempt status — is raising some interesting questions. Will we see priests offering endorsements from the pulpit?  How about posting yard signs for candidates outside of churches? What about hosting fundraisers for candidates?

It’s useful to look at some Catholic teaching on this subject, which goes beyond the situation in the U.S. and applies to the Universal Church.

An article in America a few years back offered this explainer:

In a general audience at the Vatican on July 28, 1993 (later quoted in the “Directory on Ministry and the Life of Priests,” released by the Congregation for the Clergy in 1994), Pope John Paul II said that a priest “ought to refrain from actively engaging himself in politics, as often happens, in order to be a central point of spiritual fraternity.” The Congregation for the Clergy’s document also quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1993: “It is not the role of the Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political structuring and organization of social life. This task is part of the vocation of the lay faithful [emphasis in original], acting on their own initiative with their fellow citizens.” The “Directory” states further that the “reduction of [a priest’s] mission to temporal tasks, of a purely social or political nature, is foreign to his ministry, and does not constitute a triumph but rather a grave loss to the Church’s evangelical fruitfulness.”

In the church’s official Code of Canon Law, Canon 287 also states that priests “are not to have an active part in political parties and in governing labor unions unless, in the judgment of competent ecclesiastical authority, the protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good requires it.”

The America article adds:

There is not so much wiggle room for priests or religious who publicly endorse a candidate. [In August 2020], the Rev. Paul Garrity, a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston, endorsed Mr. Biden’s presidential candidacy on Facebook; he apologized after Cardinal Sean O’Malley issued a public statement that priests should not endorse political candidates. Similarly, in July, the Rev. Frank Pavone, who has been vocal in his support of Mr. Trump, announced he would step down from his position on the Catholics for Trump advisory board after the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy requested he do so, citing Canon 287.

On the other hand, Sister Deirdre Byrne endorsed Mr. Trump during her speech at the Republican National Convention, calling him the “most pro-life president this nation has ever had,” and claimed without substantiation that Mr. Biden supported infanticide. Similarly, Greg Boyle, S.J., the well-known founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries, the largest network of gang intervention and rehabilitation programs in the United States, publicly endorsed Mr. Biden on Aug. 28, noting that Mr. Biden had visited Homeboy Industries and that “Joe Biden knows how to stand in awe at what the poor have to carry, rather than in judgment at how they carry it.”

Meanwhile, if you visit the Vatican website, a fuller reading of The Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests has this:

33. The priest, as servant of the universal Church, cannot tie himself to any historical contingency, and therefore must be above any political party. He cannot take an active role in political parties or labor unions, unless, according to the judgement of the ecclesiastical authority, the rights of the Church and the defense of common good require it. In fact, even if these are good things in themselves, they are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state since they can constitute a grave danger of division in the ecclesial communion.

It’s worth noting that the USCCB has a book on Political Activity and Lobbying Guidelines for Catholic Organizations that will undoubtedly need to be revisited. The bishops’ website takes pains to point out: “The primary focus is on section 501(c)(3), [of the tax code] which prohibits participation or intervention in a political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate, as a condition of maintaining federal income tax exemption.”

As with so many things: stay tuned.

UPDATE: The USCCB issued a statement on this issue late Tuesday. From OSV News: 

The Catholic Church “maintains its stance of not endorsing or opposing political candidates,” said U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops spokesperson Chieko Noguchi, following a recent court case in which a long-standing federal ban against such activity appeared to have been partly relaxed.

Noguchi issued the statement July 8, a day after the Internal Revenue Service agreed in a court filing that a house of worship addressing its congregation about electoral politics in the context of religious faith does not violate the Johnson Amendment.

“The IRS was addressing a specific case, and it doesn’t change how the Catholic Church engages in public debate,” [Noguchi said.]

Approved by Congress in 1954, the amendment prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations — a type of tax-exempt nonprofit under U.S. tax code, and the typical corporate structure for churches, worship communities and charities in the nation — from engaging in political campaign activity. In 1987, Congress clarified that the ban includes statements opposing candidates…

…Roger Colinvaux, a professor of law at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and an expert on nonprofit organizations and federal income tax, told OSV News that while the stipulation in this NRB-IRS suit is “obviously binding for the parties,” there is uncertainty as to “the legal authority beyond this case.”