Here’s a hot one. This Catholic college can’t claim to be Catholic:
In In re Manhattan College, (NLRB, Jan. 10, 2010), a National Labor Relations Board regional director held that the judicially and administratively developed exemption from NLRB coverage for colleges whose purpose is the propagation of a religious faith does not apply to New York’s Manhattan College.
Its adjunct faculty wanted to unionize, the college claimed not be required to brook it.
The decision concludes that the evidence shows the purpose of the college is secular. It finds that there is little risk that exercising NLRB jurisdiction will lead to unconstitutional entanglement of government and religion because the “school’s stated purpose does not involve the propagation of a religious faith, teachers are not required to adhere to or promote religious tenets, a religious order does not exercise control over hiring, firing, or day-to-day operations, and teachers are given academic freedom…” [italics added]
The union had argued that the college “does not meet the test of a religious institution,” the NLRB bought the argument, in the face of this from the college president:
[T]he fact that we are a welcoming, pluralistic community is being presented as proof that we cannot be an authentic Catholic college. Questions about the number of brothers in various roles imply that the work of lay faculty, staff, and administrators is negligible in forwarding our mission, and betrays a complete incomprehension of a full generation’s hard and faithful work in passing forward the charism of religious orders to lay colleagues. [italics added]
Oh my, this “charism” business, which is trundled out whenever people notice that priests or brothers or sisters are distinctly minority figures on campus, as if years of training and lifetime commitment can be transfused to the unordained, the non-vowed, the non-religious-disciplined on demand.
The word should be banned in religious circles.
Blithe Spirit 