Does the First Amendment’s Church Autonomy Doctrine Immunize Religious Employers from Title VII Liability When Terminating a Lay Employee for Conduct Contrary to Faith?
The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in John Doe v.
The Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in John Doe v. Catholic Relief Services, No. 25-1569 (4th Cir. Oct. 16, 2026), squarely confronts the tectonic friction between the remedial breadth of the Civil Rights Act and the structural shield of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses. In a 2-1 decision, the court concluded that Catholic Relief Services (CRS) violated Title VII by rescinding health benefits for a gay employee’s same-sex spouse. More critically, the court refused to stretch the “church autonomy doctrine” to cover a religious employer’s firing of a non-ministerial employee whose conduct violated religious doctrine.
(Read the full opinion here.)
The decision is a masterclass in drawing rigid boundaries around ecclesiastical abstention, but the dissenting opinion raises a profound originalist objection that exposes the fragility of these modern doctrinal lines.
“We break no new ground with this rule. . . . Here, we hold that for lay employees like Does (those not performing a spiritual function, not involved in carrying out the mission of the organization, and not even a member of the church implicitly consenting to its authority) the church autonomy doctrine does not require that courts extend some lesser protection compared to employees of secular organizations.”
The Narrowing of Church Autonomy
Judge Floyd, writing for the majority, correctly identifies that the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence – most notably Hosanna-Tabor and Our Lady of Guadalupe – anchors the church autonomy doctrine heavily to the “ministerial exception”. The majority effectively silos the doctrine: unless the employee is a minister, or the dispute requires a civil court to settle a purely theological debate, the state’s secular employment regulations presumptively apply.
But notice the jurisprudential sleight of hand here. By treating church autonomy primarily as an affirmative defense limited to spiritual personnel, the majority effectively subjects religious organizations to the full brunt of secular commercial regulation the moment they hire a layperson.
“Once [a religious organization] enters the marketplace of commerce in any substantial degree it loses the complete control over its [conduct] that it would otherwise enjoy if it confined its affairs to the marketplace of [faith].”
This is a startlingly commercial reframing of religious association. The court relies heavily on an analogy to Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, positing that when a religious entity enters the employment market, it essentially forfeits its internal doctrinal control in exchange for the benefits of hiring skilled professionals.
But if the Court’s logic holds here, what happens when a Catholic hospital hires a secular janitor, and that janitor visibly protests the Church’s stance on abortion in the hospital lobby? Would the state then be allowed to compel the hospital to retain the janitor because he performs no “sacerdotal functions”? Under the majority’s rigid commercial-marketplace theory, the answer seems to be yes—stripping the religious institution of its ability to curate a workforce aligned with its core moral witness.
“To force religious organizations to hire messengers and other personnel who do not share their religious views would undermine not only the autonomy of many religious organizations but also their continued viability.”
The Originalist Counter-Strike
Judge Quattlebaum’s dissent vigorously rejects the majority’s commercialization of religious employment. He anchors his critique in a sweeping historical survey, tracing the church-state struggle from the Roman Empire through the English Reformation, to argue that the Religion Clauses originally meant to secure a broader “stay away zone” for church governance.
Quattlebaum rightly points out that limiting the church autonomy doctrine solely to the “ministerial exception” conflates a specific application of the rule with the rule itself.
”The ministerial exception is only one part of the broader principle. . . . The Religion Clauses, and the church autonomy doctrine that flows from them, also protect a religious institution’s autonomy over ‘internal management decisions that are essential to the institution’s central mission.’”
For the dissent, CRS’s decision wasn’t a commercial employment dispute; it was an internal doctrinal decision about what constitutes a valid marriage, and whether a Catholic entity can formally cooperate with an arrangement it considers sinful. By framing the issue as Title VII sex discrimination, Quattlebaum argues, the court is doing exactly what the First Amendment forbids: penalizing a religious institution for implementing its theological judgment.
“Shrouding a claim or a judicial analysis in a secular label does not change the fact that the majority declares an employment decision based on a sincerely held religious belief illegal. Make no mistake, the majority greenlights the authority of federal courts to prioritize secular law over religious freedom.”
Statutory Exhaustion vs. Constitutional Supremacy
Beyond the constitutional friction, the statutory analysis reveals a deep divide over how to read Title VII’s Section 702 exemption. The statute exempts religious organizations “with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion”. The majority interprets this narrowly: a religious employer can prefer to hire a Catholic over a Protestant, but cannot use religion to shield discrimination based on sex, race, or national origin.
The dissent reads the text differently: Section 702 states that “this subchapter [Title VII] shall not apply” when the exemption is triggered. Quattlebaum persuasively argues that “religion” under Title VII includes “all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief”. Because CRS’s employment standards mandate adherence to Catholic teaching on marriage, Doe’s conduct placed him outside the religious standard, triggering the exemption and causing the entirety of Title VII to “drop out”.
The Looming Supreme Court Showdown
The Fourth Circuit’s decision is a potent example of how lower courts are currently wrestling with the fallout of Bostock. The Supreme Court explicitly punted on how Bostock’s expansion of Title VII interacts with the First Amendment. If the Fourth Circuit’s rule holds, religious institutions face a stark choice: hire exclusively ministerial staff, or submit entirely to secular non-discrimination mandates for all lay employees. Given the ideological fractures displayed in Doe, and the broader circuit split on this exact issue, this is precisely the kind of structural First Amendment clash ripe for Supreme Court intervention.