Overview
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear Conference of Catholic Bishops v. O’Connell, leaving a class-action suit over the church’s Peter’s Pence collection to proceed in lower courts.
- Plaintiff David O’Connell says he was told Peter’s Pence would fund humanitarian aid but that much of the money was routed into investments and administrative uses, and he seeks refunds and limits on future solicitations.
- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asked the high court to block the case, arguing the First Amendment’s church-autonomy doctrine bars courts from probing internal communications, donor lists, and Vatican accounting.
- Both a federal district judge and the D.C. Circuit earlier found the dispute could move forward under neutral principles of law, so the case now advances to further discovery and merits briefing.
- Religious groups filing amicus briefs warned that allowing courts to examine fundraising descriptions could affect other faiths’ internal practices, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did not participate in the high-court decision.