This case so clearly illustrates the privilege powerful religious institutions are demanding under the guise of people being free to practice faith. In the most egregious example here, a Catholic diocese fired a secular school teacher after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and asked for time off for treatment. She sued, claiming her dismissal violated federal employment law. She should have had her day in court, should have had the opportunity to tell a jury The Catholic Church fired her because she got cancer. Instead, the Church hierarchy claimed employment law doesn't apply to them, that they are exempt because of the ministerial exemption - even though this teacher had no religious duties and didn't even consider herself a practicing Catholic.

She died of cancer before the case was decided.

But I'll tell you what. When a Church run entirely by men -- that denies institutional power to women, allowing women only servile roles -- can absurdly characterize a non-religious teacher as a minister and then fire her for getting cancer, you know something is horribly wrong.

Yes, the Catholic Church and other, mostly Evangelical, Churches often use the ministerial exception to fire and mistreat LGBTQ people, but they use it routinely to behave in other objectively evil ways, as in this case.

You'd think the Catholic bishops responsible for this horror show would be ashamed of themselves and afraid of the bad publicity in this case, but when the decision was handed down, they actually sounded rather smug about it all, pleased they'd won a victory for "religious freedom."