Wisconsin’s Secular Onslaught Against Catholic Charity Reveals Deeper Apostasy
Catholic News Agency reports Wisconsin state authorities suffered judicial defeat in their persistent efforts to strip Catholic Charities Bureau (Diocese of Superior) of unemployment tax exemptions. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2025 ruling that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment by denying the exemption, Attorney General Josh Kaul attempted to eliminate the religious exemption entirely in October 2025. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s December 15 order definitively blocked this maneuver, enforcing compliance with the federal ruling. Becket Law hailed the decision as ending the state’s “crusade,” while Wisconsin Catholic Conference’s David Earleywine asserted Catholic charity’s inherently religious character.
State’s Persecutory Agenda Against Religion Laid Bare
The article inadvertently exposes Wisconsin’s hostility toward Ecclesia Dei (the Church of God). Kaul’s October 2025 maneuver to abolish religious exemptions altogether—after losing at the U.S. Supreme Court—reveals not bureaucratic oversight but systematic anti-Catholic animus. This reflects the modernist heresy condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error #55). By attempting to erase tax relief for religious entities, Wisconsin aligns itself with the Masonic tenet that civil power must suffocate supernatural influence.
Wisconsin’s claim that exemptions cause “discriminatory” harm echoes the naturalist fallacy denounced by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: reducing religion to a private sentiment irrelevant to public order. The state’s insistence that Catholic Charities’ work isn’t “primarily religious” exposes a deeper apostasy—the denial of ex opere operato grace inherent in true Catholic charity. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas, Christ’s kingship demands “all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments,” not bureaucratic fiat.
Conciliar “Catholic Charities” Complicit in Own Subversion
While Becket Law celebrates the victory, deeper scrutiny reveals troubling concessions. The legal battle centered on salvaging a tax exemption—not defending Catholic charity’s supernatural essence. Earleywine’s claim that “true Catholic charity is inherently religious” rings hollow when post-conciliar “Catholic Charities” networks globally partner with secular NGOs promoting contraception and gender ideology. The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1374) forbids Catholics from collaborating with entities undermining Church teaching, yet diocesan charities routinely violate this under the guise of “social service.”
The article omits critical context: post-Vatican II “Catholic Charities” often operate as government subcontractors, diluting caritas Christi into secular welfare. This aligns with the modernist error condemned in Lamentabili Sane: “The Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Proposition #63). By litigating for tax breaks rather than denouncing the state’s usurpation of ecclesiastical rights, the Diocese of Superior’s legal team perpetuates the conciliar sect’s surrender to secular hegemony.
Theological Cowardice in the Face of Secular Tyranny
Becket’s Rassbach mocks Kaul as a “glutton for punishment” but overlooks the theological bankruptcy of reducing Church-state conflicts to legal technicalities. Wisconsin’s aggression stems from rejecting Regnum Christi—Christ’s social reign—as articulated in Quas Primas: “Rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ.” Instead of invoking this immutable doctrine, Catholic leaders beg for crumbs from Caesar’s table.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s First Amendment rationale—while temporarily favorable—enshrines religious indifferentism. Justice Sotomayor’s call for “government neutrality between religions” contradicts Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei: “States must profess the true religion if they wish to provide for their own well-being.” By celebrating this pluralist verdict, Becket and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference implicitly endorse the heresy that false religions merit equal protection.
Silence on the Real Scandal: Sacramental Nullity
Most damningly, the article ignores the sacramental crisis underlying this dispute. If the Diocese of Superior follows post-1968 ordination rites—which lack proper form and intention—its “clergy” are laymen masquerading as priests. Consequently, their “charity” lacks sanctifying grace, reducing it to mere philanthropy. Pius XII’s Sacramentum Ordinis definitively established valid ordination requirements, yet the conciliar sect’s invalid rites render its works spiritually barren.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s enforcement of tax relief thus protects not Catholic charity but a secularized NGO. True Catholics must heed Pius XI’s warning: When states deny Christ’s authority, “the entire human society had to be shaken, because it lacked a stable and strong foundation” (Quas Primas). Until the conciliar sect repudiates Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae and reclaims Christ’s social kingship, such legal “victories” will remain pyrrhic—preserving tax breaks while souls march toward perdition.
Source:
Wisconsin loses second bid to block tax exemption in spat with Catholic charity (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 16.12.2025