Gorgia v. Dolan — Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine Bars Seminarian’s Discrimination Claims Against Archdiocese
The Appellate Division, Second Department holds that a former seminarian’s race, sexual orientation, and disability discrimination claims against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Cardinal Dolan are non-justiciable under the First Amendment’s ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, because adjudicating them would require the court to evaluate his progress in Catholic priestly “human formation” — an inquiry into religious doctrine the courts may not conduct.