The power to tax is the power to destroy, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in 1819.

Two recent cases are trying to use that power against two outspoken defenders of Church teaching. In late October, just before the presidential election, the archdioceses of Denver and St. Louis were hauled before the Internal Revenue Service to have their status as tax-exempt charitable organizations revoked. The reason? Setting out Catholic teaching for Catholic voters.

These cases seek to silence religious institutions, especially Catholic ones, in the public square by threatening to ruin them financially. While these particular suits might not succeed, they further normalize the hostile treatment of religious institutions in America. They are also the latest examples in a disturbing trend: excluding religious organizations from benefits otherwise generally available simply because of faith. For example, a federal court in Washington, D.C., recently ruled that volunteers teaching in Catholic schools could not be eligible for the nationwide AmeriCorps program because of the risk their participation would constitute “impermissible government indoctrination.”

Other courts have gone one step further and required actions that directly contradict Catholic teaching. Courts in California and New York, for example, have both ruled that Catholic hospitals must provide contraceptives as part of their employee health insurance coverage despite acknowledging that doing so violates Catholic teaching. The Supreme Court has refused review of the cases, and so they remain the law for the foreseeable future.

Behind these complaints against the archdioceses is an organization called Catholics for a Free Choice. It is not Catholic at all but merely a front group for anti-Catholic propaganda. “Catholics” for a Free Choice has also targeted several other Catholic organizations such as Priests for Life and Catholic Answers Inc. through additional IRS complaints. The bishops have admonished the group on several occasions for improperly calling itself Catholic. The bishops are right to condemn the group: These lawsuits are clearly designed to exile the Catholic voice from American politics.

The complaints argue that written statements by archbishops Raymond Burke of St. Louis and Charles Chaput of Denver run afoul of IRS regulations that forbid a tax-exempt charitable organization such as a church from campaigning for or against a particular candidate. Specifically, the lawsuits target written statements by the archbishops in the months leading up to the election.

One complaint cites a pastoral letter by Archbishop Burke in which he set out the requirement that Catholic voters consider a candidate's stance on abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and euthanasia, what the archbishop called “intrinsic evils,” before voting. The complaint against the Denver Archdiocese is similar. It focuses on Archbishop Chaput's column in the diocesan newspaper in which he stated that politicians “who publicly ignore Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life are offering a dishonest public witness.” He further stated that Catholics should vote based on the application of Church teachings on issues such as stem-cell research and abortion.

However, the archbishops did not support one particular candidate over the other, which is what the IRS regulations forbid. The press release accompanying one of the complaints acknowledges that the archbishops did not identify individual politicians in their statements. Instead, the complaints rely on supposed “code words” used by the archbishops to disguise their intent, such as “pro-life.” Accordingly, the argument goes, the bishops were implicitly campaigning for President George W. Bush, or against Sen. John Kerry, based upon these candidates' positions on abortion and other life issues.

In return for the “privilege” of tax exemption, the group argued in its press release, the archbishops “agreed not to participate in election campaigns in ways that constitute an endorsement or opposition to specific candidates, explicitly or implicitly.” But the regulations do not forbid organizations from presenting positions rooted in religious teaching.

There are many troubling things about these complaints. First, if successful, they would completely eviscerate the bishop's office of preaching Catholic teaching to his flock. While every person must vote according to his or her own conscience, the bishops have the responsibility to help Catholic voters form their consciences in the light of Catholic teaching and to clearly express that teaching on a range of issues. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to express Catholic teaching in a vacuum.

Must the bishops cease speaking on issues such as the environment, labor or poverty and social justice? These complaints seek to impose a gag order on the Catholic hierarchy and in doing so deliberately seek to undermine the Church institutional teaching authority.

The complaints also make an implicit assumption about religious belief that has become enshrined among secular elites and in the courts. Specifically, the complaints create a false separation between faith and action that requires voters to act according to an objective standard shorn of any religious content. Choosing to act according to faith is perceived as somehow illegitimate. Not only is this untenable from a Catholic perspective but also, as religiously-inspired movements from abolition and temperance to the civil rights movement demonstrate, contrary to American history.

“Catholics” for a Free Choice argues that it is not infringing “on either the right to free speech or the practice of religion” in bringing these complaints, but that is disingenuous, at least from an organization that claims to be Catholic. The practice of religion is inseparable from action for Catholics, and faith should inform every action, including voting.

The IRS complaints, combined with the recent decisions against Catholic institutions, herald a new era in the attack on religious expression.

This new era will focus on making the existence of religious organizations more difficult through the application of seemingly neutral bureaucratic rules. Catholics need to be alert to this new tactic and prepared to assert their right to be equal participants in the nation's political life.

Gerald J. Russello is a fellow of the Chesterton Institute at Seton Hall University.