A federal appeals court may be having second thoughts about a ruling last month in which it overturned a legal doctrine known as “the ministerial exception” in a case involving Gannon University.

In the ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said that a former chaplain at the Roman Catholic university could proceed with a lawsuit that accused Gannon of discriminating against her because she is a woman (The Chronicle, May 26). The ruling reversed a lower-court decision, which, in keeping with the ministerial exception, disallowed the lawsuit as an unconstitutional entanglement of the government in the free exercise of religion.

But on Tuesday, the full Third Circuit court vacated the earlier ruling and granted a request from Gannon for a rehearing of the case. In a two-page decision, the court noted that one of the three judges who issued the May ruling had died and another had had to recuse himself from further involvement in the case. The court named a new three-judge panel to rehear the appeal.