A Magistrate Judge in Colorado has held that a pension plan established by Catholic Health Initiatives is not a “church plan” and is therefore subject to the rules of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The Magistrate, following several recent decisions, said the ERISA statute requires a plan to be established and maintained by a church or convention of churches if it is to be exempt from coverage. Since Catholic Health Initiatives admitted it was not a church, its plan could not be a church plan exempt from the ERISA requirements. This was true, the Magistrate said, even though the IRS had ruled that the plan qualified as a church plan in a private ruling to the...