An appellate court in Florida has rejected a claim by a Catholic pastor convicted of grand theft of parish funds that the prosecution was unconstitutional as an “excessive entanglement with religion” in violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and a provision of the Florida state Constitution. The Constitution prevents courts from resolving internal church disputes that would require adjudication of questions of religious doctrine, the Court said, but purely secular disputes involving religious institutions and third parties do not create excessive entanglement of church and state when they involve “neutral principles of law.” The pastor had relied on a case from North...