Virginia Knights receive religious freedom award after spat with federal government

CNA Staff, Sep 13, 2024 / 10:15 am (CNA).

A council of Knights of Columbus in Virginia has received a religious freedom award after it won a dispute earlier this year with the government over celebrating Mass at a federal cemetery.

The First Liberty Institute awarded the Knights of Columbus Council 694 its Philip B. Onderdonk Jr. Religious Liberty Award in recognition of the Petersburg council’s successful challenge to a federal rule prohibiting Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery. The religious freedom group assisted the knights in their challenge.

The Knights’ council has held an annual Memorial Day Mass at the Petersburg-area cemetery for decades, yet the National Park Service (NPS) had determined in 2023 that the observance was prohibited due to it being a religious service.

The Knights filed a challenge to the rule in May of this year, arguing that the prohibition violated the First Amendment as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The federal government ultimately backed down and allowed the council to hold the Mass.

First Liberty Institute senior counsel Roger Byron said in giving the award that the Knights’ “commitment to its mission and the ideal of religious liberty was made clear once again this year when it stood firmly to keep their annual Memorial Day Mass at a national public cemetery in Virginia.”

“In the face of an unconstitutional policy adopted by the National Park Service, the Knights refused to back down and stood up to defend the First Amendment,” Byron said.

“We honor the Knights’ commitment to our first freedom.”

Prior to backing down and allowing the Mass, park service officials had said the Knights could hold the observance “outside the cemetery on a patch of grass near the parking lot,” which the Knights’ filing said was “unreasonable, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.”

In their filing, the Knights said the Petersburg council “has hosted a Memorial Day Mass inside the Poplar Grove National Cemetery every year (with few exceptions)” for upwards of 60 years or more.

“[T]he location is important to us,” the Knights told NPS when filing for the Mass permit.
“It’s our religious belief that the memorial service needs to be inside the cemetery itself, not outside the cemetery somewhere. That’s why we’ve always had it there every year since at least the 1960s or before.”

The Onderdonk award has been given since 2015 to “a hero and protector of religious liberty,” First Liberty Institute says on its website.

Instead of a trophy, the recipient “receives a Henry Repeating Arms Military Service Tribute Edition .22 caliber commemorative rifle, specially engraved for the award,” the organization says.

The Knights were also recently in the news when former President Donald Trump sharply criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for her earlier aggressive questioning of judicial nominees who were members of the Knights of Columbus.

In 2018 Harris questioned three different nominees over their membership in the global Catholic organization. She said that the pro-life and pro-marriage views of the Knights conflicted with constitutional rights to abortion and same-sex marriage and questioned the nominees’ suitability for office.