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Virginia Knights receive religious freedom award after spat with federal government

September 13, 2024 Catholic News Agency 0
Deacon Bob Young, representing Knights of Columbus Council 694, accepts the First Liberty Institute’s Philip B. Onderdonk Jr. Religious Liberty Award award at the American Legion’s National Convention in New Orleans on Aug. 28, 2024. / Credit: Jeric Wilhelmsen/The American Legion

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.

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News Briefs

Labor Department strengthens religious freedom rule

December 8, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Dec 8, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The Labor Department (DOL) finalized a rule on Monday that allows faith-based government contractors to make employment decisions based on their religious beliefs.

The rule clarifies existing protections for faith-based contractors that date back to the Johnson era. It allows them to hire only people of a certain faith without regard to an anti-discrimination requirement of the government.

Exempt contractors can also make employment decisions based on an employee’s “acceptance of or adherence to religious tenets.”

The final rule retains most of the proposed rule, with some alterations regarding the scope of the religious exemption, DOL said.

Religion, according to the rule, includes “religious belief” as well as “all aspects of religious observance and practice.”

Eligible religious groups are not limited to churches and similar bodies, DOL said, but can be “a corporation, association, educational institution, society, school, college, university, or institution of learning” that is “organized for a religious purpose.”

The rule also says that “the contractor must engage in activity consistent with, and in furtherance of, its religious purpose” and is exempt when it “makes it reasonably clear to the public that it has a religious purpose.”

The agency says it would not challenge a group’s “sincere” claim of religious character, but a “sincere” claim must be more substantial than a group adding “a religious purpose to its documents after it becomes aware of potential discrimination liability or government scrutiny.”

Eligible contractors would not necessarily be non-profits, as some religious groups may operate small stores or could be entities such as hospitals, the agency said. However, any for-profit group would need to present “strong evidence” of their religious character, DOL said.

The group First Liberty Institute welcomed the new rule on Monday.

“Religious organizations should never be forced to abandon their religious identity and mission in order to be eligible to partner with the federal government,” said Stephanie Taub, Senior Counsel at First Liberty Institute. 

There were more than 109,000 comments on the proposed rule, according to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

“When a religious group hires people of the same religion to carry out their mission, it’s not ‘discrimination,’ it’s common sense,” said Luke Goodrich, senior counsel and vice president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, to CNA when the rule was first proposed in Aug., 2019.

“And when the government refuses to work with religious groups that do the best job of caring for the needy, it’s not ‘equality,’ it’s nonsense,” he added. 

In May, the agency issued broad new religious freedom protections for federal employees and faith-based grant recipients, including by implementing religious freedom into the daily operations of the agency and establishing “reasonable religious accommodations” for employees and applicants.

Under the guidance, religious groups had to have equal access to federal grants as their secular counterparts.


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