A Catholic fraternity is taking the White House to court after it was banned from holding an annual Mass it has staged at a national cemetery for more than 60 years. The Knights of Columbus has held a Memorial Day Mass at the Poplar Grove National Cemetery in Virginia every year since 1960.
But it is claiming religious discrimination after the National Park Service (NPS) decided the religious service amounted to a ‘demonstration’ and decided to ban it on the Petersburg site.
“The policy and the decision blocking the Knights of Columbus from continuing their long-standing religious tradition is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” their lawyer John Moran said in a press release.
“We urge the court to grant our restraining order and allow the Knights to hold their service this Memorial Day.”
The group was founded in New Haven, Connecticut as a welfare organisation in 1882 and boasts more than two million members around the world. The NPS has had a rule in place since the 1980s classifying religious services and vigils as “demonstrations”.
There was a specific exemption for “official commemorative events conducted for Memorial Day, Veterans Day and other dates designated by the superintendent as having special historic and commemorative significance to a particular national cemetery”.
But the NPS clamped down on the Knights after a policy change in 2022 requiring “demonstrations” that are likely to attract “onlookers” to take place elsewhere.
“National Cemeteries are established as national shrines in tribute to those who have died in service to our country,” Alexa Viets, superintendent of the Petersburg National Battlefield, told the Washington Times.
“As such any special activities within the cemetery are reserved for a limited set of official commemorative activities that have a connection to military service or have a historic and commemorative significance for the particular national cemetery.”
Former President John F Kennedy was a member of the Knights but his fellow Catholic successor in the White House now faces a court battle over religious discrimination.
“We assume that there must have been some kind of oversight or miscommunication, and that the park service is simply going to approve the permit,” said Roger Byron of law firm First Liberty Institute.
‘If they don’t, we’ll know that something else has happened – something that bears the unmistakable marks of religious discrimination. The National Park Service is way out of line.’