The Trump administration is facing a new religious freedom lawsuit — this time from Catholic clergy who say immigration detainees are being effectively denied access to some of the most fundamental sacraments of their faith.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis, Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski and Father Chris Schroeder filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging restrictions at the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center in Missouri, which houses detainees under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The lawsuit names local jail officials along with federal Homeland Security and ICE officials.
At the center of the dispute is a remarkably basic question: Can Catholic priests actually meet with Catholic detainees in a way that allows them to practice their religion?
According to the archdiocese, the current answer is effectively no.
Priests are restricted to a four-hour visiting window on Mondays and must communicate with detainees through a glass partition using telephones.
That arrangement, the lawsuit argues, makes several essential Catholic practices impossible.
Priests cannot privately hear confessions. They cannot properly distribute Holy Communion. They cannot celebrate Mass with detainees. And they cannot administer other sacraments requiring direct pastoral access.
Archbishop Rozanski says that is unacceptable.
“My pastoral concern reaches to every person in the limits of our archdiocese,” Rozanski said while discussing the restrictions.
The archbishop has made clear that detention does not erase his responsibility toward Catholics inside the facility.
The lawsuit says approximately 150 ICE detainees can be held at the jail at any given time, and the archdiocese says detainees have specifically requested sacramental care.
Yet priests seeking to provide it have repeatedly run into the jail’s no-contact policy.
Perhaps the most striking example involves Holy Communion.
According to the complaint, a jail official suggested that a priest could individually package a consecrated Communion host and hand it to a guard, who would then deliver it to a detainee.
For Catholics, that isn’t an ordinary piece of bread being passed through a jail.
Catholic teaching holds that the consecrated Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ, and Church rules govern how it is handled and distributed.
The archdiocese rejected the proposed arrangement.
Rozanski described such a solution as “sacrilegious.”
The lawsuit also points to an apparent disparity in how different visitors are treated.
According to the complaint, attorneys are able to arrange face-to-face meetings with detainees during business hours and can meet without the barriers imposed on priests. Consular officials also receive exceptions from the jail’s no-contact policy.
The archdiocese wants comparable access for clergy providing sacramental care.
That distinction forms an important part of its religious-freedom argument: if security concerns can accommodate direct access for lawyers and consular officials, the plaintiffs contend that an outright restriction on comparable clergy access is difficult to justify.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause as well as federal and Missouri religious-freedom protections.
It also asks a federal judge for a preliminary injunction that would stop the restrictive visitation policies while the case proceeds.
ICE has said its detention standards require facilities to provide detainees reasonable opportunities to practice their religion, and the agency has maintained that clergy visits can occur with notification to the sheriff.
The archdiocese argues that whatever the policy says on paper, priests still have not been given the access necessary to administer the sacraments at Ste. Genevieve.
And this isn’t the first time the issue has reached federal court.
Catholic and other clergy have brought similar challenges involving immigration detention facilities in Illinois and Minnesota. Judges in those cases issued orders allowing religious ministers greater access to detainees.
That broader context makes the Missouri fight particularly significant.
The Trump administration has frequently presented itself as a defender of religious liberty.
Now federal officials working under that administration are defendants in a lawsuit brought by Catholic clergy alleging that immigration detention policies are interfering with the free exercise of their religion.
Rozanski says the archdiocese has no intention of dropping the issue.
“We are not giving up,” he said.
For the archbishop, this isn’t simply another fight over Trump’s immigration policies.
It is about whether people behind detention-center walls retain the same fundamental right to practice their faith — and whether the priests responsible for serving them will actually be allowed through the door.
About the Author
Remember that Satan was REPRIEVED by Allah 6000 years ago to ruin your relationship with God if he could manage that. That is why I.C.E. is stopping Catholic Detainees in I.C.E. prisons from taking Communion properly. Donald Chump who is Satan Incarnate is The Commander In Chief of I.C.E. That explains everything does it not? Amen?