Written by Don Byrd
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled the religious liberty rights of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts (RCB) are not violated by the requirement that the Springfield Historical Commission (SHC) be consulted prior to any change in the structure of the building of a church recently closed by the Diocese. The Church argued that the requirement “gives the SHC veto power over its religious decisionmaking, and in doing so violates its First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.” The Court, however, found the burden on the Church was not yet substantial enough as required by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) to trigger an exemption or accommodation from historical zoning regulations.
From the opinion:
[T]he City has had no opportunity to demonstrate whether or not it will accommodate some, all, or none of RCB’s requests for changes to the exterior of the Church. Indeed, RCB has not settled upon any plan for future use of the property that would necessarily entail changes to the Church’s exterior. Without knowing what RCB can or cannot do with the Church under the Ordinance, we cannot know to what extent, if any, RCB will suffer from a burden on its religious practice.
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RCB does face statutory penalties if it makes any changes to the Church without the SHC’s permission, see Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40C, § 13, but this possibility does not mean that the process of application to the SHC is itself burdensome. The Ordinance asks RCB only to delay the decisions it makes pursuant to its deconsecration plans while the SHC evaluates its application, a process that, according to the SHC’s own rules, should take no more than sixty days.In this case, all of the factors we have identified combine to show that RCB cannot, solely on its challenge to the enactment of the Ordinance, prove that it suffers a substantial burden on its religious exercise.
The Court emphasized that future decisions by the Commission may still violate the religious freedom rights of the Church, but that the mere presence of the zoning ordinance itself and its application to the Church, is not a violation.
