Supreme Court to hear Catholic group’s zoning dispute

The nation’s highest court on Thursday agreed to hear a Kentucky-based Catholic nonprofit group’s lawsuit against a couple who sought to block it from building a religious shrine. The Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist group planned to argue that denying its permit to build violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA, according to court documents. The law said religious institutions can’t be treated differently than secular institutions in land-use decisions, and it also said authorities must give ample justification for any land-use restrictions that burden religious exercise.

According to court documents, the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist wanted to build a grotto-style shrine to the Virgin Mary, as well as a surrounding plaza and walking path, on property the group owned. The site was next to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Park Hills, Ky. The group applied for a permit because the church and land were located in a neighborhood zoned for residential buildings. Local authorities approved the application, but a couple who lived across the street then sued to block that decision.

The couple argued that the shrine project violated state and local zoning regulations and should not have been granted a permit. The case has gone back and forth in the court system: a state trial court sided with the Catholic group, while a state appeals court and the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled against it. The state supreme court said that blocking the shrine didn’t violate RLUIPA because the same rules applied to both religious projects and secular projects. The court also said that the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist could build a smaller shrine elsewhere on the property.

Dig deeper: Read Liz Lykins’ report on an Orthodox Jewish man’s arguments to the Supreme Court over his right to hold prayer meetings in his home.