A series of innocuous-sounding regulations conceal an affront to the American faithful.
Cease and desist. That’s what Walter Reed National Military Medical Center wrote last week to Holy Name College, a community of Franciscan priests that has provided pastoral care to hospitalized service members for nearly two decades. The group had continued to minister into Holy Week after the government didn’t renew its contract when it expired on March 31—opting instead for what the Archdiocese for the Military Services described as a “secular defense contracting firm.” The result, it says, has been insufficient access to Catholic sacraments for troops and veterans.
The decision is part of a broader pattern of bureaucratic incursions on religious liberty. In mid-March the public-comment window closed on proposed federal regulations that would severely curtail the rights of faith-based organizations that work with the federal government to provide social services.
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Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation professor of law at University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Ms. Kessler is an attorney in the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic.
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