CNA Staff, May 23, 2024 / 14:38 pm
A Virginia council of the Knights of Columbus will be permitted to hold its annual Memorial Day Mass in a federal cemetery after the National Park Service (NPS) backed down and allowed the group to hold the observance.
Knights of Columbus Petersburg Council 694 had filed a temporary restraining order against NPS after the park service forbade the council from holding its annual Memorial Day Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery.
First Liberty Institute, which represented the Knights in the dispute, said in a press release this week that the fraternal organization has “held the service at the park every year since at least the 1960s.”
The filing, made in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, said NPS decided in 2023 that the annual Mass, held at the cemetery within Petersburg National Battlefield, “would henceforth be categorized as a prohibited ‘demonstration’ under NPS regulations because it is a ‘religious service.’”