In 2020 the organization received a 40-acre wooded parcel in Genoa Township in southeast Michigan as a gift from the Diocese of Lansing. CHI planned to create a prayer trail with Stations of the Cross, a Catholic devotion that meditates on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, as well as an altar and mural placed in an outdoor grotto formed by the property’s trees.
Genoa Township said the prayer path project was the equivalent of a church building and required a special use permit, the Associated Press reported. The Catholic group protested the initial demand for a permit and proceeded to construct religious displays. It also spent thousands of dollars to submit plans for an actual church building, a eucharistic adoration chapel already part of its long-term plans for the site. This too was rejected on grounds that the plan violated zoning restrictions and other rules for property use, including traffic and noise rules.
The township then forced CHI to remove any religious displays from its property. It also banned organized gatherings at the property due to an expired driveway permit.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Monday sided with CHI and granted an injunction barring Genoa Township from obstructing CHI’s religious displays.
U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Kethledge, writing the panel decision, ruled that the township’s use of zoning laws imposed a “substantial burden” on the Catholic group’s religious freedom and likely violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which provides strong religious exercise protections for land.
“Catholic Healthcare’s expectation that it could use the property for a prayer campus at the time it acquired the property was not unreasonable,” Kethledge’s decision said.
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