Supreme Court to Review Kentucky Church's Plan for Shrine on Residential Land

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to consider whether a religious institution has the right to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary on residential property next to its Kentucky church. The church's owner, a nonprofit formed by Roman Catholic priests, claims that the Kentucky Supreme Court misconstrued a federal law and erroneously ruled against its plan to build a shrine on a residential plot that it purchased for the project. The nation's highest court will hear arguments in the coming months regarding this case involving religious rights. The petitioners, Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist, argue that they have a right to build the shrine behind their church as part of their "religious mission." They assert that a federal law can, under certain circumstances, prevent governments from implementing land use regulations that impose a "substantial burden" on religious expression. The Kentucky Supreme Court concluded last December that a zoning board in Park Hills, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, did not have the authority to grant a variance for the church's owner to build the shrine on a residential tract. The church group contends that the Kentucky Supreme Court's decision conflicts with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and other appellate rulings. A neighborhood family, concerned that the project would exacerbate traffic issues, successfully challenged the zoning board's decision in state court. This family also opposed the group's Supreme Court petition, arguing that there is no basis for the nation's highest court to intervene in the local zoning dispute. The opponents assert that the church group was aware that zoning ordinances prohibited it from building the shrine on neighboring residential land when it acquired the property. They also argue that the group has not demonstrated why it could not build the shrine on church land.