August 28, 2024

On not poking bears

By Laura Edwards
Convention
On not poking bears
(Photo by Jeric Wilhelmsen/The American Legion)

Onderdonk Religious Freedom Award goes to Virginia Knights of Columbus council that fought to get its Memorial Day Mass back.

The First Liberty Institute is the largest nonprofit legal organization in the nation devoted to defending religious liberty in America. It has gained a number of important Supreme Court victories protecting religious freedom, including one with The American Legion over the Bladensburg Cross, and received the Distinguished Service Medal in 2023. The institute’s Philip Onderdonk Religious Freedom Award is named in honor of the late Onderdonk, the Legion’s longtime national judge advocate, and given to a “champion of freedom.” 

On Aug. 28 during the Legion’s 105th National Convention in New Orleans, First Liberty’s senior counsel Roger Byron presented the 2024 award to Robert Young of the Richmond Archdiocese, representing a local Knights of Columbus (KoC) council. The KoC is a nationwide deeply patriotic service organization affiliated with the Catholic Church. Council 694 in Petersburg, Va., had held a Memorial Day Mass at the local Poplar Grove National Cemetery since the 1960s with no issue from the National Park Service (NPS) – until Memorial Day 2023. For the first time, the council’s permit application was denied, with NPS citing a new federal policy prohibiting religious services on cemetery grounds and referring to them as “demonstrations.”

When their application was denied again this May, Council 694 contacted First Liberty. On May 20, the institute filed a federal lawsuit and temporary restraining order. NPS relented just before a scheduled court hearing on May 23, and the Mass went ahead on May 27. Byron praised the council for being willing to “take the high road” and display the “courage of their convictions.”

Young accepted the award – which includes a Henry repeating rifle – and said it “will be placed in our council home for all to see.” He also quoted Father Gino Rossi, Mass leader, in describing how NPS underestimated them: rather than “nice old men who won’t cause any problems,” they came out as “bears. You don’t poke a bear.”

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