The Archdiocese of St. Louis filed a federal lawsuit claiming the visitation policy at the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center violates U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees' religious rights.
The litigation filed on Monday points to no-contact policies that bar priests from meeting detainees face-to-face, as well as time limits on visits, as factors violating religious freedom.
The archdiocese said in a statement that, though the detention facility accommodates exemptions to these policies for attorneys and consular officials, the jail has refused accommodations requested by clergy.
The plaintiffs say the visitation policy violates the First Amendment's free exercise clause in addition to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Missouri Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The suit seeks injunctions to stop the detention center from enforcing the visitation policy and to force the ICE to restore religious freedoms to priests and detainees nationwide.
"The Catholic Church does not seek special treatment, but only requests the same access as these other groups, which if provided, would allow clergy to offer the Catholic sacraments detainees desperately want," said the statement the archdiocese issued on Monday.
John Inazu, a professor of law and religion at Washington University, believes the requests for accommodations are legitimate.
"It's pretty clear that you have to make an accommodation for a substantial burden on religion or religious exercise," he said. "Particularly something that's core to religious exercise as the Eucharist is for Catholics."
The standard visitation policy at Ste. Genevieve is no contact — that usually means a plexiglass screen between the visitor and detainee, who communicate by a telephone that may be monitored by jail staff.
According to the suit, this practice has restricted priests' ability to hear confessions due to the lack of privacy.
The lawsuit further alleges that the glass partition prevents detainees' from receiving Catholic sacraments like Communion.
The visitation policy also limits visits to a four-hour window per week, including the time it may take to transport detainees to visitation booths.
"As a result, clergy often must cut their visits with detainees short, and they are rarely able to see all of the detainees who have asked to speak with a priest," the lawsuit alleges.
The filing included a signed declaration from the Rev. Christopher Schroeder, a plaintiff in the case.
"I have found that these detainees, who are often separated from any family or friends, are in extreme need of spiritual counsel and of the grace and peace that the sacraments provide," the declaration states.
The declaration also highlights that several Spanish-speaking detainees are practicing Catholics or were raised Catholic.
In a prior comment to St. Louis Business Journal, the chief deputy with the Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff's Office, Maj. Jason Schott, stated that priests may give a wrapped wafer for jail personnel to pass to the detainee, but that priests are not permitted to directly contact detainees to prevent the passage of illegal contraband.
According to the lawsuit, only trained Catholic ministers may distribute Communion.
Inazu said jails are required to make accommodations for religion — even if inconvenient.
"The law also requires officials to make determinations that sometimes come at a cost," Inazu said. "The response can't just be a generalized concern about prison safety, and it can't be that it'll cost the prison some time and effort to make this possible."
In a written statement to St. Louis Public Radio, Schott stated the sheriff's office had not yet received the lawsuit documentation.
"Once received, we will forward it to our legal counsel for review. Until that review is complete, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further on this matter," he wrote.
Under an intragovernmental agreement with ICE, Ste. Genevieve County's is one of several jails in the Midwest that receive payments per detainee, per night. In recent months, the detention center has come under criticism for poor conditions including overcrowding and access to water.
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