Weekly items, old and new:
- As the South Bend Catholic Worker expands, it’s getting some static from the city for housing too many unrelated people in the same house, a zoning violation:
But Catholic Worker does not seem interested in moving. Instead, it is hinting at a threat of its own: a lawsuit in federal court.
[A similar case], still pending, involves the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which bars a government from implementing a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a “substantial burden” on one’s “religious exercise” — unless the government can prove a compelling governmental interest in doing so.
“I’ve come to think that this configuration of events is interfering with our ability to practice our religion,” Pfeil said. “If I as a private resident want to practice works of mercy by sharing my home with people who are homeless, I ought to be able to do that.”
- After a New York state jury refused to convict four activists on charges stemming from civil disobedience at a military recruiting station, the federal government has indicted them on federal charges stemming from the same protest. (National Catholic Reporter)
- A Christian Peacemaker team is visiting a stretch of Arizona border to head off any violence instigated by the anti-illegal-immigrant vigilantes The Minutemen. (CPT newsletter)
- In the LA Catholic Worker’s recent issue of The Catholic Agitator is an interview with Catherine Morris and Jeff Dietrich. Jeff’s take on the works of mercy:
. . . as they spoke it just occurred to me that this is what Christianity is about. They were feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, and burning draft files.