The Catholic Diocese of Springfield has responded to Tuesday’s federal court decision in the Diocese’s lawsuit against the City of Springfield, over the 2010 creation of a historic district at Our Lady of Hope Church.
The district was created after the Diocese announced its plan to close Our Lady of Hope (along with a number of other parishes in the region), in response to concerns that the church building might be sold to a developer who would drastically alter, or even demolish, the 1925 stone building. Owners of buildings in historic districts cannot knock down or alter the exterior of those buildings without the approval of the Historical Commission. The Commission, by law, can allow alterations to the building if it deems that the changes are in keeping with the district or will not affect the building’s exterior. It can also grant a “certificate of hardship” if the applicant demonstrates that failing to allow the changes would create “substantial hardship, financial or otherwise, to the applicant.”
The Jan 4. ruling, by Judge Michael Ponsor, rejected the Diocese’s claim that imposing the church to the historic protection regulations violated its religious protections under the state and federal constitutions. Much of Ponsor’s ruling turned on the fact that the Diocese has yet to submit any plans to the Historical Commission for approval, and therefore can’t yet make the case that it’s been treated unfairly by any Commission decision.
Ponsor did, however, write that if Diocese does submit a plan to the Historical Commission seeking a certificate of hardship to allow it to remove certain religious symbols from the exterior of the church, it “seems like a very real possibility” that it would be entitled to one. The Diocese’s lawsuit, Ponsor found, “makes a strong argument that the inability to deconsecrate the Church would result in a religious hardship.”
A Diocese statement released yesterday by spokesman Mark Dupont read: “The Diocese is pleased with the Court’s determination that all exterior religious symbols and stained glass windows are protected forms of religious exercise under the Constitution. … Further, the Court agreed with the Diocese that a hardship was created for the Diocese by the enactment of the Our Lady of Hope Historic District. The Court’s statement … of its opinion, that the granting to the Diocese of a hardship exemption from the ordinance ‘seems like a very real possibility’ is a strong affirmation of the position the Diocese has taken from the outset on this Ordinance.
“It is a disappointment the Court chose not to end this matter,” the Diocese statement concluded.
