After brief legal battle with National Park Service, Knights of Columbus in Virginia get permit for Memorial Day worship service

Two days after filing a religious freedom lawsuit against the National Park Service, the Knights of Columbus council in Petersburg, Virginia, has been granted a permit to hold a Memorial Day worship service in a nearby national cemetery.

In the lawsuit, the Knights alleged that park officials had violated their right to religious expression by refusing to grant a permit for the service. Citing a 2022 policy on special events, officials had said the Knights needed to hold the event in a designated “free speech zone,” as the Deseret News previously reported.

Now, park officials have granted the group access to Poplar Grove National Cemetery, and the Knights have dropped their lawsuit.

The Petersburg Knights of Columbus council will be able to hold its worship service in the cemetery on Monday, as it has nearly every year since at least the 1960s.

“The Knights are thrilled that they will be able to exercise their religious beliefs and keep this honorable tradition alive. We appreciate the tremendous support of Governor (Glenn) Youngkin and Attorney General (Jason) Miyares in this case,” said Roger Byron, senior counsel at First Liberty, one of the firms representing the council, in a press release.

As Byron noted in the statement, the Knights had some high-profile support as they fought for a permit.

Miyares issued a statement of his own on Thursday, congratulating the Petersburg council on how the situation had worked out.

“I’m pleased that the Petersburg Knights of Columbus was granted access to observe Memorial Day and gather to pray and mourn the loss of fallen military personnel. The First Amendment very clearly allows religious and non-religious groups to hold these types of gatherings on government grounds. It’s shameful and un-American that they were denied in the first place,” his statement said.