Catholic School Still Trying to Seize Bar for Football Field

Not long ago I wrote about how a New Jersey town is trying to use eminent domain to seize a bar and turn the property over to a Catholic school. They are arguing that it is a better 'public use' of the property if the school can expand its football field. Thus far, the bar's owner has been unsuccessful in his legal fight.

The Star-Ledger reports:

“It’s inappropriate for government to take land from one person and give it to another for their personal use,” said Ed Barocas, the ACLU’s legal director in New Jersey. “It’s even more inappropriate to take it to benefit a particular religion.”

St. Peter’s Prep, a respected institution with powerful political ties, argues that after spending years and about $4 million assembling property for much-needed athletic fields, it is being held up unfairly by Tan. The school last year built a new field adjacent to the Golden Cicada, but the Rev. James Keenan, St. Peter’s president, said it is 7 yards shy of regulation and must be lengthened for the varsity to play its home games there.

Maybe it’s the fault of the school for building a football field in a place where they knew that they didn’t have enough room to make it regulation length? Maybe the school should have planned ahead and not assumed that they would be able to take someone else’s property for their private use?

In 2003, the school won approval to build its elaborate practice field but soon discovered that the scrap yard was far more polluted than expected. The price of the project ballooned from $2.5 million to $4 million, Keenan said The school got help from the state Legislature, which, at the behest of state Sen. Bernard Kenny (D-Hudson), chipped in $250,000 for the cleanup. Kenny’s sons both attended St. Peter’s.

Somehow, I doubt that Kenny would have helped a bar clean up the site, even if his friends regularly went there. I wonder why he thinks it is OK to use state money and state force for the benefit of religious schools like this?

John Curley, a lawyer for the city, said it is common for government to take land and give it to religious organizations for things like construction of affordable housing, which, like the fields, isn’t a religious purpose.

Affordable housing, though, is arguably a “public purpose.” Whether ultimately convincing or not, at least there is a potentially reasonable argument behind saying that it is a better “public purpose” for land to be used as affordable housing than for land to be used as a bar. The same isn’t the case when it comes to improving a football field for a private religious school — a school that has benefited extensively from state aid and a school which never should have built the field in the first place when they didn’t own the land they needed. This is a case of seizing land for the benefit of a religious institution and its members; benefits to the general public, if they exist at all, are incidental at most.

This reminds me of cases where people buy homes close to an airport, in full knowledge that they are close to a busy airport, and then try to get the airport closed down because of the noise. I can sympathize with people dealing with a noisy airport, but the solution is to be smart and not buy your home next to a busy airport in the first place. It’s wrong and selfish to ask the state for help in closing down an airport used by other people.

 

Quick Poll: Should the state be able to take land away from people and give it to private religious groups?

1. Yes, religion serves a higher purpose than commerce or housing and is thus a better public use of property.
2. Only if the property is used for genuine public purposes, not religious purposes.
3. No, eminent domain should be used to transfer property from one private person to another private person or group.
4. I don't know
5. I don't care

Click an option to vote, or View Current Poll Results

 

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Church and State News
• Roman Catholicism
• Catholicism News