What a dispute over a Native American worship site means for U.S. religious liberty
The Catholic bishops are backing a suit by a coalition of Apache Stronghold, a coalition of Native Americans and their supporters, in their lawsuit against the federal government. The lawsuit argues that their freedom of religion was violated when the federal government announced its intention to sell formerly protected land in Arizona to a mining company. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Becket
CNA Staff, Aug 26, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
“Arbitrary government interference.”
That’s what the Knights of Columbus warned will befall religious believers in the U.S. if a copper mining company is allowed to take possession of, and destroy, a centuries-old Native American worship site in Arizona.
That site, Oak Flat, has been the subject of years of dispute and litigation, with a coalition group of activists known as Apache Stronghold leading an effort to prevent the government from surrendering the ancient religious location to private interests.
For decades the federal government protected the parcel from development in the Tonto National Forest. But the Obama administration in 2014 began the process of transferring the land to the multinational Resolution Copper, whose mining operations will dig a massive pit at the site and end its status as a center of worship.
The Native American activists have drawn support from a wide variety of religious advocates and stakeholders in the U.S., including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Knights of Columbus.
Apache Stronghold lost its bid at the Supreme Court earlier this year to halt the sale. This month, as part of a different legal challenge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit paused the sale just hours before it was to take effect, giving Native advocates likely their last chance to head off the destruction of the site.
*Religious Freedom Restoration Act weakened*
At issue in the main legal dispute is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a Clinton-era law that restricts how and under what conditions the U.S. government can impose burdens upon U.S. religious liberty.
RFRA states that laws “shall not substantially burden” an individual’s religion, ordering that the government must have both a compelling interest in burdening a religion and must achieve it via the least restrictive means.
Joe Davis, an attorney with the religious liberty legal group Becket, told CNA that the law is what’s known as a “super statute,” one that “applies to all federal law and all federal actions under the law.”
Becket has supported Apache Stronghold in its effort to halt the sale of the site. Davis said that Congress in passing RFRA aimed to ensure that “before the government really does anything, it’s supposed to think about the effects and implications on religion and religious practitioners.”
“RFRA doesn’t actually stop the government from doing anything,” he said. “It just requires them to have a really good reason to do it.”
Prior to the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Apache Stronghold case, a lower court had decided that though RFRA generally prohibits the government’s “substantial burdening” of religion, that guidance does not apply in cases of “disposition of government real property,” as is the case with the Oak Flat parcel.
Davis described that ruling as a “restrictive interpretation of RFRA.” The more narrow reading of the law, he said, “will filter down into other cases and be applied any time the government wants to avoid having to prove a burden on religious exercise.”
Indeed, the case has already had a demonstrable effect on religious liberty in the U.S., specifically involving a Knights of Columbus chapter in Virginia.
The Knights Petersburg Council 694 had held a memorial Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery for decades, but the National Park Service in 2023 moved to bar the Knights from any further Masses, claiming it constituted a prohibited “demonstration” due to its religious character.
The government eventually relented in the face of litigation. But Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing in dissent earlier this year over the high court’s refusal to hear the Apache case, pointed out that the government in banning the Knights had explicitly cited the new RFRA standard brought about by the Oak Flat case.
Davis noted the diverse religious concerns raised by the case, pointing to filings in support of the Native Americans from the U.S. bishops, the Knights, and numerous other major faith groups.
The injunction issued this month by the 9th Circuit concerns three separate cases, one of which involves environmental claims. Briefs in the case will be due starting Sept. 8. Whether or not the more restrictive interpretation of RFRA can be reversed in those cases is unclear.
Davis, meanwhile, stressed that the statute “protects all religions and religious practitioners in this country.”
The U.S. bishops agreed last year, writing with other Christian groups that changing the parameters of RFRA made the law “a dead letter when applied to obliteration of an Indigenous sacred site on federal land.”
“Beyond that catastrophic harm, this approach defies the statutory text, misreads precedent, and would produce other unjust results,” they wrote.
Davis, meanwhile, argued that the restrictive interpretation “is really bad for all religions in this country.”
“It’s bad for the Apaches, and it’s bad for all people of faith,” he said.