Pontifical Academy for Life signs elderly care declaration with Muslim council, AARP

CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The Justice Department (DOJ) is backing a small community church suing Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, arguing that the state cannot single out churches for public health restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lighthouse Fellowship Church on Virginia’s Eastern Shore filed suit last week against Northam’s stay-at-home order prohibiting church gatherings with more than ten people inside. The DOJ filed a statement of interest on Sunday in the case.

“The United States has a substantial interest in the preservation of its citizens’ fundamental right to the free exercise of religion, expressly protected by the First Amendment,” the brief states.

Although the state can lawfully restrict gatherings during a public health emergency, it must do so without discriminating against religion, the DOJ argued in its brief. So far, Virginia has not shown that it applied restrictions evenly for secular and religious gatherings, as many exemptions exist for various businesses but not for churches, the DOJ said.

The church sued the state after its pastor received a summons for hosting a 16-person Palm Sunday service on April 5 at the church. Gov. Northam had issued a stay-at-home order prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people, including in churches.

At the Palm Sunday service, a police officer entered the church and told attendees they were in violation of the governor’s order, threatening arrest for attendees who violated the order in the future. Pastor Kevin Wilson faces up to one year in prison or up to $2,500 in fines.

Lawyers representing the church say that its congregation is disproportionately poor and vulnerable, that attendees of the Palm Sunday service were spaced out within the church sanctuary, and that congregants don’t have the means of watching or listening to church services remotely.

“Some of them [congregants] are former drug addicts, that have come out of drug addiction; others are some people who have been in prostitution—not all of the people in the church, but some of them are from that background,” Matt Staver, chairman and founder of the Liberty Counsel which represents Lighthouse Fellowship Church, told CNA in a previous interview.

“For some of those individuals, the church is the only family that they have and they rely upon the church for support.” 

According to the DOJ’s statement of interest, the state has not yet responded to allegations that it treated the church differently than it did other secular establishments such as law and accounting offices that were allowed to hold gatherings of more than 10 people.

For instance, Gov. Northam’s order allows staff gatherings at certain businesses with no limit on the number of employees; it also exempts beer, wine, and liquor stores, hardware and home improvement stores, and laundromats and dry cleaners from restrictions to which churches are subject.

The state does have legitimate authority to take “necessary, temporary measures to meet a genuine emergency,” the DOJ argued, but such restrictions must be “balanced” against constitutional rights and cannot discriminate against religion.

By singling out religious institutions, the state now has the “burden of proof” that its order has “compelling reasons” to treat religious services differently than other secular gatherings, the DOJ argues, and so far the state has failed to prove its case.

The brief is part of Attorney General William Barr’s April 27 initiative to clarify constitutional rights during the pandemic.

The DOJ has also supported a Mississippi church in its case against the city of Greenville; the church held drive-in services that were curtailed by the city as a public health risk, with police issuing fines of $500 to participants who remained in their cars even as local restaurants were allowed to serve drive-in patrons. The mayor later said the city would not collect on the fines and would allow such services to continue in future.

Also, on Saturday the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted an injunction against a state order to Maryville Baptist Church in Kentucky, saying that “[t]he Governor has offered no good reason so far for refusing to trust the congregants who promise to use care in worship in just the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and laundromat workers to do the same.”

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Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 14, 2017 / 03:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Next year’s synod, which will focus on young people, must address their most pressing problems, including indifference and disillusionment, U.S. bishops said at their annual meeting on… […]

Sebastian Lai speaks to EWTN News Nightly Anchor Tracy Sabol on his father’s imprisonment, Wednesday, Mar. 12, 2025 / Credit: EWTN News

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 12, 2025 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

Sebastian Lai, son of Hong Kong Catholic democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, said this week his father is “still fighting for his beliefs” while he remains imprisoned in “inhumane” conditions and his national security trial drags on. 

Lai, the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and a human rights activist, has been on trial since December of 2023 for allegations of colluding with foreign forces under a national security law put in effect by the communist-controled Chinese government. 

He was originally arrested in 2020 and has been convicted on several other charges over the course of his detainment. 

The 77-year-old has been in solitary confinement in Hong Kong for more than four years, where “he doesn’t get to see anybody. He doesn’t get natural light, and he’s denied the Eucharist as well,” Sebastian Lai said at a press conference on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. 

Trial subject to ‘disgraceful’ months-long delay

Sebastian explained that the trial just finished cross-examinations. In the courtroom, Lai was reported to be “skinnier,” but “still very sharp.”

The trial was supposed to last 18 days, Sebastian said, but has now run for well over 100. “He’s not going to get sentenced until either end of this year or the start of next year,” he said. 

The lead of Jimmy Lai’s international team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, further explained the trial timeline and the anticipated outcome.

“We’re waiting for the closing submissions, and disgracefully, there’s a very, very long delay until early August before the closing submissions,” Gallagher said. “That’s a gap of almost five months in the middle of a trial when you’re dealing with an elderly man who’s diabetic, who’s already been in prison and in solitary confinement for over four years.”

“After that, there’ll be a pause, we don’t know how long before the judges give their verdict. But we think that’s only going one way,” she said. “We think it’s going to be a guilty finding, because he’s being tried under a law which essentially criminalizes dissent.”

“Really, what we’ve seen playing out is a trial for conspiracy to commit journalism, a conspiracy to raise concerns about democratic values.” 

“We’re really here to sound the alarm bell,” Gallagher added. “We think this is an absolutely key moment.” 

Lai facing ‘heightened risk to life’

Sebastian said there is “a real fear that he might pass away at any time, especially given that we have summer coming up.” 

Hong Kong will experience 100-degree temperatures, he said, and Lai is “in a little concrete box with everything blocked off.”

“We’re very, very worried about Sebastian’s father,” Gallagher said. “He’s 77, he’s diabetic. There is a very strong evidence base that when people spend an extended period of time in solitary confinement, there is a heightened risk to life.”

“Prolonged solitary confinement is when you spend 15 days in solitary confinement, and he spent over 1,500 days,” she said.

Gallagher bluntly said: “We are worried that we will see Jimmy Lai die in prison unless urgent action is taken.”

International support for Lai’s release

Sebastian and the legal team met with the State Department in Washington this week and plan to meet with the National Security Council and a number of senators. 

Gallagher and Sebastian highlighted that right now there is increased support for Jimmy’s release. “There’s a real sense, both in America and internationally, that my father needs to be released,” Sebastian said.

He explained that the U.S. was the first to call for Lai’s release and now his father’s case has received support from the U.K., Canada, and Australia. With this attention, he said, “the time is now” to get his father released. 

He said the new U.S. administration makes him “a lot more hopeful.” 

“President Trump was the first president in the United States that mentioned my father by name,” he said. 

“We’re acutely conscious that President Trump has shown such leadership on bringing people out from captivity who shouldn’t be there, and we’re very grateful for that,” Gallager said. 

With that said, Gallagher explained, “There is no legal avenue to get him out of prison.” 

The team’s hope is that Lai is let out of prison for clemency or a compassionate release due to his failing health.

Lai’s faith as a ‘pillar’

After the press conference, in an exclusive interview with “EWTN News Nightly,” Sebastian discussed how his father’s Catholic faith has been “a real pillar” in getting him through his time in prison. 

Sebastian said that when the national security law was placed Lai had the opportunity to leave Hong Kong, but, he said, “that’s not the man he is. He knew that by leaving, he would be abandoning his beliefs and his people. And so he stayed and risked his life to protect his people.”

“It’s a tremendous story…of how faith has given such strength and direction in a man’s life,” he told anchor Tracy Sabol. “I think faith is why even after having gone through so much with the Hong Kong government trying to break him, he’s still strong.”

Sebastian concluded the interview by sharing a story from the trial. “In one of the heated exchanges with the national security law judges…my father said, ‘[At] the end of the day, the truth will come out in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the Kingdom of God, and that’s good enough for me.’”

“Tell this truth and pray for him because I think in his little cell in a standing maximum security prison, it gives him a lot of strength, and it makes him know that he’s not alone,” Sebastian said. 

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