A BATTLE HAS BEEN BREWING AT OUR LADY OF LOURDES ROMAN Catholic Church in Stellarton, an eastern Nova Scotia mining town. Six parishioners have insisted upon kneeling, not standing, while receiving communion, despite an explicit determination to the contrary by Bishop William Power of Antigonish.
The “Stellarton Six” have been convicted in Nova Scotia last summer for violating Section 172(3) of the criminal code, which makes it an offence to “disturb the order or solemnity” of a religious service. But Roseanne Skoke-Graham, a lawyer and one of the six, will appeal the decision this autumn before the Supreme Court of Canada. She will argue, among other things, that no disturbance was caused by kneeling, nor any interference with the order and solemnity of a religious service.
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal has already rejected this claim. It held that the trial court was correct in finding that kneeling constituted a disturbance, given the bitter dispute concerning this practice. How the Supreme Court will deal with the matter, under the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is anyone’s guess.
It is highly unfortunate that this case has turned so far on whether or not kneeling constitutes the disturbance of a religious ceremony. For there are really no objective criteria which can help us make a determination one way or another. What is one person’s disturbance (Bishop Power) is another person’s solemn practice (Roseanne Skoke-Graham).
Fortunately, however, there exists a point of law upon which an unambiguous determination can be made. This is the law of trespass.
Suppose I were to make it a rule that anyone who comes into my living room must remain standing (i.e., cannot kneel). And now, suppose that you enter my living room and insist upon kneeling. It would be impossible to even claim that your action disturbs the order or solemnity of a religious service, since my living room is patently not a house of worship. Am I thus without legal remedy?
Of course not. It is my living room, and I and I alone may determine the criteria for entry. I may insist, for example, that in order to stay on the premises, one must do a handstand, a cartwheel, or behave in any other outlandish manner I deem appropriate. Your only choice is to comply, or to leave.
In much the same way, what is proper behavior in church can only be determined by its owner. And in the case of Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church, the owner is Bishop William Power, as the representative of the parishioners. If the bishop wishes, he may require all those who enter this church to come in crawling, pushing a peanut in front of their noses. (Of course, if he acts in so capricious a manner, he may destroy the parish and lose his job; for these and other reasons, he is extremely unlikely to act in such a way. But as long as he is in charge, he has a right to determine the rules for entry.)
Now in the event Bishop Power, in consultation with his associates, has determined that standing, not kneeling, is the proper demeanor at communion service, it is completely beside the point whether kneeling in violation of this ruling disturbs the solemnity of the service. We may even concede, for the sake of argument, that kneeling is somehow more “solemn” than standing. Despite this, the bishop is completely within his rights to insist that his own ruling be upheld.
If a man’s home is his castle, then a church is the castle of the bishop. It would be a travesty of justice for the Supreme Court of Canada to make any other finding this fall.
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The Daily Bulletin (Kimberley, British Columbia), October 17, 1983.