Rights Without Remedies: The Illusion of Religious Liberty in a Godless Order
The National Catholic Register commentary by Andrea Picciotti-Bayer reports on the U.S. Supreme Court case Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, in which a Rastafarian prisoner, Damon Landor, had his dreadlocks forcibly shaved by prison guards despite a federal court opinion affirming his rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The article frames the case as a test of whether “rights without remedies are rights at all,” and draws a parallel to the persecution of Catholic media tycoon Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, who has been denied access to the Eucharist and Mass by Chinese Communist authorities. The author urges the Supreme Court or Congress to ensure that officials who violate religious freedom face personal liability for damages. Beneath the veneer of defending religious liberty, this article reveals the profound theological bankruptcy of a worldview that equates Rastafarian hair rituals with the Catholic Faith, treats “religious freedom” as a civil right granted by the state rather than a divine endowment, and remains utterly silent on the only true remedy for the crisis of faith in the modern world: the Social Kingship of Christ.
