U.S. Government Moves to Seize Land from New Mexico Diocese in Order to Build Border Wall
EWTN News reports that the United States government, through the Department of Homeland Security, has initiated an eminent domain action against the Diocese of Las Cruces in New Mexico, seeking to seize a parcel of land at the base of Mount Cristo Rey — the site of a 29-foot statue of Christ and an annual pilgrimage destination for thousands of the faithful. The government proposes to pay just over $183,000 for the privilege of erecting fencing, vehicle barriers, security lighting, cameras, and sensors on ground sanctified by Catholic devotion. The diocese, for its part, filed a response claiming the seizure would “substantially burden” religious freedom and rights of worship. This case is a microcosm of a far larger spiritual catastrophe: the systematic subordination of God’s rights to the idolatrous claims of the secular state, a subordination in which the conciliar sect itself is complicit through its own revolutionary doctrines on religious liberty.