Supreme Court Takes Up Kentucky Church's Prayer Grotto Case, Teeing Up Nationwide Zoning Fight

Since the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist first applied for a permit in March 2021, this fight over a backyard shrine has worked through four courts. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to make it five.

The justices granted certiorari in Missionaries of St. John the Baptist v. Frederic, a case asking whether a Kentucky city violated federal law by blocking a Catholic organization from building a grotto on its own land, according to The Hill. The grotto in question is modest by any standard: 16 by 39 feet, roughly the footprint of a swimming pool, according to Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, who spoke to Fox News Digital.

What's actually being built

Court records describe a shrine honoring the Virgin Mary's 1858 apparition to Saint Bernadette at Lourdes, France, complete with a plaza, walking path and retaining wall, Fox News Digital reported. The church building itself has stood on the Park Hills property for nearly a century, predating the city's 1974 zoning ordinance.

The Park Hills Board of Adjustment actually approved the project in April 2021. The fight since then hasn't been with the city. It's been with two neighbors, Joel and Elizabeth Frederic, who sued in state court to block the board's own decision, according to Fox News Digital and The Hill.

How the case got here

Kenton County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Summe ruled in June 2022 that the board acted legally, according to LINK nky. The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed in November 2023, finding the board exceeded its authority because the grotto amounted to an expansion of a pre-existing nonconforming use barred under the city's ordinance. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed that ruling in December 2025, finding no violation of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, known as RLUIPA.

The state's high court reasoned the ordinance didn't substantially burden the church's religious exercise because it could still build a smaller shrine on its existing lot, and because the church knew about the restriction before applying, according to The Hill. The crux of what the Supreme Court will now decide is whether blocking a religious institution from building a religious structure on its own property counts as a "substantial burden" under RLUIPA, according to Head Topics. The justices granted review on a single question.

The strongest case for the neighbors

The Board of Adjustment approved the permit. It was neighbors, not government officials, who fought it through three levels of state courts and won twice. Their lawyers argued to the Supreme Court that the church's petition wasn't even the right vehicle to raise the RLUIPA question, according to The Hill. The Kentucky Supreme Court's finding that the ordinance allows a smaller shrine isn't an outright ban on religious practice. Whether a zoning board that said yes can be overridden by neighbors invoking a nonconforming-use technicality is a legitimate state land-use question, not just a religious-liberty one.

Why First Liberty says this matters everywhere

"This is a massive case for religious liberty because it has the potential to impact every single zoning law in this country," Gardner told Fox News Digital. Kelly Shackelford, First Liberty's president and chief counsel, called the lower court's reasoning "outrageous" in a press release. John Bash of Quinn Emanuel, also representing the church, said Congress passed RLUIPA specifically to shield religious groups from "the protests of neighbors."

Gardner's argument is that federal and state appellate courts have split on what counts as a substantial burden since RLUIPA passed unanimously in 2000, leaving churches with different protections depending on geography. That circuit split is exactly the kind of legal fracture the Supreme Court typically takes cases to resolve.

The actual Our Lady of Lourdes parish and the Catholic Diocese aren't parties to this suit, according to LINK nky. The plaintiff is a nonprofit offshoot connected to the now-defunct missionary order that once ran the church, litigating alongside advocacy groups and private law firms.

What's next

According to the newsletter Still More to Say, this is the third religious-liberty case the Supreme Court has accepted for its term beginning October 5, alongside a Colorado preschool-funding dispute with oral arguments set for November 3 and an Ohio home-prayer-meeting case. Oral arguments in the grotto case haven't been scheduled, according to LINK nky, but are expected in spring 2027 with a ruling by next summer. Until then, the Park Hills shrine stays unbuilt, and zoning boards nationwide wait to find out how much deference religious land-use claims get over neighbors' objections.