A conservative legal group filed a lawsuit Friday against the state over a policy not allowing clergy members to visit prison inmates due to COVID-19 concerns. The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson County by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and attorneys for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, takes aim at a Department of Correction’s policy that barred visitors from prisons in March 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic swept the state. The department is still not allowing clergy members, whether vaccinated or not, even in instances where religious services cannot be conducted virtually, the complaint said, such as administering the sacraments of the Eucharist, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick. The Archdiocese claims that its constitutional rights are being violated by not being able to minister to prisoners seeking services. It also argued that the policy is unjust because the department was still allowing lawyers, social workers, teachers and psychologists to meet with inmates in person. While prisoners were still able to meet with their institutions’ chaplain, they often have a different faith than those chaplains. In early April, WILL told Corrections Secretary Kevin Carr that he needed to provide Catholic inmates with the opportunity to make confessions to […]
