The title of this post is the headline of this story by Ad Crable today at Lancaster Online. The story, which says the nuns have “attracted worldwide media attention,” begins:
A federal judge in Reading has dismissed a freedom-of-religion lawsuit brought by a Roman Catholic order of nuns near Columbia to try to stop a gas pipeline.
The judge said the court lacked jurisdiction.
The Adorers of the Blood of Christ immediately announced they would appeal the case to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
The Adorers had brought the lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company in a last-ditch effort to stop the Atlantic Sunrise gas pipeline from running through farmland they own in West Hempfield Township.
They sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The nuns maintained that their deeply held belief is that the Earth is God’s creation and that land is a “gift of beauty and sustenance” that should not be used in an “excessive and harmful way.”
Sounds like a Hail Mary appeal to me.