An outdoor shrine, also known as a grotto, planned for the grounds of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Park Hills has become the center of a high-stakes legal battle — one that Kentucky’s attorney general and 19 other states want the U.S. Supreme Court to hear.
The Missionaries of St. John the Baptist Inc., which owns the property where Our Lady of Lourdes’ church sits, received city approval in 2021 to build the grotto — a small dome-topped structure sheltering a statue of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by a prayer plaza, walking path and retaining wall.
For some, it would serve as a quiet place for prayer before and after Mass.
“Just take that Mary statue away and put a little dome about the size of your SUV or a little bit bigger,” Mark Cooper, a resident and a former property owner of one of the parish’s buildings, told WCPO. “Every Catholic church in Northern Kentucky has a grotto. They’re not asking anything out of the ordinary.”
Not long after the Park Hills Board of Adjustment approved the conditional use permit and setback variance, neighbors Joel and Elizabeth Frederic filed suit.
They argued the approval violated local zoning rules because the church is in a residential R-1EE zone where new religious buildings are permitted only if they face an arterial street. Amsterdam Road, where the church sits, is classified as a collector street, not an arterial.
The Frederics also claimed the grotto would unlawfully expand a preexisting nonconforming use — since the church predates the zoning rules — by enlarging its footprint onto adjacent residential land that had not previously been part of the church property.
In December 2023, the Kentucky Court of Appeals agreed, reversing a Kenton County Circuit Court ruling that upheld the city’s decision. The appeals court said the Board of Adjustment “acted beyond the bounds of its statutory authority” because the grotto would expand both the scope and the area of the church’s nonconforming use, which the ordinance and state law prohibit.
In its opinion, the court said that zoning boards cannot grant variances that contradict zoning regulations, nor can they approve enlargements of nonconforming uses unless very narrow, specific exceptions apply — exceptions the court said did not exist here.
Some opponents have also cited concerns about traffic and the project’s scale.
“It’s certainly bringing some attention to the situation and the local community,” Joe Wood, a neighbor who said he’s neutral on the issue, said. “It should be something that we really consider — the needs of the overall community and what would be best for everyone.”
Others see the grotto as a benefit to the neighborhood.
“The church has every right to have what they want on their property,” longtime neighbor Barb Huff said. “I don’t think it’ll be a traffic issue. They’ve been an asset to the neighborhood.”
The Missionaries of St. John the Baptist, represented by the First Liberty Institute, said that the denial violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). They say the project is part of their religious exercise and that federal law was designed to protect against discriminatory land-use restrictions.
“The city, recognizing the application of the federal law and my client’s religious liberty rights, granted the request,” Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty, said. “And then it was an objecting neighbor who is now wielding the zoning ordinances as a sort of heckler’s veto … barring my client from engaging in this religious exercise of building this shrine to the Virgin Mary.”
Gardner said the case has drawn support from across faith lines, including Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu groups, and that it squarely presents unsettled legal questions about what constitutes a “substantial burden” under RLUIPA.
“The implications couldn’t be broader,” Gardner said. “If the Supreme Court takes up this case and issues a definitive interpretation of what this law means, it applies to every single zoning ordinance in this country.”
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has filed a petition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, joined by 19 other Republican attorneys general. Their brief argues the Kentucky court’s decision undermines religious liberty protections and invites other zoning boards to curtail faith-based property uses.
If the nation’s highest court grants review, legal experts say its ruling could set a nationwide precedent for how local zoning laws intersect with religious land-use rights.
For now, the grotto site remains vacant. The Missionaries of St. John the Baptist say they are prayerful — and hopeful — that the project will one day be built.
