October 10, 2026

St. Louis Archdiocese sues over policy barring it from providing sacraments to ICE detainees

NATIONAL
By OSV News

The Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff’s Office and Detention Center March 7, 2026, in Ste. Genevieve, Mo. The facility also serves as an ICE detention center. The Archdiocese of St. Louis filed a federal lawsuit Oct. 5, 2026, over a no-contact policy that prohibits priests from distributing holy Communion and hearing confessions in the detention center. (OSV News photo/Jacob Wiegand, St. Louis Review)

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The Archdiocese of St. Louis filed a lawsuit against the federal government Oct. 5 over a policy it said prohibits priests from distributing Communion and hearing confessions to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, said a no-contact policy at the Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center — a detention center ICE uses for migrants awaiting deportation proceedings — has refused to accommodate clergy seeking to provide sacraments to migrants held there. In a statement, the Archdiocese of St. Louis said it “steadfastly supports the right of all Catholics and the priests who serve them to practice their Catholic faith.” In a written statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told OSV News Oct. 6 the allegations are false. “This is a non-contact county jail, not an ICE facility. Detainees are given the opportunity to practice their religions,” the statement said. The complaint stressed that denying pastoral access to detainees not only violated their religious rights, but also the religious rights of Catholic priests who are “obligated to say Mass and administer the sacraments of the Eucharist (commonly called communion) and Reconciliation (commonly called confession).”