'A church is no place for wall': Tiny chapel near Rio Grande at center of legal fight

MISSION, Texas — When Sandra and Hal Totten stepped inside the tiny chapel just a few yards from the Rio Grande on Tuesday, they had no idea they were at ground zero in a battle between the Roman Catholic Church and Trump administration.

On Wednesday in nearby McAllen, La Lomita Chapel will be the subject of a federal court proceeding that could lead to the government taking the property surrounding the historic mission to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

"I'm with the Catholic Church on this one," Sandra Totten, who was visiting South Texas from Maryland, said as four others from a birding tour of the Rio Grande Valley joined Totten and her husband around the chapel's simple altar. "A church is no place for a wall.  And the wall is ecologic disaster."

Kathy Whittier, a Maine native who now calls Texas home, agreed. She talked about how La Lomita, named for the "little hill" on which the chapel sits nestled among mesquites and live oaks, is integral to the lives of many Catholics in the region. She recalled nighttime Christmas tours held so the stars in the desolate patch of farm country would be shining against the sky.

"We're touring these places (along the border) because we're afraid we'll never see them again," Whittier said inside the white chapel topped by a ceder shingle roof and a modest bell tower. It's only about 10 paces long, six paces wide.

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The hearing in court Wednesday is the first formal step in what could be a long process involving La Lomita. It was established in the mid-19th century by Missionary Oblates to provide a spiritual hub for Catholic settlers between Brownsville and Laredo. La Lomita Mission gave the city of Mission its name.

The court battle began when Diocese of Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores said no to the government's request to enter the 26-acre property for the purpose of surveying to determine its suitability for a wall site. Flores based the rejection on Catholic teachings to accept and embrace refugees and asylum seekers.

At the center of the legal argument is that the wall would violate the right of freedom of religion.

The initial hearing centers on whether the government may enter the land, not whether the land will be taken by the government.

Mary McCord, a visiting professor and litigator at Georgetown University law school in Washington, D.C., will represent the diocese in Wednesday's court proceedings.

She acknowledged that the argument to keep federal authorities off the land has a high legal burden to meet. But it's important that the fight be waged from beginning to end.

"We're making the First Amendment case that this is not a place for the wall," she said. "That's why we'll be in court."