WASHINGTON, March 8 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court Friday ruled in favor of Catholic federal prisoners who were denied the right to drink wine during communion.
While it did not give the inmates an outright victory, the appeals court sent the case back down to a trial judge for a rehearing on terms favorable to the prisoners.
The inmates are challenging a prison rule that prevents them from drinking a small amount of wine as part of the Catholic sacrament known as communion.
The prisoners "are incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Fla.," the appeals court said. "They are self-described Catholic Christians who were baptized as children."
The prisoners say they believe it was "the command of the Lord Jesus Christ to consume both bread and wine" during the Eucharist sacrament.
Federal law has prohibited prisoners from consuming alcohol for a long time. Until recently, however, prison officials have permitted the chaplain to administer small amounts of wine to Catholic inmates during communion through intinction -- dipping the bread into the wine -- with precautions.
"Under the new rule, however, only the supervising chaplain is permitted to consume the wine," the appeals court said. "(The prisoners) claim that this prohibition violates their constitutional rights under the free exercise (of religion) clause of the First Amendment."
The court's opinion points out that under U.S. case law, a "prison regulation that impinges on inmates' constitutional rights is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests" -- in other words, if there's a good reason for the regulation for the greater good of the institution or the prisoners.
The appeals court opinion reverses the ruling of a federal judge, who had denied the prisoners' petition "on the ground that consuming wine during communion is not an essential aspect of (their) religious practice, one 'which the believer may not violate at the peril of his soul.'"
The appeals court said the judge "erred in holding that, to qualify for protection under the First Amendment, a religious practice must be mandated by the prisoners' religion. This holding finds no support in our case law. The (judge) also failed to perform the balancing analysis required by (case law)."
That balancing test "should focus on whether the change in regulatory regimes -- from one in which Catholic inmates could consume wine through intinction to one in which only the chaplain is permitted to consume wine -- is justified by a legitimate penological interest."
On rehearing, the appeals court said, the judge "must bear in mind that, under the new rule, the prison still allows alcohol to be consumed on the prison grounds and in prisoners' presence under the supervision of the chaplain. The narrow question will be whether the ban on the chaplain's actually administering wine to the inmates, as opposed to merely drinking it in their presence, is justified."
Among other things, the judge "should determine whether there is a valid, rational connection between the prohibition and any legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it," the appeals court said. "The relationship between the interest and the rule must be rational, so that if the interest were the prevention of drunkenness among inmates, the prison would have to explain how that interest is implicated by the negligible amount of wine ingested through (dipping the bread into the wine)."