Baltimore will pay $275K in fees after trying to block rally
The city of Baltimore has agreed to pay $275,000 toward the legal fees of a farright Catholic media group to settle a lawsuit over the city’s unsuccessful attempt to block a rally in 2021.
The agreement with St. Michael’s Media, the parent firm of the Church Militant website, comes even as the site’s future remains in flux. It follows just days after St. Michael’s itself agreed to pay $500,000 to a settle a defamation lawsuit.
Baltimore’s Board of Estimates approved the rally-related settlement Wednesday.
In 2021, St. Michael’s Media was initially denied permission to rally outside a meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, with city officials saying it posed a threat to public safety. Church Militant has been known for publishing stories against LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church and strongly criticizing its advocates, among other controversial topics.
The group “planned to have speakers at this event with a known track record of inciting and fomenting violence, most notably including individuals that were directly tied to the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol,” Deputy City Solicitor Stephen Salsbury told the board.
St. Michael’s claimed the city wrongly blocked the event because it disapproved of the group’s message, and the rally went forward without incident after federal district and appeals courts overturned the city’s decision.
St. Michael’s continued to press for damages before ultimately agreeing to settle, according to Salsbury.
He said the city was unlikely to be assessed damages because the rally took place, but it could have been required to pay even higher legal fees if the case continued. The money is going to the group’s law firm, not the group itself, he added.