The Cross Victorious Over Secularism

The Peace Cross is a twelve-meter (40 foot) tall monument located in the state of Maryland, just a few miles from the capital of the United States.

The memorial commemorates 49 soldiers from Prince George County who fell on the field of battle during the Great War [World War I]. Erected at Bladensburg in 1925 with private funds, on private land, this cross was bought by the State of Maryland in 1961, which has since been in charge of its maintenance.

In October 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia rendered a judgment finding that the twelve-meter (40 foot) high Peace Cross, maintained at the taxpayer's expense, “violated the Constitution.” 

But the highest court of the United States, before which the case had been brought, decided otherwise. The Supreme Court of the United States definitively ruled on June 20, 2019 in favor of maintaining the Peace Cross.

“A government that roams the land, tearing down monuments with religious symbolism and scrubbing away any reference to the divine will strike many as aggressively hostile to religion,” wrote Justice Alito for the Court in its judgment referring to the first amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion to American citizens.