Favorable
Committee: Senate Subcommittee: Public Safety, Transportation and Environment
Budget: HB 350 – D21A01.02 (Senate hearing)
The Maryland Catholic Conference offers this testimony in SUPPORT the fiscal year 2027 allocation of $10 million to implement security measures at houses of worship at risk of hate crimes. The Catholic Conference is the public policy representative of the three (arch)dioceses serving Maryland, which together encompass over one million Marylanders. Statewide, their parishes, schools, hospitals and numerous charities combine to form our state’s second largest social service provider network, behind only our state government.
This fund provides vital resources to combat susceptibility to hate crimes. This funding is needed to protect places of worship, which are institutions central to Maryland communities. This funding serves a legitimate public interest in protecting citizens in places where they may be most vulnerable to attack.
In 2024, the Maryland State Police Hate Bias Report cited 951 hate bias incidents reported to law enforcement agencies in the State. This represented a 104% increase from the prior year’s 467 reported incidents. Additionally, there were 316 religion-based incidents reported compared with 105 in the previous reporting year. For the 2025 Hate Bias Report, the twofold increase remained, citing 921 incidents reported to law enforcement.
The Church supports common sense measures to curb hate-motivated activity. Pope Francis once stated that the “problem of intolerance must be confronted in all its forms” and that where persons are “persecuted and marginalized because of [their] religious convictions or ethnic identity, the wellbeing of society as a whole is endangered and each one of us must feel affected.” (Pope Francis, Address to a Delegation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, 2013)
We applaud the effort by our state to protect its citizens in places where they are most vulnerable to hate crimes. We respectfully urge a favorable report for the full program expenditure in the FY 2027 Operating Budget.