Simple question . . . simple answer?
Do churches still grant sanctuary to people fleeing the law?
Simple answer…no.
Actually … there’s a church here in Kingston, Ont. (it’s an Adventist church, I think) in which a woman is hiding (well, taking refuge) from the police. I belive she’s Indonesian and they’re looking to extradite her. In any case, the church refuses to make her leave, and the police are unwilling to enter to arrest her. In a very real sense, the church is providing her with sanctuary.
Unfortunately, my memory of the details is fuzzy and I can’t find any articles online about it, although I remember reading some, about a month or two ago.
I keyed in “Catholic sanctuary” on GOOGLE and found this.
Whitefriars, London (also called Alsatia), was the last place of sanctuary used in England, but it was abolished by Act of Parliament in 1697. In other European countries the right of sanctuary ceased towards the end of the eighteenth century.
In the 1980s, a number of U.S. churches (individual congregations, not denominations) provided shelter (physical and legal) from the INS for refugees from the U.S.-trained death squads of Central America. I believe that the parishoners simply hid the refugees, however, since there is nothing to prevent a policeman from removing a criminal from a church in the U.S. I remember talk of offering some people actual sanctuary in churches, but I don’t think much came of it.