[Editor’s note: This story appeared in the Jan. 12 edition of the Norwood News.]

Bronx Councilman Fernando Cabrera and six other demonstrators were arrested last week in Manhattan during a peaceful protest designed to highlight what they say is the city’s increasingly discriminatory policies against religious groups that rent public spaces for worship.

While the protest appears to have staved off eviction for churches using public facilities at city housing complexes, Cabrera and other clergy are continuing to fight a government policy that bans religious groups from using public school buildings for worship services. Another protest, at Morris High School in the Bronx, is planned to coincide with the mayor’s “State of the City” address on Thursday at noon.

Last week’s “prayer protest,” held in front of the building at 100 Church St. that houses the city’s law department, was organized by Pastor Dimas Salaberrios after the New York City Housing Authority told him that his church, Infinity New York, might not be able to continue to rent space at the Bronx River Houses, a city-run housing complex where the church has worshipped for the past five years. (Salaberrios said the church has had a presence there for the past seven years.)

On Dec. 17, Salaberrios said NYCHA officials told him they would no longer be able to accept rent from Infinity after Jan. 1 because of a recent court ruling that upheld a city policy preventing religious groups from worshiping inside public schools.

Salaberrios and Pastor Joe Fletcher of Bronx Bible Church, who was told his congregation could no longer worship at the Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses in Soundview, called NYCHA and asked them to reconsider their stance. Salaberrios said they were told they could stay while NYCHA reviewed its rental agreements with input from the law department.

That’s when Salaberrios, who is on a hunger strike and says his church is helping keep the peace at the traditionally-violent Bronx River Houses, decided to take the fight to the law department offices.

“I went to tell them, ‘If we can’t have church in our building, we’re going to bring church down to them,’” Salaberrios said in an interview after the arrests.

The law department and NYCHA said the Department of Education policy that bans religious groups from worshiping in public school buildings is completely separate from NYCHA’s policies. NYCHA says it is doesn’t have a policy against worshiping in its facilities, but that it is reviewing all of its permit agreements with every group that uses its space for activities. Although Infinity pays $350 per week to rent space, NYCHA spokesperson Sheila Stainback says the agency doesn’t have typical tenant-landlord agreements with groups.

Stainback said the groups will be allowed to use the facilities until at least Feb. 26 while NYCHA continues its review of all of its permit agreements.

Cabrera, a deeply religious councilman who heads New Life International Outreach Church on Morris Avenue, just north of Kingsbridge Road, went to support Salaberrios and about 20 other clergy and church members who had gathered in front of the law department’s office building.

He arrived at about 8:40 a.m. and joined six others, including Salaberrios, in kneeling in front of the entrance to the building while police, who organizers told of their plans, looked on. Following a prayer and the singing of a religious song (“Our God is an Awesome God,” Cabrera recalled), police arrested the seven protesters and charged them with trespassing.

While Cabrera and Salaberrios said they were given little warning before being arrested, a spokesman for the Police Department said they were given several warnings and were only arrested after they refused to move away from the entrance.

By 9 a.m., Cabrera and the others were handcuffed and carted off in a van to the 1st Precinct.

For Cabrera, it was a new experience and one that he wasn’t expecting when he went down to the protest. “I’ve never been arrested for anything in my life,” he said, adding that his family found out about it from news reports.

Salaberrios, on the other hand, said he had a pretty good idea the protest would end in their arrest and didn’t fault police, saying they were just doing their job.

As a youth, Salaberrios, now 38, spent time in jail for criminal acts. But as a pastor, Salaberrios said he has dedicated his ministry to curbing violence.

There hasn’t been a murder in the Bronx River Houses for six years and Salaberrios credits the efforts of his church for breaking up gang violence there. In addition to volunteering at the Bronx River Community Center, Salaberrios said his church donated $30,000 to upgrade the facilities, helps residents with legal problems and gives college scholarships to local kids.

Salaberrios and Cabrera can’t understand why, with government making cuts to social services across the board, the city would want to evict churches who contribute to their communities.

In early December, the Supreme Court declined to review a ruling against Bronx Household of Faith, a church in University Heights, which upheld the DOE’s policy banning worship in public school buildings. (The law department says it is simply separating church from state and protecting itself from being seen as promoting or favoring certain religious practices.)

Bronx Household and 60 other city churches have until Feb. 12 before they lose the right to worship in schools. Cabrera is pushing for legislation on the state level that would abolish the DOE’s policy.

“Now we’re starting to see a mushroom event,” Cabrera said, calling Mayor Michael Bloomberg “anti-religious.”

He added that his first-ever arrest was “worthwhile” and that he would do it again if necessary. “Like Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘It is unjust not to stand up against an unjust law,’” Cabrera said.