Federal Communications Commission FCC 16-8
STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI
Re:   San Fernando Cathedral of San Antonio, Texas Application for Review, CGB-CC-0949, CG 
Docket No. 06-181, Memorandum Opinion and Order.
While I am sympathetic to many of the arguments advanced by San Fernando Cathedral of San 
Antonio, Texas (San Fernando), I agree with the Commission that its Application for Review should be 
denied.  As explained in the Order, pursuant to the standard adopted by the FCC in 2011, San Fernando 
failed to provide the Commission with sufficient evidence to obtain an individual exemption from closed 
captioning requirements based on economic burden.  That having been said, I believe that the 2011 
standard is probably too stringent, at least as applied to religious organizations, and would be open to 
revisiting it in an appropriate proceeding.
San Fernando separately argues that applying our closed captioning rules to it would run afoul of 
the First Amendment.  Given relevant U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence, most notably, Employment 
Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), the Commission correctly rejects 
that claim.  We would have faced a closer question had San Fernando argued in its Application for 
Review that requiring the church to close caption its Sunday Mass broadcast violated the Religious 
Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).  But San Fernando did not advance that claim before the Commission 
so we appropriately do not address that issue here.  Nothing in our Order therefore should be interpreted 
as speaking to the interplay between RFRA and our closed captioning requirements.