As fog rolled in on a mild Saturday evening, and Mass convened at Saint Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church in the serene seaside town of Northeast Harbor, Maine, there was one recognizable face present along with his family and his bodyguard: the head of the charity that recently took control of the church, Leonard Leo.

Leo, a devout Roman Catholic, is the architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority and oversees a billion-dollar political influence machine. In March, he quietly purchased the local church through a charitable nonprofit he formed last year, according to financial records we reviewed. The nonprofit says its purpose includes “educating the public on the importance of religious expression and human rights of conscience.”

That freedom-of-conscience theme has been at the center of the conservative movement’s push to allow businesses to cite religious objections as rationales for denying services and products to women and LGBTQ customers.