The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has called off its Feb. 3 demand for a congressional probe of the U.S. Air Force Academy in response to a perceived insult to Christians.

League spokeswoman Susan Fani said the academy’s Catholic chaplain, the Rev. Robert Bruno, has convinced league officials that positive steps have been taken to ensure the religious liberty of all cadets.

“There is no need for a probe,” Fani said in a news release Tuesday.

Previously, league president Bill Donohue had objected to the academy superintendent’s negative characterization of a large wooden cross left in mid-January at the school’s new outdoor worship site for pagans and practitioners of other earth-based religions.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Gould had called the placement of a Christian symbol at an area dedicated for non-Christian worship as “destructive behavior” that would not be tolerated.

Donohue then issued a statement complaining that Gould’s comparison of the cross incident to other acts of vandalism was “overkill” and “grossly insulting to Catholics and Protestants.”

Gould said he has been working to establish a campus climate of religious respect for diverse faith traditions after a 2004 survey found that many cadets believed evangelical Christians were harassing non-Christians at the academy.

An Air Force task force reported in 2005 that it found no overt discrimination against cadets, yet the academy had failed to accommodate some cadets’ religious needs.

Bruno, the first Catholic chaplain to work at the academy since 1991, persuaded the league that Gould had played a key role in fostering religious freedom for all, Fani said.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com