Back in the days of the anti-fracking battle in New York State, I wrote tons of comments to articles in the press. I still occasionally write a comment on a topic of interest. The following is a comment I submitted to an op-ed by Wilton Cardinal Gregory, Archbishop of Washington, DC, in The Washington Post, entitled “Praying apart isn’t the same as praying together. That’s why we sued D.C.” Because the article is behind a paywall, I will synopsize. Cardinal Gregory had sued the city of Washington, DC “to protect the free exercise of religion in the nation’s capital.” There had been a limit of fifty people in religious services, (which was subsequently eased by Mayor Muriel Bowser on December 16th). He pointed out that more than fifty people were allowed in stores and other venues.
My comment:
I am Catholic and someone who spent years in liturgical service as a musician and a liturgy planner. I was consistently attending mass on weekends and holy days, but I have not attended in person mass since mid-March, choosing instead to participate via televised or online services for safety’s sake.
I don’t think that restrictions on number of people in church attendance is at all an attempt to limit free exercise of religion. Being in church for a service is not like being in a store. In stores, people are mostly silent, not near the same people for any length of time, and spending shorter amounts of time in an enclosed space. In churches, people are in one spot for an extended period, usually about an hour. They are speaking and singing; singing in particular is known to spread droplets much further than six feet. Masks do help prevent virus spread, but they do not do so 100%, so singing presents an additional risk.
Church attendance is more closely analogous to going to an indoor movie or concert. In my state, neither of those activities are allowed at all. Places of worship are allowed with restrictions on numbers in attendance. I think that rather than being overly restrictive, governments have been trying to help faith communities gather in person rather than being totally virtual in worship, while trying to keep risk relatively low.
The virus does not care whether people are in a store or a church or a home or a restaurant. It’s up to all of us to protect ourselves to the extent possible. When government officials are following science in their rules, we should accept that and not think that they are infringing on our rights rather than protecting public health.
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I wholeheartedly agree with everything you’ve mentioned here. But many people probably feel like God will protect them if they’re together in a church, and so they dismiss the idea of practicing safety first. The thing is, God expects us to be smart about things and he doesn’t just promise us a wonderful life without issues. Many people still believe the old saying, “God will never give you more than you can handle” and so many people actually think that quote is a scripture that can be found in the Bible,even though it isn’t. But people will keep believing what they want to believe until they end up facing the repercussions of their decisions.
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I agree that God gave us reason and intelligence as gifts that we are expected to use. It’s distressing when I hear stories of people who are very ill with COVID who, even then, can’t fathom that the virus is real.
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It’s true… even I questioned the validity of it until someone I knew died of Covid-19. I still think of them every day and it makes me try harder to be more careful myself.
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I’m so sorry to hear of the loss of your friend. A personal loss adds to the grief over the state or national statistics that appear every day on the news.
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Agreed! It was very clear that the efforts to shutdown large gatherings was to save lives, not an all out assault on religion. The motives were in the right place and if people listened some would be alive today. Religious services could continue online with no problems. I never missed a religious service since the pandemic started. We still meet twice a week and have fellowship throughout the week on Zoom. Jehovah God has always promised to provide plentifully for his people (Isaiah 65:13,14) we just have to use wisdom and discernment (Proverbs 3:5,6)
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It’s wonderful to hear about how your community has remained close to each other even when you can’t gather physically. It’s also been a blessing to those who have mobility or health challenges that make getting out and about difficult. I think many faith communities will keep up some online presence even when it is safe to gather again in order to include those who can’t make it there physically.
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