The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Faith leaders feel left out of Lamont’s reopen priorities
Wednesday marked the commercial sector’s slow return to normal, but what about the spiritual?
A wide-ranging group of statewide religious leaders organized by a Bridgeport pastor has begun challenging Gov. Ned Lamont’s authority to dictate when and how they can safely reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Is there an equity in the treatment of different types of communities — the faith community versus the business community?” asked the Rev. Carl McCluster of Shiloh Baptist Church in Bridgeport’s South End. “The idea we don’t have the ability to exercise order in houses of worship in a superior or more effective manner than a grocery store or mall — why would one think that?”
McCluster helped organize the CT Faith Leaders Collaborative of Baptist, Catholic, Congregational, Episcopal, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Assemblies of God and Pentecostal institutions, plus indepen
dent Hispanic and African American congregations.
Although restaurants, stores and offices welcomed limited numbers of customers and workers back Wednesday under Phase 1 of Lamont’s lifting of coronavirus stay-at-home restrictions, faith organizations were excluded.
So McCluster’s collaborative in a statement Wednesday insisted members could “begin reopening and worshiping in person under each of our attendance limits and public health care requirements ... in a responsible manner and to assert our Constitutional and God-given rights to pursue religious freedom.”
Technically, faith organizations never fully lost that ability during the health crisis. Lamont’s executive orders from early spring eventually reduced gatherings to the current five persons, but spiritual events stayed capped at 49 attendees. Still, numerous religious organizations voluntarily closed completely and offered online services for members to view from home.
But the Rev. Cass Shaw, another member of the CT Faith Leaders Collaborative, argued Wednesday it is time for the state to reconsider its 49-person, one-size-fitsall limit, particularly as the weather warms and services can be offered outdoors.
“Their prohibition against more than 49 people, whether outside or inside, seemed too onerous to us,” said Shaw, president of the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport.
“Their (the state’s) position is 50, no matter what construct,” said another collaborative participant, Chris Healy, head of the Connecticut Catholic Conference. “There’s debate on the size of venue, spacing.”
The governor’s office did not return requests for comment Wednesday.
Healy, Shaw and McCluster all emphasized that their joint statement should not be viewed as a declaration they and their colleagues were recklessly rushing to pack their buildings this week and endangering health and safety.
“It’s not we’re all necessarily on the same timetable,” said Healy. The state’s four Catholic dioceses are experimenting with modest outdoor services while, McCluster said, Shiloh was looking to use the parking lot of Bridgeport’s Klein Memorial Auditorium.
“Of course we want everyone to be safe,” Shaw said. “Pastors love their people and want no harm to come to them. At the same time, not raising our voices at all ... about whether or not (we) can reopen flies in the face of what we understand are basic rights.”
Part of the frustration, McCluster said, is he and other collaborative members felt excluded from Lamont’s planning process. No religious leaders were on the nearly 50-person Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group the governor formed in late April.
“It’s the faith community that bears so much of the emotional and physical burden of a pandemic where people are dying and people are emotionally torn apart,” McCluster said.
He said the Faith Leaders Collaborative had reached out to the Lamont administration to begin a dialogue. And while some progress was made, when the governor on May 9 unveiled Wednesday's Phase 1 reopening plans, they only applied to retail/malls, restaurants, offices, museums/zoos and hair salons/ barbershops.
This week hair salons and barbershops were taken off the list because of continuing health concerns.
Despite the challenging tone of the collaborative’s statement Wednesday, Healy made it clear discussions with Lamont and his staff continued: “They’ve been very accommodating in talking and working with us. We’re just trying to do the best we can to protect people of faith, no matter their faith, so we can eventually return to active ministries.”
Even before McCluster and his colleagues spoke out, Lamont was being pressured to place tighter restrictions on them. On May 5, the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State urged the governor not to exclude faith groups from stay-home orders.
“The Constitution not only permits it, but demands it,” the group said. “Such restrictions do not violate religious freedom; they ensure religious freedom is not misused in ways that risk people’s lives.”