How ‘essential’ are in-person church services?
Jeezus, the reporter grumbles sotto voce, when did it become so achy-creaky to take a knee? On a padded kneeler.
Then the reporter clamps a hand over her masked mouth. Did I just take the Lord’s name in vain in church? The lady six feet down the pew — socially distanced, her T-shirt stamped with an iron-on portrait of the Madonna — gives me side-eye.
Bless me Father for I think I’ve sinned.
Yet one more reason to decline the Eucharist on Sunday aat Our Lady of Lourdes Catho- lic Church. Although surely it’s just a bitty venal sin. Nothing mortal and grave, which would require confession before accepting the sacrament. Grave includes, but is not limited to, murder, abortion, sexual intercourse outside marriage and deliberately engaging in impure thoughts.
I am definitely not in the necessary state of grace for communion.
This lovely church in downtown Toronto is my parish. It’s been a while. But in a bad w week, where I lost my other dearest friend, a session of spiritual reflection seemed a good idea. Light some votive candles, sing some hymns. Except of course there is no singing permitted, lest droplets of the coronavirus are expelled into the atmosphere.
While Father John Sullivan reads from the Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, I discreetly do a head count: 72 w worshippers spread out a among the pews — every sec- ond pew taped off — only members of the same household allowed to sit together, all of us preregistered for mass. There are no Bibles, no hymnals, no pamphlets, no item that can pass between hands; no holy water in fonts for the purpose of dunking fingers aand making the sign of the cross. No choir in the loft, just a solo cantor.
Parishioners separate into ttwo communion lines, at the f front and the back of the cchurch. Since places of wor- ship were permitted to reopen on June 12, the eucharist at Catholic mass is distributed strictly by hand, not placed on the tongue. Six feet from the eucharist minister, the congreg gant halts, removes her mask, takes the host in hand, steps aside, consumes it — body and blood of Christ — replaces her mask, returns to her seat.
Between masses, the church is scrubbed down by volunteers.
Still and yet, 72 in attendance at this afternoon service. Well w within the 30 per cent capacity a allowed in this loosened phase of pandemic restrictions. Except Toronto of course — along with Peel Region and Ottawa — have been, as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday, yanked back to a “modified’’ Phase 2. Re-shuttered: indoor dining at bars and restaurants, casinos, cinemas, gyms, performance arts and racing events.
Houses of worship are exempt, along with schools and child- care centres. And nobody has yet been able to provide a logical reason why churches, s synagogues, mosques and temples get a pass.
I’ve dined out — by which I mean in-dined — just about eevery day over the past month. In no establishment have I seen 72 people on the premises at the same time. In no establishment have I seen eeven a dozen people gathered inside at the same time. Frankly, usually it’s just me and maybe five or six others.
I’m not saying churches should be closed, although it’s debatable how “essential” in-person gathering is, when just about every house of worship now livestreams its services.
What I am saying is that the provincial government has been weirdly selective, rolling back openings — for 28 days ( at least) — on the back of a hospitality industry that was just scraping by, with dozens of businesses already gone toes uup. Why bars and not retail stores; why gyms and not the LCBO; why theatres and not construction sites, where I’ve never seen anyone wearing a mask.
Why live music clubs and not crowded tent encampments that have hunkered down across Toronto when their occupants so demonstrably don’t adhere to distancing rules and nearby residents get completely tuned out when they complain to their local councillor about neighbourhoods under siege.
The livelihood of thousands of people who work in the hospitality industry is at critical risk. The Star last week reported the latest data from T Toronto Public Health, cur- rent to Oct. 7, which showed tthat bars and restaurants in t the city were responsible for 34 per cent of COVID-19 outbreaks, as Toronto’s top medical official.
Dr. Eileen de Villa pleaded wwith the province to bring down the hammer by prohibiting indoor dining (and had her prayers answered by Premier Doug Ford the next day). That was actually a 10-point percentage drop from outbreaks linked to restaurants, bars and entertainment venues between Sept. 20 and Sept. 26. More specifically, just 18 restaurants and bars from that earlier data grab. That’s a minuscule percentage of Toron- to’s licensed restaurants, bars and clubs.
But sure, let’s hammer them — courtesy of a premier who advertised himself as a champion of small businesses, because the transmission “models” of a second wave a-raging scared the bejeezus out of him.
Perhaps Ford’s arms are too short to box with God.
Let me remind you how religious communities were crucial in the spread of COVID-19 last February and March. Just a few examples from the archives: The Shinccheonji Church of Jesus, a f fringe Christian group (cult, really, its leader claims to be the second coming of Christ), 200 members who had conv vened late last year in Wuhan, t the coronavirus epicentre, before returning to South K Korea and fanning across the country. Korean contract tracers linked that church to more than half of the country’s 3,730 positive COVID-19 cases c by the end of March. Every single member of the w church — 230,000 of them — had to be tested.
At a small Baptist church in Arkansas, 35 from among 92 w who’d attended wg a service tested positive and three died. So did Bishop Gerald Glenn, notorious pastor of the New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Virginia, who defied a ban on in-person services, declaring: “I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus.’’ Hundreds attended a widely-advertised March 21 sermon. A w week later Glenn tested posi- tive, among many of his parishioners. He died on Easter Sunday.
St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan — 44 parishioners dead.
At least 33 bishops, reverends aand pastors associated with tthe Church of God in Christ — largest Black Pentecostal denomination in the U.S. — had lost their lives to COVID by the end of June, according to an ABC News investigation.
Thank God international pilgrims to the holy sites inc Mecca and Medina weres forbidden from performing Hajj this year — though 10,000 from w within Saudi Arabiaw were permitted to ve converge. Last year, 2.5 million Ta Muslims made Hajj, one of the five PillarsK t of Islam. (The Kingdom had recorded 270,000 positive et cases and nearly 3,000 deaths by Aug. 1.)
God will not protect you. The coronavirus is ecumenical, non-denominational, doesn’t give a damn if you’re pious or atheist.
It’s the large gatherings that are superspreaders, not a handful of diners at The Keg down at the corner bar.
So why grace notes for places of worship in Toronto?
I’ll just go say my rosary now.