How faith and religious practices survived COVID-19
As the world enters the third year of the pandemic, we look at how COVID-19 has changed us as individuals and communities. This is the final story in a three-part series.
Leandro De Leon wondered if his Catholic faith would remain strong during a global pandemic.
He left his home in the Philippines 17 years ago and has lived in Squirrel Hill with five colleagues and friends since 2019. The 61-year-old graphic designer lost his job and learned how to bake and cut hair during the pandemic.
Sometimes he wondered why Godallowed so much misfortune to fall on people, both the ones he knew and those he didn’t. He went to a Zoom funeral for someone who died before the COVID-19 vaccine became available. The ceremony was streamed through a cell phone camera, and he watched as his friend was laid to rest. He was grateful that the internet gave him the opportunity to share a moment with the families, but he didn’t really feel like he was part of the grieving.
He also attended a Zoom wedding and found it amazing that the bride, groom, a few family members and the priest were there in the church, fully masked.
De Leon attended online Masses, but the experience was not the same. He missed worshipping in church alongside his fellow Catholics. During the worst moments of the pandemic, he felt like he was walking through a dark tunnel and his faith was the torch leading him.
In his daily prayers, he said, “You know who I am. You know me more than anyone else. Here I am. I’ll be happy with all of my mistakes and my imperfections, but use me as your instrument of joy or peace now.”
De Leon was not alone. Religious leaders and people of all faiths struggled during the pandemic, making do with online services until they could once more worship together in person. All agreed that online worship was a pale imitation of the real thing, but it did allow more people to take part in services and ceremonies. They were unsure whether the pandemic has permanently changed people’s faith and religious practices.
Pandemic priest
The Rev. C. Matthew Hawkins was ordained a Catholic priest in June 2020, not long after COVID-19 hit the United States. Now a parochial vicar at St. Mary Magdalene Parish — serving people in Point Breeze, Homewood and Wilkinsburg — he said the pandemic gave his parish a connection to people who no longer attended Mass. But it also stole the closeness that comes with being together in worship.
Like other Catholic churches, St. Mary Magdalene switched to online services early on. He immediately noticed what was lost when Mass becomes simply heads on a screen.
When worshippers gather together in church, there is a sense of “relentless presence,” he said. They can put their hand on someone’s shoulder, embrace during the Sign of Peace and sing hymns together. Most importantly, Catholics can receive Holy Communion — bread and wine that they believe becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ — surrounded byfellow believers. An online service cannot re-create that experience,Hawkins said.
“[An online service] is not being in the presence of another person,” he said.
Priests could no longer see parishioners’ reactions to sermons or pull a parishioner aside and have a private conversation. Hawkins felt that the emotional closeness among people was lost when they were reduced to a little box on Zoom.
When in-person Masses returned, he was frustrated to see how COVID-19 protocols kept people apart. He knew that it was a wise and necessary strategy to maintain social distance, but it still saddened him.
On the other hand, online services allowed him to reach more people — nonpracticing YouCan-PrintAds-3.pdf Catholics, those
who were physically unable to attend or non-Catholics curious about the faith. Suddenly anyone could take part from the comfort of their homes. He said his Bible study group continued to meet online and actually grew. When in-person services returned, he didn’t want to abandon the people he had reached online.
“We’ve learned new ways to reach people that we have never reached before,” he 2 said. 10/3/22 “Let’s not 12:58 give PM up this
method of outreach. Let’s build on it. Let’s expand our knowledge.”
Scarred synagogue
Jeffrey Myers has served as the rabbi and cantor for the Tree of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill since 2017. Barely a year after he arrived, he and his congregation suffered the unimaginable: a gunman who attacked during Shabbat services on Oct. 27, 2018, killing 11 worshippers from Tree of
Life and two other congregations that shared the space, Dor Hadash and New Light.
Tree of Life was holding services in Rodef Shalom when COVID-19 struck Western Pennsylvania in March 2020, and Myers strived to keep his congregation together as they switched to online services.
“We are a community wherever we go, and whatever format we are,” he said. “During COVID, when we were meeting only virtually, no matter how many pictures were on the screen, we’re still a community, we’re still the Tree of Life.”
When he celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, he had a 10-foot-tall green screen behind him showing an image of the main sanctuary of Tree of Life. He hoped that by virtually being together, people would gain strength and energy from each other to prepare for the new year.
Ten days later, he hosted Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The service started at sundown the evening before and concluded one hour after sundown the next day. Worshippers were in front of their devices for hours, not knowing exactly how many people were there, but assured by each other’s company, Myers said. They would unmute themselves to speak and listen as others confessed their sins in Hebrewalphabetical order.
“We spend the day thinking about how we behaved, and how we say sorry to God for what God expects of us that we’ve been unable to do,”he said.
Streaming brought some unexpected features to his services. When Myers set
candlesticks on his right for Shabbat, the stream of virtual hearts that people sent looked like they were flowing from the candles, he said.
“I think faith, particularly during a pandemic, is so very important because people turn to their faith for hope that things will get better,” Myers said. “So if anything, my role as the rabbi is to help people in their path to finding faith or, if they’ve lost faith, how to get it back.”
Congregational singing is an important feature of Jewish services. During the pandemic, Myers liked to end his by inviting people to unmute themselves and sing a very short song together. He called it a “cacophonous chorus.”
“Everyone would be singing all out of sync, smiling and laughing,” he recalled. “I think that was part of the best part of the service. And if you can get people to smile and laugh during a pandemic, that’s pretty good.
“I chose to redefine what community is. ... Community is not a function of the same number of people in one room, but just the same number of people all together. And if they’re just pictures on the screen, we can still be a community in that way.” Rabbi Myers said.
Call to Christian service
When the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh started streaming services in the spring of 2020, senior pastor the Rev. Tom Hall immediately noticed a change: the loss of the feeling of awe and holiness that comes from worshipping beneath 14 Tiffany stained-glass windows that have graced the church since the early 1900s.
Hall said that it is the minister’s job to see what God is up to in every situation. When a plague hit the Roman Empire in A.D. 165, he said Christians selflessly went into the cities to care for people in need while everyone else was fleeing. If early Christians had the courage to help, he wondered, what would today’s faithful do in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Hall’s question was answered when he saw doctors, nurses and other frontline workers caring for people selflessly. For his part, he believed the Christian thing to do was to protect people as much as he could. He did his best to duplicate the worship experience online and provide streaming with the highest resolution possible.
“We believe that the Bible is God’s word — it’s inspired by God. And that when you listen to the word, the Holy Spirit opens your minds and heartso that it impacts you in ways beyond just the teaching itself. It supernaturally grows you and increases your faith.” Hall said.
During the pandemic, the senior pastor ached to see people so anxious and divided. As whether to get vaccinated became a political issue, he thought faith could offer a third way to live outside of the political spectrum.
When in-person worship returned, Hall was determined to continued streaming services and making them available on First Presbyterian’s website, www.fpcp.org, and its Facebook page.
“When you reach people through streaming that you might not reach otherwise, you’re doing a very good thing,” he said.
“I think faith, particularly during a pandemic, is so very important because people turn to their faith for hope that things will get better.” — Rabbi Jeffrey Myers
Pandemic ethics
Brock Bahler teaches religion and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. The pandemic had him and his students exploring the ancient problem of evil: If there’s an all-powerful, allknowing and all-good God, how do we explain a global pandemic that causes so much pain and death?
They soon realized they couldn’t find any salvific explanation for the pandemic.
“I don’t think that God has some pre-planned desire … for pandemic,” he said. “I don’t believe in a God who performs violence as a means to an end.”
Bahler felt the pandemic offered every person the chance to encounter others’ humanity, such as when someone makes a conscious decision to wear a mask while shopping in Target. God exists in every ethical encounter between human beings, he said. God is more of a verb than a noun.
Former Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop Dorsey McConnell found it hideous that the debate around COVID-19 regulations turned into a game of political football. He was stunned to see religion injected into the narrative against masks and vaccines.
“I don’t understand how that is a Christian point of view,” he said. “The whole point of being a Christian is you do not live for yourself any longer. You live for others.”
Before the pandemic, Americans didn’t know what it was like to lose hundreds of thousands of people to a disease, McConnell said. Yet, millions of people in Africa struggle constantly against diseaseand malnutrition.
“I think that for Christians it has certainly made us more aware of the sorrows of the world, the suffering of the world,” he said.