"Without the Lord's Day, we cannot live"

In this era of the Covid-19 epidemic, should religious believers be permitted to congregate for worship?

As at least one American seeks to minimize the impact of the Coronavirus on American commerce and lifestyle, other parts of the world are enacting considerably more far-ranging measures.  Italy's prime minister, Giuseppi Conte, is imposing a quarantine on his entire country:

Italy's coronavirus death toll jumped from 366 to 463 on Monday. It is the worst-hit country after China.  The number of confirmed infection also increased by 24% from Sunday, official figures showed.

 Mr Conte said the best thing was for people to stay at home. "We're having an important growth in infection... and of deaths," he said in an evening address.  "The whole of Italy will become a protected zone," he added.

Mr Conte described the measures as "I stay home" - with people forbidden to gather in public. "No more nightlife; we can't allow this anymore since they are occasions for contagion," he said.  All sporting events - including football matches - are suspended nationwide. Schools and universities will remain closed until 3 April.

The government said only those with a valid work or family reason that cannot be postponed will be allowed to travel.  Passengers departing on flights will have to justify themselves, as will all those who arrive by plane.  There are controls at train stations to check the temperatures of passengers. Cruise ships are also forbidden to dock at various ports.

A couple of additional Italy nuggets: my alma mater, Loyola University of Chicago, which has a campus in Rome to give American students the opportunity to study abroad for a semester, already has recalled its students back to the US.  And a co-worker of mine based in India has reported that Covid 19 now has reached India, with the cases he is aware of originating from travelers to Italy.

In a New York Times article entitled "God vs. Coronavirus", Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi notes that the Italian shutdown extends to houses of worship:

Where does God self-quarantine during an epidemic? Not in a church, probably. At least not in a church in northern Italy, the center of the largest coronavirus outbreak in a Western country so far. Masses and other religious services, including funerals, have been suspended for weeks there, in keeping with government rulings to curb the contagion. On Sunday, the same day the government announced that the north was going under lockdown, all religious services throughout Italy, including those at mosques and synagogues, were canceled until at least April 3. (On Monday, travel restrictions were extended to the whole country.)

The suspensions have generated some strange outcomes: Until this past weekend, the Milan Cathedral was open to tourists, but not to worshipers. Even weekday Mass was prohibited, even though it typically attracts smaller crowds than the average bar at aperitivo time, a nonnegotiable social ritual in Italy.

These suspensions of religious gatherings are not relegated to Italy, and range beyond Catholicism:

Similar measures have been taken in Japan, South Korea and Iran, where several million worshipers have been deprived of the existential comfort of attending religious ceremonies in a moment of grave uncertainty and confusion. In an unprecedented step, Saudi Arabia suspended pilgrimages to the holy sites of Islam. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was closed after a coronavirus case was confirmed in the area. 

And Ferraresi points to an incident that hits considerably closer to home for most of our contributors here: "In the United States on Monday, congregants at a Washington, D.C., church were asked to self-quarantine after a priest who’d recently given them communion tested positive for coronavirus."

Are public health officials overstepping in suspending religious services?  The science, as far as it goes, seems indisputable; as Ferraresi writes, "Holy water is not a hand sanitizer and prayer is not a vaccine.."

Along those same lines of the properties of sacred substances: I recently heard second-hand a comment, which as it happens was made by a Catholic school teacher, and which probably reflects a common assumption: she reportedly stated her conviction that the Precious Blood of Jesus, with its substance of sacramental divinity, couldn't possibly become infected with the Coronavirus.  One can only hope that such erroneous views don't prevail.

Still - as Ferraresi notes, religion in particular touches aspects of human existence that extend beyond considerations of public health:

... religion, for worshipers, is the ultimate source of meaning. The most profound claim of every religion is to make sense of the whole of existence, including, and perhaps especially, circumstances marked by suffering and tribulation. Take such claims seriously enough, and even physical health, when it is devoid of greater purpose, starts to look like a hollow value. The history of religions is full of believers who risked their lives to defend their freedom of worship against some sort of authority. After the Roman emperor Diocletian prohibited Christians from gathering for worship, some of them were caught celebrating Mass in the town of Abitinae, in present-day Tunisia. They were tortured and eventually killed. Asked why they violated the emperor’s command, one of them replied, “Without the Lord’s Day, we cannot live.”

And so he questions the wisdom of treating churches "as providers of nonessential services, like movie theaters and concert halls."

He also reports that the Italian bishops conference is being criticized for caving meekly to these drastic restrictions.  But I am not surprised; the logic of any bureaucracy is to avoid risk.  If the US reaches the point that Italy has, it will be interesting to see whether the US bishops offer any more resistance than Italy's has.

At our parish, a bulletin board in our narthex (gathering area) has tacked to it some sign-in sheets for  ministers who are scheduled to serve at the next mass as readers, altar servers, Eucharistic ministers et al.  This past Sunday, when I went to sign in, I noticed that someone, presumably at the pastor's direction, had pinned up a grid to keep track of mass counts during March; that means that the ushers are being asked to count up the number of people who attend each mass.  In the Chicago archdiocese, this is done annually, but only in the month of October, to help the archdiocese figure out what the levy on the parish will be for diocesan funds.  So it seems our pastor is watching to see what the impact of Coronavirus is going to mean on our attendance.  I served at two masses this past weekend, and my anecdotal observation is that attendance was below average.  That may or may not be significant; some weeks, attendance is below average and some weeks it's above, and the reasons for the fluctuation aren't always apparent (except for extreme weather, but the weather was very fine all weekend).  I also did Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, and for some reason, attendance was higher than normal that day.  We will have to see whether, in my local community, the need for spiritual sustenance and comfort outweighs the fear of contagion.