Gov. Kelly had to limit worship services with COVID-19 cases coming from Kansas church events
On this one Easter Sunday, responsible Christians across the world will be celebrating the empty tomb by keeping their pews empty, too.
Most churches in the Kansas City area were already holding online-only services in response to the global coronavirus pandemic.
But then, on Monday, Kansas officials announced that three of 11 known COVID-19 hotspots in Kansas had been linked to houses of worship in Wyandotte County. That’s why Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly all but had to issue a revised stay-at-home order on Tuesday.
Under her original order, religious services of any size could still go on. Now, only groups of 10 or smaller can meet, just as for any other kind of gathering. “This was a difficult decision,” she said, “and could not come at a more disappointing time.”
These are the same limits already in place in Johnson County, under its stricter local stay-at-home order, and the same as under Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s directive. There is no religious exemption under Kansas City’s order, which supersedes the state’s.
Republicans in the Kansas Legislature have said that they were only willing to go along with Kelly’s original order after being assured that gun stores and churches could stay open.
But the fewer and narrower the exceptions, then the fewer COVID-19 cases, and the faster this will be over. Though a lot of us are praying harder than ever, God willing they won’t fight this correction.
Again, most ministers were already telling their flocks that Jesus wants their derrieres at home this Easter, making that sacrifice in the interest of keeping themselves and others safe.
Yet the list of faith-based coronavirus hotspots is long. In Sacramento County in California, a third of the first 314 coronavirus cases were linked to churches. In Albany, Georgia, one funeral led to many more. A choir practice at a Presbyterian church in Washington state resulted in two COVID-19 deaths and 45 more cases.
About 12% of American religious groups continue to worship as usual, according to a Religion News Service report that cites an American Enterprise Institute survey.
A handful of these groups have made national news, which may have been the point. In Florida, the pastor of the River at Tampa Bay Church was arrested for continuing to hold large worship services, as was a Louisiana pastor whose services were still drawing crowds as large as 1,000. In Lakewood, New Jersey, police broke up a crowd at a rabbi’s funeral, and in Chicago, officers interrupted elderly mourners at an Assyrian Eastern Orthodox church. “This is sincerely the last thing we want to do,” a police spokesman told the Chicago Sun-Times.
That’s not hard to believe.
Even on a purely political level, it’s hard to imagine many American politicians being eager to tell a religious group when to close its doors. “I love my church people, and a lot of them vote,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, a regular at the Concord Fortress of Hope Baptist Church.
The First Amendment absolutely guarantees freedom from state interference. But no liberty is absolute, and with public health not just at risk but so seriously compromised, Kelly had to act.
For faith groups already doing the right thing, the only impact will be less risk to the community as a whole, and to older, more vulnerable people in particular.
Regina Kort, of Leawood, daughter of Holocaust survivor Sonia Warshawski, whose story was made into the documentary, “Big Sonia,” said their family will be celebrating Passover with a virtual seder. “Hopefully, next year we’ll all be together around the table again.”
Sunday “will be an Easter like no other,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. In an interview before Kelly’s revised order was issued, he said he was grateful that the first one “acknowledged that certain things are constitutionally exempt” even as “we feel obligated to keep people safe.”
Stay-at-home orders without religious exemptions, he said, set a bad precedent and send the message that the freedom to worship is expendable, nonessential.
First Amendment concerns are far from frivolous, and Naumann is right that the government should never single out religious groups for regulation others don’t have to worry about. With, as he says, “liquor stores and dry cleaners open, but no funerals or weddings.”
That’s a good argument for shortening the list of exemptions further, since a crowd at Walmart is no less dangerous than one singing hosanna.
Pope Paul VI’s 1965 Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom, says that “Provided the just demands of public order are observed, religious communities rightfully claim freedom in order that they may govern themselves.” Surely saving lives during this pandemic qualifies as the just demands of public order.
The Vatican, located as it is in one of the countries hardest hit by coronavirus, set an early example of online-only worship, and the image of Pope Francis praying alone in the rain in St. Peter’s Square spoke to Christians beyond the Catholic world. “If it’s good enough for the pope, it’s good enough for us,” said the Rev. Bob Hill, minister emeritus of Kansas City’s Community Christian Church.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with these issues” of how to worship as safely as possible during a plague, Naumann said.
Though we didn’t know then all we know now, during the influenza pandemic of 1918, cities around the country banned public gatherings of all kinds, and closed churches, too.
In our city and this crisis, Lucas said he hopes his fellow believers will stay home not just from church but from family parties or even gatherings of neighbors sitting in the yard six feet apart, which can still contribute to community spread. And those drive-in movie-style Easter services in church parking lots, too?
“I guess that doesn’t violate the letter of the law,” Lucas said, but will still tempt friends to be friendlier than is safe under the circumstances.
Why intervene in church decisions at all? “Because I don’t want the lady in the front pew to die,” he answered. “Why be as troglodyte as possible?”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 2:20 PM.
