The Church in New York Will Not Be Shuttered: Catholic Bishops Stand Up to Government Bigotry

Y esterday, the Catholic diocese of Brooklyn filed a lawsuit against New York governor Andrew Cuomo. The governor has new shutdown rules in his new hot-zone rules.

Under Cuomo’s directive, three zones are being created — red, orange, and yellow — with red zones falling under the most severe restrictions. In orange zones, attendance at religious services is restricted to a maximum of 33 percent capacity with no more than 25 people. In yellow zones, 50 percent capacity will be permitted at services.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio:

The executive orders this week have left us with no other option than to go to court. Our churches have the capacity to accommodate many worshippers and to reset our attendance capacity to 10 people maximum in the red zone, and 25 people in the orange zone, when we have had no significant cases, impede our right to worship and cannot stand.

This isn’t merely an issue of public health and safety, as the governor maintains. This is about religious liberty. When we didn’t know what this pandemic was, the Church was a good civic player. We sacrificed and deprived people of their spiritual sustenance. As it went on too long, we still complied — at the expense of people’s spiritual and mental health. But that should also now stand to earn us some credibility here. We took the precautions. We obeyed the rules. Heck, the churches took precautions before they were told to. I go around to a lot of Catholic churches. What I’m seeing is that so many are being so careful. Hand sanitizer, distancing, roped-off pews, masks — the works. So, as the New York State Catholic Conference says below, what is this Andrew Cuomo nonsense about?

I’m not against being careful — at all. I wear my mask and use hand sanitizer and all the rest. But people can’t live in fear, and that’s what we’ve been doing. We can’t live in pause. Life comes with threats and challenges and insecurities. So protect the vulnerable and live with respect for yourself and others.

State Catholic leaders seem to be on the same page these days. Here’s a statement from the Archdiocese of New York in support of Brooklyn:

Catholic parishes throughout the Archdiocese of New York — indeed, throughout the entire State — have been able to safely and successfully re-open for Mass and the sacraments, thanks to careful planning, strict adherence to safety guidelines, and the full cooperation of our clergy, parishioners, and parish staffs. So it is unfair to arbitrarily close, even temporarily, churches which have been operating without a spike in coronavirus cases simply because other institutions have not yet been able to do so. The Diocese of Brooklyn’s lawsuit seeks to defend their First Amendment right to continue to safely worship and operate their parishes, and we support the Diocese of Brooklyn in their effort.

I hate that it comes to this, but the bishops in New York are thankfully in fighting mode. They’ve heard from people who felt abandoned during the shutdown. They know the need people have for the sacramental life. Virtual Mass doesn’t cut it because of that dogma that we pray lives loudly within us. When you believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, you kinda need access to that Presence. We believe in the indwelling Presence, too, so there’s life when the Church’s door is closed. But there is no reason for the government to insist on draconian restrictions when the churches and schools are operating safely. And of course, with the Supreme Court about to hear a case about the city of Philadelphia just down I-95 refusing, because of the Catholic Church’s views on marriage and family and human sexuality, to continue working with Catholic Social Services there on foster care and adoption, even though Philadelphia has a foster-care crisis, you can’t help but wonder if this is more about ideology and even bigotry. All the investigations into Amy Coney Barrett’s exotic Christian life certainly have me seeing that in the air.

And this obviously is not just a Catholic issue. For months, Bill de Blasio’s treatment of Jews in New York has been abhorrent, in a city where anti-Semitism is a fact. As the Wall Street Journal puts it in an editorial today:

Mass gatherings are a bad idea, and rising COVID-19 cases in Orthodox Jewish areas are a legitimate health concern. But the combination of threats, scapegoating and inflexible diktats isn’t boosting the credibility of New York’s leaders or their rules. If Messrs. de Blasio and Cuomo want cooperation in addressing Covid-19, they ought to start by treating Haredim as citizens, not criminals.

At the vice-presidential debate, Kamala Harris’s refusal to address the serious issues of her intolerance for people with traditional religious views amounted to an obnoxious refusal to own up to her views. That’s the way of the Democratic Party — hiding unpopular radicalism under a view of euphemisms. She and Biden are people of faith, she said. What kind of people of faith? The kind of people of faith who think Amy Coney Barrett’s real effort to make her life an integral whole in fellowship with others is beyond what religious freedom can tolerate?

So, thank you, bishops of New York, for standing up for faith, for freedom, for God’s people, who need the sacraments, and for vulnerable children who need to be in school. Their stance matters all the more given Cuomo’s history. I can never get out of my head the time when Andrew Cuomo told some of us to leave the state. I walk the streets of Manhattan in these post-peak days and it is a cesspool. People deserve better than the evil culture of death he champions, even while occasionally paying lip service to the good, true, and beautiful. So, again, thank you.