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Rain falls on the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Dec. 14, 2020. (CNS photo/Tom Brenner, Reuters)
Feb. 6, 2021
Catholic News Agency
California’s strict coronavirus rules banning indoor worship were blocked and revised by a U.S. Supreme Court injunction Feb. 5.
“This is a very significant step forward for basic rights," San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said. "This decision makes clear we can now return to worshiping safely indoors without risk of harassment from government officials.
“As Christians we are members of a Church, which literally means an assembly of people coming together to worship God,” Archbishop Cordileone continued. “This is our identity; it is in our very nature to gather in person to give honor and glory to God. And especially as Catholics we know that our worship cannot be livestreamed: there is no way to give Communion, or any of the other sacraments via the internet.”
The Supreme Court’s unsigned order said that the total ban on indoor worship is unconstitutional. At most, the state may limit indoor capacity to 25% of normal. It left the ban on singing intact.
The injunction concerned two different challenges brought by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista and Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, both of which had sued California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Six justices favored the injunction, while three did not. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion was joined by justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“California no longer asks its movie studios, malls, and manicurists to wait,” Gorsuch said. “As this crisis enters its second year -- and hovers over a second Lent, a second Passover, and a second Ramadan -- it is too late for the state to defend extreme measures with claims of temporary exigency, if it ever could. Drafting narrowly tailored regulations can be difficult. But if Hollywood may host a studio audience or film a singing competition while not a single soul may enter California’s churches, synagogues, and mosques, something has gone seriously awry.”
Chief Justice Roberts, writing in his own opinion, said that the state’s judgement that no adherents can safely worship even in “the most cavernous cathedral” is a view that “appears to reflect not expertise or discretion, but instead insufficient appreciation or consideration of the interests at stake.”
At the same time, he saw “no basis” to override the state ban on singing indoors, given conclusions that singing raises the risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus.
Justice Elana Kagan, however, wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. She accused the court of practicing “armchair epidemiology” in “the worst public health crisis in a century.”
“Justices of this court are not scientists,” she said. “Nor do we know much about public health policy. Yet today the court displaces the judgments of experts about how to respond to a raging pandemic.”