Church must be considered an essential service

When I was almost 16 I moved out of my father's house and into my mother's. My dad's was a religious home, my mother's was not. At my dad's I was raised Catholic, but once I moved to Philadelphia and into my mom's home, I didn't go to church anymore. It wasn't forbidden or anything, but I felt awkward about it, and as my life had already taken several unexpected turns, I just let faith go.

I hadn't thought about any of this until I was talking to my cousin over Thanksgiving. We were both excited about the emergency ruling granted by the Supreme Court against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's church closures. The right to religious liberty, in 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, was determined to be more important than restrictions imposed inspired by a global pandemic.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor said that we needed to listen to health experts instead of keeping churches open. Sotomayor said "Justices of this Court play a deadly game in second-guessing the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting a million Americans each week, spreads most easily."

A dissent like that makes me wonder what our country really thinks of religion and faith. For Sotomayor, and to those critics of the majority decision, practicing religion is not necessary for survival, it is not an essential activity. Going to church is considered in our culture as an extra, like going to the movies, or a to a play. Faith is perceived as an add-on to life and not integral to it. It isn't.

Religious freedom is ours by virtue of the First Amendment. The right to practice our faith was considered so important by our founding fathers, that they put it down first. And now we have four Supreme Court justices who would willingly give it away and place public health concerns above it, as though our founding fathers were not aware of widespread illnesses and massively contagious pandemics—they were.

This is a shocking misunderstanding of what it means to practice faith. When I put my faith away at 16, when I determined that I would not practice my religion, it was extremely painful. I had practiced faith, and I when I say practice I mean that I worked at it. Belief in God, in the goodness of His love, and the sacrifice made for us, had seen me through my darkest times in childhood. It grieved me to lose it.

In a very real way, I put aside my faith in favour of other concerns, such as fitting in, and not disrupting my new family. It felt like what I had to do to survive in my new reality. This is what we are being asked to do when churches closed. We are asked to put our practice aside for a while because there are things more important than faith.

My loss of faith did more than give me a way to not stick out among the people in my new life, it also put me off the practice of faith at all. Sunday became just another day to do whatever. Gradually, I stopped praying. During the pandemic, this has begun to happen again. And while at first I marked Sundays, that practice stopped.

The reason I say "practice faith" is because it does not come easy to me. I find the act of belief very difficult. The reason I work at it is because without faith in God's love, I have trouble seeing any meaning to the universe—I find it difficult to view life as the glorious gift that it is, with the ever-present chance for grace. I keep faith not as a hobby, or as a side thing, but because it is something I need to survive. I know I'm not the only one.

Shuttering churches is not like closing restaurants, theatres, or sports centers. Churches provide what nothing else does: time to reflect with others on the nature of reality through the lens of God's love. For many, being able to take part in ceremonies to glory in and to remember that love is the difference between weathering this storm and getting swept out to sea.

It was years before I found my way back to God, and in the interim I grieved that loss.

During the pandemic, in Michigan, Nevada, and other states, churches were closed while casinos and liquor stores stayed open. Governors had no issue withholding people's right to religious freedom. People who spoke up for their faith were derided as primarily selfish. And now, a Supreme Court Justice wrote that the opinions of health experts should supersede our rights.

Our nation has lost an understanding of faith. Religious liberty must be protected. Not just as a means to tolerate those who are different from us, but because without securing and protecting that right, faith could fall from the nation forever.