# Supreme Court: Religious Freedom More Important than Fighting Covid **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 26, 2020, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466 "2020-11-26T06:11:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FigNorton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fignorton/32/5619_2.png) [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/41 "2020-11-26T16:23:31Z")
She was directly responding to someone comparing Mass to a cannibal religious ceremony not saying there is zero risk of covid transmission. Istm. ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/42 "2020-11-26T16:25:08Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Well, yes. Catholics do believe that they are obligated to attend Mass on Sundays, and that worshipping as a community is essential. Is that true? I grew up Catholic and we turned on “mass for shut ins” for all of us if we couldn’t get to church for some reason (usually illness). This is even easier now with live streaming and conference calls. There’s no reason to have face-to-face services. > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > It’s not necessary to kill anyone to attend Mass. Or to form a _minyan_ . I thought this was the whole point of putting restrictions on church services? It’s supposed to stop them from killing people. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/43 "2020-11-26T16:26:52Z")
Depends. A loosely packed mass, spread out, may not create the concentration of viral load that would lead to an infectious explosion. Critical Mass.) (Hey, stop that! No shoving, quit it! Uncool, man!) ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/44 "2020-11-26T16:28:16Z")
> [@FigNorton](#): > > She was directly responding to someone comparing Mass to a cannibal religious ceremony - I probably should leave it alone now. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/45 "2020-11-26T16:29:54Z")
> [@Tfletch1](#): > > Is that true? I grew up Catholic and we turned on “mass for shut ins” for all of us if we couldn’t get to church for some reason (usually illness). This is even easier now with live streaming and conference calls. There’s no reason to have face-to-face services. It is true. You and your family may have turned on a televised Mass for shut-ins, but that in no way relieves anyone of the obligation to attend Mass. Of course, shut-ins aren’t obligated to attend Mass in the first place. But there is no substitute for actual Mass attendance. > [@Tfletch1](#): > > I thought this was the whole point of putting restrictions on church services? It’s supposed to stop them from killing people. Points for snark. As I said above, though, I wish Bishop DiMarzio hadn’t brought this lawsuit. I think he did the right thing at the beginning of the pandemic by suspending the Sunday obligation. I think he ought to lock the doors of every church in his diocese. I also said that I don’t know whether the Supreme Court was right or wrong to block enforcement of Governor Cuomo’s executive order. I’m not a lawyer. I haven’t read the body of case law that would apply in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/46 "2020-11-26T16:30:43Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I probably should leave it alone now. I mean, it’s not the whole Mass… ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/47 "2020-11-26T16:44:15Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > It is true. You and your family may have turned on a televised Mass for shut-ins, but that in no way relieves anyone of the obligation to attend Mass. Of course, shut-ins aren’t obligated to attend Mass in the first place. > > But there is no substitute for actual Mass attendance. Then if shut-ins are not required to attend mass, face-to-face attendance during a pandemic is also not a requirement. I’m not religious anymore but if I were, I would think the sinners are the ones forcing these face-to-face requirements. Not very pro-life, IMO. > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Points for snark. As I said above, though, I wish Bishop DiMarzio hadn’t brought this lawsuit. I think he did the right thing at the beginning of the pandemic by suspending the Sunday obligation. I think he ought to lock the doors of every church in his diocese. I apologize if you thought I was being snarky. If requiring someone to attend a large mass when cases are high almost certainly will result in transmission. If it gets to an old person (maybe not even directly) then human sacrifice seems to be part of the religious requirement. Maybe not actively but it’s allowed to happen for the religious requirement. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/48 "2020-11-26T16:47:17Z")
Working my way through the opinions, I liked this section of Sotomayor’s dissent: “Undeterred, JUSTICE GORSUCH offers up his own examples of secular activities he thinks might pose similar risks as religious gatherings, but which are treated more leniently under New York’s rules (e.g., going to the liquor store or getting a bike repaired). Ante, at 2 (concurring opinion). But JUSTICE GORSUCH does not even try to square his examples with the conditions medical experts tell us facilitate the spread of COVID–19: large groups of people gathering, speaking, and singing in close proximity indoors for extended periods of time. (“Epidemiologists and physicians generally agree that religious services are among the riskiest activities”). 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.” ---
**Author:** ![DeadTreasSecretaries](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deadtreassecretaries/32/4817_2.png) [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/49 "2020-11-26T16:49:32Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > But contemptuous dismissal of religious belief adds nothing to the situation. Just commenting on this since others have mentioned the legal side of it - it’s extremely tough to look at a religious congregation putting the lives of my loved ones in danger, and then claiming religious persecution when society tries to prevent them from putting other people’s lives in danger, and not have this reaction. It also really seems to be arbitrary and hypocritical for both of these particular communities. As you mentioned, Catholics did stop in-person mass at one point in the pandemic. And one of the central planks of Judaism is that the human life is more important than religious laws. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/50 "2020-11-26T16:56:03Z")
Yeah, what do we all think of the majority in this essentially lying to get the result that they want? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/51 "2020-11-26T16:59:07Z")
Now that you know that the rules for religious gatherings were more lax than the rules for similar secular gatherings, are you going to come back and acknowledge your error? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/52 "2020-11-26T17:00:30Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Yeah, what do we all think of the majority in this essentially lying to get the result that they want? I’m not sure I can adjust my expectations any lower, but I’ll try. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/53 "2020-11-26T17:01:59Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > > [@Tfletch1](#): > > > > Is that true? I grew up Catholic and we turned on “mass for shut ins” for all of us if we couldn’t get to church for some reason (usually illness). This is even easier now with live streaming and conference calls. There’s no reason to have face-to-face services. > > It is true. You and your family may have turned on a televised Mass for shut-ins, but that in no way relieves anyone of the obligation to attend Mass. Of course, shut-ins aren’t obligated to attend Mass in the first place. It’s not true. Your last line almost explains this. The reason it is not required of shut-ins is that there is no requirement to attend Mass on a weekly basis. There are some required Masses, decided upon by each Bishop, but that same Bishop can cite extenuating circumstances to cancel them, as they already did earlier specifically citing the pandemic (which is only worse now). Furthermore, Catholics miss those required services all the time. As far as I know, no major denominations of Christianity require church attendance. The Bible just says not to forsake meeting one with another, but no one is forsaking it. It’s actually kinda impractical for a church to have such requirements. People get sick, family situations come up, people have to work, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/54 "2020-11-26T17:05:01Z")
> [@Tfletch1](#): > > Then if shut-ins are not required to attend mass, face-to-face attendance during a pandemic is also not a requirement. What’s your standing to pronounce on the religious obligations of Catholics? That’s not your call. That said, as I pointed out earlier, the Sunday obligation has been suspended, at least in Bishop DiMarzio’s diocese. > [@Tfletch1](#): > > I’m not religious anymore but if I were, I would think the sinners are the ones forcing these face-to-face requirements. Not very pro-life, IMO. Who is _forcing_ anyone to attend Mass? Bishop DiMarzio brought a lawsuit seeking to _permit_ people to attend Mass. Not the same thing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/55 "2020-11-26T17:09:36Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The reason it is not required of shut-ins is that there is no requirement to attend Mass on a weekly basis. Huh? From the Catechism: > The precept of the Church specifies the law of the Lord more precisely: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.” “The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day.” Of course there are exceptions, and people who can’t physically get to a church are not bound to do so, and bishops may suspend the obligation under extraordinary circumstances, but Catholics are bound to attend Mass. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/56 "2020-11-26T17:09:58Z")
Since this is Politics & Elections, I’ll comment on the political side of this. I think it’s very difficult for liberals to thread the needle on this one. For better or worse, this is exactly the kind of thing that looks like an attack on religion. We can point out until we are blue in the face that the rules are actually more lax for religious groups, and it won’t matter. It will be seen as evil Democrats trying to shut down church. I totally understand and respect the public health side of it, and I would recommend governors being as strenuous as possible in their recommendations that churches limit gatherings to particular sizes and put as much pressure as possible on religious leaders to elect to move their congregations to virtual services. But from a purely political perspective I’m not sure this is a battle that can be won, and we may lose more in the fighting of it than we could gain in the winning. More broadly I think lock-down politics have become a net loser for Democrats. Once it became a political issues the reality is you cannot win more voters by locking down than you can lose by not locking down. Or put another way, there are more voters that will jump to the more lenient side than will jump to the more restrictive side. So once again Democratic mayors and governors are stuck choosing between losing votes or declining to protect the lives of their constituents. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/57 "2020-11-26T17:12:09Z")
> [@DeadTreasSecretaries](#): > > It also really seems to be arbitrary and hypocritical for both of these particular communities. As you mentioned, Catholics did stop in-person mass at one point in the pandemic. And one of the central planks of Judaism is that the human life is more important than religious laws. At least in my diocese, the obligation is still suspended, although many churches are open for those who wish to attend Mass. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/58 "2020-11-26T17:21:02Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > At least in my diocese, the obligation is still suspended, although many churches are open for those who wish to attend Mass Any idea as to how many people are attending Mass? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/59 "2020-11-26T17:22:33Z")
Yes, it’s true. Catholics are required to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation unless there’s a good reason for missing Mass. Illness would be a good reason - but when there is a good reason to miss Mass, watching a televised service is not required. And although my diocese and all those nearby have dispensed Catholics from these obligations during the pandemic , it remains true that a) Catholics believe worshipping as a community is essential and 2) You cannot receive Communion while watching a televised or livestreamed Mass. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466/60 "2020-11-26T17:23:23Z")
No. Why do you ask? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-religious-freedom-more-important-than-fighting-covid/926466.md?page=4)