Wherein the hierarchy defers to the state.
Donald Trump wants to open up churches more than some church leaders do. No sooner had he proposed that churches be deemed “essential” services than some church leaders began criticizing him. At CNN, Father Edward Beck quickly penned a column saying “Mr. President, we don’t need to open churches to practice our faith.”
Beck argues:
No one is prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Though we are in the teeth of a pandemic, in which a very dangerous coronavirus can be transmitted by, among other things, close physical proximity, people can and do continue to worship, albeit in temporarily altered circumstances and in novel ways. To use the “freedom of religion” argument to demand carte blanche the opening of religious venues is to proffer a fallacious argument that can potentially lead to physical harm and, in the worst case, death.
Such statements by religious figures are music to the ears of secularists, who have used this crisis as an opportunity to mistreat the religious. The secularists have used the submissiveness of the hierarchy against the faithful, saying to them in effect: If your leaders don’t object to the closing of churches, why should you? This is reminiscent of the Soviet commissars who would use the orthodox clergy as stooges for their dictates, thereby controlling the people in the pews.
Read the rest at American Spectator