California COVID Updates

Although North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara County was forced to end indoor services due to mounting fines, a second Evangelical church in the area continued to hold them.

The county District Attorney's Office and County Counsel filed a joint action in Superior Court this week targeting Calvary Chapel San Jose, an evangelical Christian church on Hillsdale Avenue. County attorneys allege the church has been hosting weekly indoor church services that draw 600 people without any use of masks or social distancing.

. . . County attorneys say the church has racked up over $350,000 in unpaid fines for violating the public health order since May, and are seeking a court order that forces the church to comply with county rules.

What's notable here is that the church's lawyers are beginning to use an argument that's only slowly begun to emerge in these cases: the evidence we have is that indoor church services, without social distancing or masks, and with singing, simply do not spread the disease. Pastor John MacArthur has made this plain in addresses to the public, but lawyers seem to have a harder time bringing it before a judge. But in this case, the church's atrorneys are doing it:

“No material change has suddenly precipitated the need for emergency relief to protect against alleged imminent irreparable harm,” the filing reads. “In fact, the evidence says otherwise. The virus, by all scientific measures, is no worse than the season flu, and Santa Clara County remains in one of the lowest tiers. Plaintiffs have also outwardly supported super spreader events like protests in the streets. Yet now, the defendants have the gall to claim somehow the defendants’ indoor services will present a grave threat to the community. This is pure fear mongering and inconsistent with the facts and plaintiffs own actions."

In Los Angeles County, the health department is sending in food inspectors to enforce social distancing against an SSPX parish:

Thomas More Society attorneys are preparing to challenge the actions of two county “Environmental Health Specialists” who surveilled Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church in Arcadia, California, and slapped the parish with citations on October 15, 2020, after observing women in prayer veils leaving the building. Five days later, on October 20, the same two workers returned to threaten church personnel with more citations – compelling staff to eject the two masked worshipers who prayed inside the 500-capacity sanctuary. The harassment comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Farther Trevor Burfitt, prior at Our Lady of Angels, charging California Governor Gavin Newsom and 19 other state, county, and municipal officials for violating his religious rights.

. . . The county “Specialists” have job descriptions detailing health inspection, investigation, and enforcement duties that revolve primarily around food sanitation and proper rubbish disposal.

“The county has apparently decided that food and garbage inspectors are qualified to police worship activities,” stated Jonna.

The legal issues continue to revolve around inconsistent enforcement -- church services vs mass protests -- enforceability -- health department orders are not normally law enforcement issues -- and, incrasingly, the assertion that large gatherings are "superspreader" events simply violates common sense.

The aburdity now extends to orders from Gov Newsom on Thanksgiving celebrations (Halloween observances are already strongly discouraged):

The mandatory restrictions for Thanksgiving gatherings include:

• No more than three households, including hosts and guests.
• The names and contact information of guests must be recorded so they can be “contact traced.”
• Must be held outside.
• No more than two hours.
• Guests may use restrooms only if they are sanitized between use.
• Six-foot distancing in all directions.
• Everyone should frequently wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer which must, of course, be done outside.
• Food and drink must be in single-serve disposable containers.
• No food or drink on the table other than your plate and cup.
• Masks must be worn and removed only briefly to eat or drink.
• Masks can also be removed for urgent medical needs (an asthma inhaler, medication or light-headedness).
• Singing, chanting and shouting are strongly discouraged, but if they occur, a face covering must be worn. And the singing should be quiet.
• Instrumental music is allowed but no wind instruments.

One factor that few analyses of the upcomnig elections discuss is the impact of COVID restrictions. The position of Vice President Biden and most other Democrat candidates has been that Trump has failed to end the "pandemic", while they will solve the problem by reinstating stay-at-home lockdowns and a national mask mandate. Ordinary people by now are recognizing these measures violate ordinary common sense.

There has been no serious analysis of California House races in any media. But a major lesson of the 25th District special election last May was twofold: first, that although Democrats thought mail-in ballots would benefit only Democrats, Republicans found them just as convenient, and they were motivated to vote in greater numbers. The second lesson has been widely ignored: the upset Republican victory in that election was due in some part to COVID fatigue and the context that unreasonable restrictions are imposed by corrupt politicians intent on self-aggrandizement.

I think this will turn out to be a surprising factor in Tuesday's results.

Cleburne And The Millionaire

I'm just old enough to have vague memories of The Millionaire, a 1950s TV show that, according to Wikipedia,

explored the ways that sudden and unexpected wealth changed life, for better or for worse. It told the stories of people who were given one million dollars ($9.54 million in 2019 dollars) from a benefactor who insisted they must never know his identity, with one exception.

My memories are so vague that it's taken me a couple of months, now and then waking up suddenly in the early morning hours, to realize how much this hokey plot line resembles the bill of goods that's being sold in Cleburne. (The city of Cleburne, TX for that matter is named after Patrick Cleburne, a Confederate general who died a glorious but futile death in an ill-concevied charge at the Battle of Franklin, TN, just for some context here.)

Around the time I was waking up with repressed memories of the TV show, I was also thinking about the corrupt bosses I'd had who maintained some semblance of control in their orgainizations by fostering the illusion that they were just one happy working family, like say on Mary Tyler Moore, where everyone is flawed but lovable, which covers up for the reality that everyne is screwing everyone else's wives or husbands, and the whole department will be downsized next month due to ubiquitous nonfeasance.

Thus did brain-dead TV pollute our culture. But this brings me back to the instant issue: I sat up in bed early this mornimg recognizing that John Beresford Tipton, the anonymous benefactor in The Millionaire, is still active, still handing out random million-dollar checks for each week's episode, this one featuing the lucky parish of St John Vianney Cleburne. And Fr Wooten cautions us that the donor must remain anonymous, true to the TV fantasies of 1957.

But I keep taking this strange fantasy puzzle piece and trying to fit it into a hole in reality. For starters, there's no such thing as a random million-dollar grant. The version Fr Wooten gives in his YouTube presentation -- and there's no reference to it anywhere else insofar as I can find one -- is that some version of the John Beresford Tipton Foundationi -- presumably the Catholic Charities Departmet -- goes looking for worthy small Catholic parishes that it wants to turn into big ones, with million-dollar grants.

Fr Wooten's version is that he sorta-kinda got a phone call, in response to which he sorta-kinda put together a "little proposal", and a few weeks later he sorta-kinda got another phone call telling him it was on. (I still want to see the wire transfer receipt or just the bank statement.)

But let's take the real-world example I mentioned in yesterday'a post, St John the Baptist Bridgeport. It received a matching donatoin much smaller than a million dollars to complete just a portioni of the existing plan that had been developed by Cram & Ferguson, the church consulting firm. That seems like a much more credible story.

A serious grant proposal would go to the John Beresford Tipton Foundaion with something that had already been developed by Cram & Ferguson or equivalent. What is the current size of the group? What is the potential? What is the potential use of the property? Where on the property should the initial church phase go? What are the potential later phases? More important, what's the fundrasing plan going forward? How does the group plan to grow and upport the new building?

Every indication from Fr Wooten's YouTube presentations is that absolutely nothing like this has been prepared. If an actual million-dollar grant had been approved, we would see at least portions of the proposal on the parish website -- indeed, we'd have seen them well before the specific application was made. None of this would violate the Tipton Foundation's confidentiality.

On one hand, the audience I'm addressing here, at least the formal one that I target rhetorically, is of lay interested parties who are, however, just distant observers. I suspect actual ordinariate members are not numerous among visitors here, nor I would expect many actual donors to ordinariate parishes or Houston itself.

But I'm starting to have questions that need to be addressed more specifically. Why is Bp Lopes alllowing Fr Wooten to make these strange blue-sky YouTube presentations that have more in common with 60 year old TV shows than modern reality? Is he even aware of them?

Second, if there's been a million-dollar grant to further the growth of the St John Vianney parish, even if the John Beresford Tipton Foundation wants to be anonymous, why isn't Houston publicizng it? Why hasn't it even reached the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog?

Has Bp Lopes met with the movers and shakers at the John Beresford Tipton Foundation? Has he possibly tried to steer them toward sending the million where it might be more effectively used, for instance toward the existing serious plan at St John the Baptist Bridgeport?

We already have a parallel case in Houston's history, where Fr Perkins and Bp Lopes were duped into buying the "Gilbertine" hoax in Calgary. I'm increasingly convinced the million-dollar grant in Cleburne is just another episode of this same TV show. But when adults begin to buy into brain-dead TV fantasies, reality does have a way of stepping in, sooner rather than later.

Why The Rush To Ordain Fr Wooten In Cleburne?

My regular correspondent pointed out yesterday that Dcn Keyes was ordained transitional deacon in May with now-Fr Wooten. No date has been set for Dcn Keyes's priestly ordination, but Fr Wooten's took place just a week or so ago, after only five months as a transitional deacon, when the normal time for the ordinariate is more like a year.

(This, of course, leaves aside the literally instant ordinations where ordinariate priests have been received into the Church, ordained deacon, and ordained priest over the course of a weekend. This is apparently to create a big surprise for the priest's former Anglican bishop, which doesn't sound like the best idea, but then, I'm not Bp Lopes.)

Nevertheless, I've got to wonder what the rush was, that Fr Wooten should be treated so differently from Dcn Keyes. Could this be, for instance, to speed construction on rhw new St John Vianney Cleburne church building, for which a secret donor has gifted the parish a million dollars? Might we expect some announcement of progress in this area with such a major positive step in Fr Wooten's ordination?

I went to the St John Vianney website and checked the Land and Building News page, which has had no land or building news since 2017.

October 1st [2017] was a very special and significant day for St. John Vianney Catholic Church. After enjoying a delicious potluck lunch and parish meeting/rally day, we traveled in a caravan up the street to our new property, and blessed our new land for all time (Traversing the15 acres necessitated using a parishioner's pick up rather than the traditional procession!)

Well, maybe Fr Wooten has been so busy with ordination and all, he hasn't had time to update the page, huh? But he's on the Staff Page as Parochial Administrator/Pastor, so some updates have been done. Wouldn't a million-dollar gift be worth adding to the web site as well? May as well put up the optimistic message sonner as later. Well, maybe someday.

My experience in my working career was when I took over something new, it would be important to show near-immediate progress, if not a finished project itself, at minimum a credible and professional project plan. And the project plan would need to be buttressed by a near-immediate completion of some milestone, however small, to establish a pattern of success..

So far, we've still seen no new events other than the YouTube videos I linked here in early September, this one and this one.

Even St John the Baptist Bridgeport, with a more modest anonymous gift, has announced it via the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, and it had previously engaged the church consulting firm Cram & Ferguson to develop a parish plan, as I've covered here.

It seems to me that a credible response to a million-dollar gift, one that would justify the apparent haste in ordaining Fr Wooten, would be some type of published project plan that would, at minimum, involve an announcement that Cram & Ferguson or some similar firm had been engaged to determine how best to move forward with this windfall. Instead, crickets.

Well, we do have those two YouTubes from September. But again, what makes me uncomfortable about the YouTubes is that they talk down to the audience, and they have a sorta-kinda-maybe-someday tone, evn though they assert that a million dollars has suddenly materialized to more forward. There are simply no specifics at all.

If Fr Wooten could make YouTubes to talk about the gift, is he not capable of a more formal and explicit written announcement? After all, my impression of Episcopal rectors is that, with elite educatoinal backgrounds, they're fully capable of effective written communication. (Well, that is, Episcopal rectors. Not so much the ex-Episcopal priests recruited into the ordinariate.)

So what were Bp Lopes and Fr Perkins intending to accomplish by fast-tracking Fr Wooten's ordination? So far, I don't see any visible reason for it. And my curiosity is still piqued -- can someone show us the wire transfer receipt for the million bucks? You can blank out the account numbers and stuff. Just show us the money's there. Heck, even last month's account statement from the bank will do.'

Otherwise, I still think there's a more than remote chance that someone's being conned.

More On Ordinariate Vocations

In yesterday's post, I was probably thinking unconsiously about the homily in Sunday's mass, which was given by the newly ordained transitional deacon who was one of our parish's regular celibate vocations. This celebrated his transitional ordination as well as his return to the parish for a visit. A major point he made was that his discernment and vocation process lasted 15 years. Since he appears to be in his mid-twenties, this would have put the start of the process in his early teens.

The target audience for Fr Mike Schmitz's YouTube presentations, which also stress discernment and vocation, also appears to be people in their teens, probably pre-college. As I think back to that stage in my life, if I'd had a vocation, I would definitely have needed the steady advice of a solid priest, as well as the support of my family (an uncle or even a brother in the priesthood wouldn't have hurt). Without real support in my mid-teens, it wouldn't happen.

But the Episcopalian process doesn't work that way. It's not a life decision, it's a career decision made late in college -- and as trends continue, it's made more and more as a second career, as well as a career option for women and gays. Anglicans follow the Episcopalian trend, and probably even more as a second career when the candidate fails to be ordained by an Episcopal bishop and falls back on the ACNA or a "continuing" group.

This means that Anglicanorum coetibus is recruiting Catholic clergy who are not only married but formed under entirely different circumstances. Even the celibate Episcopalians are most likely as gay as their TEC colleagues, and this applies to the celibate ex Episcopalians now in the North American ordinariate.

This is why I'm increasingly skeptical of the idea that Anglican priests can become Catholic with just a little touchup. Regarding this year's ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood in the ordinariaate, my regular correspondent notes,

Mr Keyes was ordained to the diaconate in May, at the same time as Scott Wooten, who was ordained priest last Wednesday. Have not seen any date posted for Mr Keyes’ priestly ordination, which according to the recent practice of the OCSP should not take place until the spring of 2021.

I hope the million dollars which has materialised for the construction of a church for Fr Wooten’s community did not play any part in his abbreviated stint as deacon, because that would be simony.

I would say that there has been no report anywhere of the OCSP Clergy Conference and no pictures, even on social media, of anything but Fr Wooten’s ordination in the cathedral in Houston, so at least it gave some sort of focus to what seems to have been a poorly attended gathering.

I continue to be puzzled at what appears to be a con job from Fr Wooten. If he's received a million dollars for construction of a new parish building, I would expect to see near-immediate signs of progress. Our novus ordo parish provides constant updates on construction. In fact, in addition to a major building project, it's taken advantage of the COVID restrictions to undertake a $100,000 renovation of the adoration chapel, with a separate new fundraising appeal and continual updates.

So far, all we hear from Fr Wooten is sorta-kinda-maybe-someday. As someone who's getting more and more used to the Catholic Church, the problem I see for the North American ordinariate is that it just isn't very Catholic. I go back to the associate who was delegated to query me about this blog after our pastor received a complaint several years ago. One of the first concerns i raised with him about the ordinariate was "instant ordinations" -- of some, that's been literally true, with candidaes received into the Church, ordained as deacon, and ordained as priest in the course of a weekend.

But even where a candidate has been Catholic for years and ordained a deacon but waits a decent interval before becoming a priest, there's a lot missing, and this leaves aside men who've been ordained in the ordinariate after seriouis problems in TEC or "continuing" groups. Oddly, when I mentioned this to our associate, he simply nodded, chuckled, and basically dropped the discussion with a remark on the complainant's grammar.

I doubt if any novus ordo priest would ever specifically disparage the ordinariate to me. On the other hand, I'd go so far as to wonder if anecdotes have already made their rounds in clergy conferences and rectories.

News Of St Augustine San Diego

Because nobody else reports it, I post it here. My regular correspondent says

St Augustine, San Diego—-formerly St Augustine, Carlsbad—-will soon become St Augustine, Escondido, as it will be celebrating Sunday mass in the “chapel tent” at John Paul the Great Catholic University there starting next Sunday. Samuel Keyes, ordained to the diaconate in May, is a professor at JPCatholic. He was named Glenn Baaten’s successor as administator of the St Augustine community, presumably his ordination ticket, so one can see that he has a vested interest in trying to revive it. Mass has not been celebrated at its former location since March. As we have frequently noted, attendance was down to about a dozen, so it will be interesting to see who turns up in Escondido, and who will be celebrating.

My correspondent has commented from time to time on Keyes and his relationship to the dwindling St Augustine community. From last June:

Still musing on why the Keyes, living in Murrieta, joined an Ordinariate community an hour away in Del Mar Heights. . . . The Easter Vigil was cancelled in 2019 so that Fr Baaten could celebrate at BJHN. More recently, however, there have been a number of special services—-Advent Lessons and Carols with the choir of HM, Murrieta, for example, and a regular monthly choral Evensong—-with more people visible, including Mr Keyes, serving or acting as subdeacon. I assume these have been his initiatives; there is a new Permanent Deacon at St Augustine’s but he was an original member of the community, so not the one bringing fresh energy into the group. I suppose it is possible that Mr Keyes will be taking over when Fr Bartus returns to Holy Martyra, although the Facebook page is very vague about plans for the fall. Indeed, nothing indicates that Fr Baaten has left.

Murrieta is 38 miles from Escondido, a 76 mile round trip. The 2020 IRS mileage rate is 57.5 cents per mile, so the group should be paying him $43.70 for expenses to celebrate mass (assuming he's ordained), in addition to a regular stipend. It sounds as though the group left its previoius venue at least in part because, with a dozen or so members, it couldn't pay rent.

Why is Keyes doing this, and why is Bp Lopes allowing it? Continuing the St Augustine group seems nothing more than an empty charade, and for Keyes to be ordained to say mass for a dozen there, when real Catholic parishes are plentiful in the area, suggests that he's little more than dressing up for a weekend of role-playing games. I can't imagine that his novus ordo parish colleagues privately take him seriously at all.

Would it not be more productive for him and others like him to dress up in Civil War attire to impersonate Stonewall Jackson at weekend reenactments? At least there's a greater sense that this is a fantasy exercise, and nobody is in much danger of believing it's 1863 depite the cannons and muskets.

I think Keyes, and others like him among ordinariate clergy, should be ashamed of themselves. This business we now see about soul-searching over continence with their wives is an indication of the overcompensation that stems from their own ambivalence and insecurity over why they're doing this. Deep down inside, these men know they're phonies. I would estimate they're embarrassed to encounter real Catholic priests in the rare occasions when this happens.

This is also a reflection on the completely inadequate supervision and psychological evaluation in Houston's vocation process. The vicar general and vocation director are complicit. All the phony guys would be well advised to resign their orders and undertake a serious effort to live sincere lives as Catholic laymen.

Coronavirus Outbreak Strikes Defiant Sun Valley Megachurch

This was the headline for the story at KTLA last Thursday, and it was pretty typical of corporate media's take. It took some work to piece out what had really happened: three part-time staff members had tested positive, with either very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. The church issued a statement, since deleted from its website:

You may have seen a report on the news claiming that there is a COVID-19 outbreak at our church. There is no outbreak at Grace Church. We have three, part-time employees who tested positive and are now recovering at home, having never been hospitalized. As we enter the flu season, we encourage you to stay home if you are not feeling well or have COVID-19-like symptoms. We are going to meet for worship this Sunday to celebrate the Lord’s Table together.

Although the media tried to incite panic over the "outbreak", it actually worked to underscore a growing public confidence that in fact the vast majority of "cases" are asymptomatic or mild and do not require hospitalization. Of those who are hospitalized, the great majority recover. The recent infections of President Trump and others in the White House simply bore this out. Grace Church held its services as usual on Sunday, and the story seems to have dropped off the radar.

The Southern California megachurches always struck me as a perfect lab experiment in how the disease is actually transmitted (or not). Thousands of people cycle through an indoor environment each week, without social distance, without masks, exchanging the peace (no doubt with hugs as well as handshakes), and even singing with choir and organ, and the best the media can find after four months of this is three mild cases.

It appears that civil authorities will remain stubbornly behind the curve on this for the foreseeable future. Based on an announcement at yesterday's mass, the arbitrary restriction on maximum mass attendance has been lifted by county health authorities, but they must still be held outdoors with masks and social distance, no singing, no handshakes or hugs. Just up the freeway, though, they've been doing these things for months, and it's been OK.

The celebrant expressed hope they might even let us inside soon. We'll probably get a clearer picture after the election. The megachurch members are almost certainly Trump voters, but many live, as we do, in Adam Schiff's congressional district.

I found a YouTube recording of Grace Community Church singing as a body the Charles Wesley hymn "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing", which as a literary artifact alone is brilliant and sublmine in the formal sense. How long will it be before our parish can sing this again?

Ordinariate Prediction

From my regular correspondent:

I predict that the communities in this list will not be around five years from now:

Good Shepherd, Oshawa, ON *
Our Lady of Good Counsel, Jacksonville, NC *
Our Lady of Grace, Covina, CA
Our Lady of Hope, Kansas City, MO
Our Lady of the Sign, Fredericton, NB*
Our Lady of Walsingham, Maple Ridge, BC *
St Benedict, Edmonton, AB *
St Gregory the Great, Chestnut Hill, MA
St Michael and All Angels, Denison, TX *

The six starred communities were “continuing” groups which came into the Ordinariate in its early days. Since that time they have failed to grow beyond the initial dozen or so members. It is hard to imagine that Bp Lopes will consider it worthwhile to replace any of their clergy, all currently well past retirement age, once they depart. The locations are generally unpromising.

Our Lady of Grace was a group started in Pasadena by Fr Bartus as an ordination ticket for Aaron Bayles. Now in its second location, Fr Bayles seems to have no further connection with it, and Fr Bartus’ other protegé, Fr Baaten, drives many miles to celebrate Sunday mass there. When he retires I think Fr Bartus will be out of surrogates.

Our Lady of Hope was a former PP parish, now with its third leader, for whom it was an ordination opportunity, and in its third location. I think it will have difficulty finding a fourth leader when Fr Wills retires. But in all three cases the OLH PA has shared duties at a diocesan parish with leadership of the group, so one assumes that relations with the Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph are good. Perhaps the group can continue to find a home in a local parish.

St Gregory the Great, on the other hand, currently led by the PP Pastor of St Athanasius, Chestnut Hill, Fr Bradshaw, may not be so fortunate. A previous attempt to find a way for the group, then in Stoneham MA, to be led by an Ordinariate priest with a diocesan assignment to support him was stymied by a lack of co-operation from the Archdiocese of Boston. This stance does not seem to have softened. Meanwhile Fr Bradshaw’s retirement is imminent.

My correspondent added this screen shot from Facebook concerning the Our Lady of Good Counsel group in Jacksonville, NC. It raises seriouis questions about whether the program at the small groups does more harm to the ordinariate than good (click on the image for a larger copy):

Which way the celebrant faces, I've begun to see after seven years as a Catholic, makes little difference to the whole scope of parish life. Based on what I see from prominent ordinariate members in these tiny groups, they fall short in areas like catechesis, music, fundraising, Bible study, and social activity. Between severely limited financial resources and the minimal talents of their members, they're unlikely to step up their game.

Glimmers Of Hope

Not all the legal news on COVID restrictions is bad, although like the Capitol Hill Baptist case, the good news seems often to be unique to particular plaintiff communities and doesn't establish a trend or a precedent that applies beyuond the individual parties.

In New York, Gov Cuomo reversed course and allowed a shul for girls to reopen in the Brooklyn-Queens cluster of Jewish hot spots.

Yitzchok and Chana Lebovits send their daughters to Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam, an Orthodox Jewish school for girls.

The Lebovitses filed a lawsuit against Cuomo for religious discrimination after the Democratic governor banned what he dubbed “hot spots,” which also happen to be places where Orthodox Jewish communities live, worship, and attend school.

. . . Fortunately, Cuomo announced Wednesday that he had decided to reverse course and allow the school to reopen. This was a victory for religious liberty.

However, the "success" amounts only to Gov Cuomo deciding essentially on a whim not to act against a single shul. No other loosening against other ultra-Ordhodox groups seems to be contemplated.

In Colorado,

In what was called a victory for religious freedom, a federal court judge’s decision Thursday [October 15] means congregants at Colorado churches will no longer be required to wear masks or limit their numbers as required by the governor of Colorado’s COVID-19 mandates.

The pastors of two Colorado churches — Bob Enyart of Denver Bible Church in Wheat Ridge and Joey Rhoads of Community Baptist Church in Brighton – filed the lawsuit in August.

. . . In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico stated, “…the Constitution does not allow the State to tell a congregation how large it can be when comparable secular gatherings are not so limited, or to tell a congregation that its reason for wishing to remove facial coverings is less important than a restaurant’s or spa’s.”

In Oregon, based on the allegations in a lawsuit, Gov Kate Brown has allowed public schools to reopen for in-person instruction, but forbidden private schools to reopen on the same basis.

Brown’s office had promised Hermiston Christian School for nearly two months that it could serve its 51 students in person before flip-flopping and ordering private schools in late July to remain closed[.]

The allegation is that Brown is primarily concerned that if private schools are allowed to reopen, parents would send their children to them rather than to public schools.

The case of the Taste of Sicily restaurant in Palmyra, PA is intriguing:

Taste of Sicily, a Lebanon County restaurant has won its case against Governor Tom Wolf.

This comes after opening to full capacity back in May during the yellow phase of Governor Wolf’s restrictions.

. . . [Restaurant spokesman Mike] Magnano’s attorney Winter said the Department of Agriculture tried to cite the restaurant for things they couldn’t lawfully cite them for. Winter adds citations have to be prosecuted by the attorney general or local district attorney.

Taste of Sicily pleaded not guilty. Judge Carl Garvey ruled the family business was unconstitutionally cited and the restaurant was found not guilty.

“The crux of the legal argument is that orders that have been issued by the Governor and The Department of Health are legally unenforceable. Judge Garvey agreed with that argument,“ Winter said.

This reinforces my view that in many cases, since COVID restrictions are actually a patchwork of state, county, and municipal executive orders, health department orders, and other emergency actions, they are unenforceable, since their legal status may be shaky. In the Taste of Sicily case, the local district attorney had already stated he would not prosecute COVID violations, which has been the case in other well-publicized civil disobedience, such as the Owosso, MI barber.

More New York Updates

In a dog-bites-man development ,

A federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday denied the Diocese of Brooklyn's attempt to block Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order restricting religious gatherings in the borough's red zone.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio said in a statement, "The Brooklyn Diocese is extremely disappointed by the ruling, as we believe we presented a strong case in support of our right to worship. It is a shame our parishioners in the red zones cannot return to Mass when the judge acknowledged we have done everything right.”

He continued, "It is unfortunate the court has ruled against us, and we will abide by these restrictions, the churches in the red zones are closed until further noticed. The Mass attendance limits of 10 people are extremely difficult to implement because we never want to turn away worshippers. It is unfortunate that our inalienable constitutional right to worship is still impeded despite the efforts we have made."

Rockland County, which is part of the "upstate cluster" of synagogues that have been rated as mini-hot spots for a new wave of COVID "cases", is cracking down:

Ramapo town employees are joining forces with the state to crack down on non-compliance of COVID-19 safety guidelines in Rockland County, especially in the designated red zone areas.

Beginning today, members of the new task force will begin patrolling Rockland’s red zone areas. Six employees have gone through training to become part of a COVID-19 enforcement task force and have the ability to hand out fines of up to $15,000.

. . . Due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, Gov. Andrw Cuomo launched enforcement zones, or red zones that included portions of Ramapo. The Village of Spring Valley, located within Ramapo, saw one of the biggest spikes in the state.

. . . News 12 cameras also captured multiple schools in red zone areas open last week, and have received pictures from viewers showing children on buses in Spring Valley.

The corporate news reports are circumspect about this, but the COVID problem in Rockland and Orange Counties is clearly felt to be a Jewish problem. (The whole issue of the "second wave" of COVID is one of increased "cases", which are vaguely defined and seem to represent an aggregate of false positives, positive tests for antibodies, and infections, but the infections result in minimal hospitalizations or deaths.)

The Jews in the Brooklyn-Queens cluster are on top of this:

Members of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn are outraged at the sudden arrival of media “paparazzi” whom they accuse of trying to blame the community for a rise in coronavirus cases.

State and local authorities have clamped down on synagogues and other Jewish institutions, forcing many to close, because of a recent local uptick in cases around the time of the Jewish High Holidays. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) singled out the Orthodox Jewish community at a press conference earlier this month.

However, local Jewish community activists believe that they are being discriminated against, arguing that other communities have higher infection rates, and pointing out that elected officials have been supportive of ongoing Black Lives Matter protests.

The problem in Ramapo County appears to be the one in many other jurisdictions, that law enforcement authorities do not enforce health department orders, which are not laws, and which in fact are normally enforced by health inspectors. Apparently there aren't enough health inspectors to undertake enforcement of new restrictions on synagogues and shuls.

A special enforcement detail for rounding up the Jews is not a good look. If Gov Cuomo hasn't figured this one out, it looks like some of the media-savvy Jews already have.

Ordinariate Groups That Have Already Closed

In view of yesterday's post on marginal ordinariate groups that are likely to close in coming months, my regular correspondent sent a list of ordinariate groups that have already closed, or are on some type of hiatus, This is in addition to the ones I mentined yesterday that haven't yet formally closed.

Christ the King, Tyendinaga, ON
Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Savannah/Augusta, GA
St Anselm, Corpus Christi, TX
St Anselm, Greenville, SC
St Augustine, Pinecrest, FL
St Augustine, San Diego [in hiatus]
St Bede, St Louis Park, MN
St Bede, Halifax, NS [still shown on website, but no PA or scheduled services]
St Edmund, Kitchener, ON
St Gilbert, Boerne, TX
St Gregory the Great, Stoneham, MA [still on website; some members worshipping with St Athanasius PP parish, Chestnut Hill, MA]
St Gregory the Great, Mobile, AL [in hiatus]
St Margaret, Katy, TX

This is 13 groups that have closed over the eight-year life of the North American ordinariate. The official total of ordinariate groups listed on the website is currently 40, The ordinariate has previously claimed totals in the mid-40s, so it hasn't been able to make up the overall deficit caused by losing the 13 above -- and more are likely to close in coming months.

My regular correspondent comments on the question I raised yesterdy about whether Houston makes any attempt to provide for the continued pastoral care of these groups in the Church:

In some cases (St Anselm, Greenville; St Augustine, Pinecrest) the decision to fold was made collectively by the congregation and their priest. Both groups wanted more in the way of “parish life” than their communities could provide.

Msgr Steenson was sent as a temporary replacement for Vaughn Treco in St Louis Park, MN and presumably communicated with the St Bede community his recommendation that it be closed. But in the cases where a priest died, retired, or transferred and no replacement was provided there did not seem to be any effort made to assist Ordinariate members with finding a new place of worship.

Small groups which have survived the departure of their priest seem to have relied on a committed layman or, in the case of St Joseph of Arimathea, Indianapolis a supportive diocesan clergyman. Latter is interesting in that it has been gone from the OCSP website since Luke Reese’s flameout, but Fr Jeffrey Moore was appointed to the (nameless) OCSP community this summer Probably more about the situation at OLA, Fr Moore’s previous assignment, than any desire to meet the needs of the community in Indianapolis. A post from happier times.

After seven years as a Catholic, my view is that I was baptized as a Protestant, but the Catholic Church recognizes my baptism, and overall, I've grown as a Christian throughout my life. Conversion to Catholicism was an important milestone, but it wasn't something black-to-white. Passing from Presbyterianism via Episcopalianism to Catholcism was a gradual transition in which I slowly began to recognize the importance of liturgy and the sacraments.

Anglicanorum coetibus sets up a highly artificial distinction. It seems to suggest that Anglicans are very close to Catholics, but they're so close that they need a special constitution. The informal impression I get from chatting now and then with ELCA pastors is that there are also "high church" Lutherans for whom a transition to Catholicism would not be drastic.

So the other side of the Anglicanorum coetibus coin is the implication that conversion is such a difficult matter for Anglicans that they need something to sweeten the deal. But think about it: people are socially mobile all over North America. Not only do their Protestant pastors retire or their Protestant parishes dissolve, but they move to a different community, and they may find a parish in a different main line denomination closer and easier to attend than the one in their former town. Changing clergy and changing denominations is not a big deal. (The big deal is church on Sunday at all.)

So I'll be interested to hear if members of these closed groups, having become eligible for Catholic sacraments, have had this explained to them and have been brought to see that the Church is what's important, and the Church is what continues to be available to them.

As I said yesterday, I'll be most interested to hear any experiences from members of closed ordinariate groups.

The Marginal Ordinariate Groups And The Exit Plan

I haven't concealed my view that Anglicanorum coetibus is a deeply flawed concept, and the ordinariates have a limited prospective life. (My assessment is also that if I'm going to continue blogging, I need to branch out into areas other than the Anglican stuff, which I'm doing.) But a couple of recent e-mails from my regular correspondent raise the question of whether there's a realistic exit plan for the ordinariates.

Canada of course has only one full parish, St Jphn the Evangelist, Calgary. Neither of the nearest contenders: Annunciation, Ottawa, which started as an ACCC parish, nor St Thomas More, Toronto—-a gathered group, mostly of former ACC members who converted long before the proclamation of Anglicanorum coetibus —-has grown to parish size over the last eight years, and the other six communities, all formerly ACCC, remain in the low double digits, ministered to by men well past secular retirement age, with the exception of Fr Kenyon in Victoria. It is safe to predict that most will fold in the near future. St Bede, Halifax, while it remains on the OCSP website list, has not held its monthly mass since Fr Richard Harris’s retirement in July.

In the OCSP as a whole, the last group to attain parish status was St Barnabas, Omaha, in 2018.

We recall that Fr Bartus announced that St John Henry Newman, Irvine was going to become the first Catholic parish dedicated to Newman after his canonisation, but that did not happen. Presumably one obstacle to other groups’ attaining parish status is the requirement that they have 30 families/100+ individual members who are eligible for Ordinariate membership. Groups which have shown growth—-Holy Martyrs, Murrieta; St Aelred, Bishop; Presentation, Montgomery—-seem to be attracting lifelong Catholics rather than Anglican converts.

Parents of young children who receive Sacraments of Initiation in the Church will become eligible for membership, so there is a way forward for some of these groups, but in the meanwhile we must expect that, as in Canada, small groups led by retirees and stuck in mission status for a decade will simply cease to exist when their parish administrator departs.

The number of OCSP “parishes” is given as 42 in this 2016 article The latest community to be put on the OCSP website is Presentation, Montgomery, established in February, 2019. The current number on the site is 40. Meanwhile three communities on the list are not currently holding services. At two of these communities, mass was formerly celebrated once a month.

A second e-mail covers the most marginal groups:

Fr Mayer has just sent out a notice that St James, Jacksonville will be worshipping from this Sunday on at a new site, its fourth since he assumed leadership of the group in 2019. The new site, a retreat center chapel, is available Sunday morning, whereas the previous venue could only host a Vigil mass. This change of time was necessitated because the site before that, the chapel in St Joseph’s School, Jacksonville, ceased in March to be available to the the group, which had previously paid rent for its use.

Likewise, St Augustine of Canterbury, San Diego has not been able to use the chapel at Cathedral Catholic High School in that city since the lockdown despite the fact that the school reopened in August. In the case of this community, the group has not relocated.

Meanwhile, two other communities, St John Vianney, Cleburne and St John Fisher, Orlando, both closed temporarily during the lockdown, now continue to meet for mass in the cafetoria of local elementary schools. I am interested in why the Catholic schools have apparently evicted their previous OCSP tenants for the foreseeable future. In the case of St Augustine, already down to a handful and currently without a priest, its survival looks doubtful.

These circumstances raise the question that especially since the COVID lockdowns, the smallest groups have lost their ability to pay rent to their hosts from the weekly offerings, much less pay a normal stipend to the priest or even reimburse his travel expenses. It appears that already, some of these groups will never recover. And in Canada, there's the additional problem that most of the Canadian priests are over secular retirement age.

Of the groups that have already closed de facto, or of those likely to close in the foreseeable future due to retirement of their priests without an available replacemeent, what provision is Houston making to ensure their members continue as faithful Catholics?

Let's keep in mind that a fairly major selling point Houston makes, though often in whispers, is that novus ordo parishes aren't really Catholic, and if you want to be really Catholic, you go to your little ordinariate group and reassure each other about how Catholic you are.

What does Houston tell these people to do when their groups close? Or does Houston say anything at all? I'd be most interested to hear from people formerly in ordinariate groups that have closed. Do they still go to mass at novus ordo parishes? Do they go back to Anglican parishes? Do they go to church at all? Did Houston ever give them any guidance?

New York And California Updates

A new federal lawsuit has been filed by ultra-Orthodox Jews in the upstate cluster of Orange and Rockland County, NY cases:

On Wednesday, three Orthodox Jewish congregations in Rockland County, N.Y., sued Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) for issuing a “blatantly anti-Semitic” coronavirus order restricting religious services in Jewish areas, just before three sequential Jewish holy days. Cuomo falsely blamed the Orthodox Jewish community for a surge in COVID-19 cases in New York, referring to the surge as “a predominantly ultra-orthodox cluster,” and he admitted the lockdowns were based on “fear” rather than science.

According to the link, the lawyers in the case are Ron Coleman and Harmett Dhillon with Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty. The Dhillon group, based in San Francisco, has represented California parents suing to reopen schools and Northern California churches suing against COVID lockdown provisions.

The story quotes from the transcript of Gov Cuomo's call with ultra-Orthodox rabbis that I mentioned in Thursday's post .

In an October 6 phone call with Jewish leaders, Cuomo admitted, “This is not a highly nuanced, sophisticated response, this is a fear-driven response, this is not a policy being written by a scalpel, this is a policy being cut by a hatchet, it’s just a very blunt.” He attempted to blame New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for the fear-driven response, but then admitted that he worked with de Blasio in adjusting it.

"It’s not the best way to do it, but it is a fear-driven response, the virus scares people, hopefully we get the numbers down in the zip codes, the anxiety comes down, and then we can have a smarter, more tailored approach,” the governor added. “Hopefully we get it under control in a few weeks, people take a deep breath, and then we can have a more intelligent, sophisticated policy.”

The rabbis cited this gobsmacking admission in their lawsuit.

They also explained the vital importance of religious gatherings in Orthodox Judaism.

Notice that in the case of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, the plaintiffs were able to obtain a free-exercise restraining order based on the argument that their strongly held doctrines are unique to a small sect. But if doctrines are just as strongly held. but they're more mainstream, and they're generally held by a larger group, this is pretty clearly going to be a much tougher case.

It's hard to avoid seeing Cuomo's remarks as anti-Semitic, addressed to a group of rabbis apparently on the assumption they'd understand that the community is agitated against the Jews, so he has to act.

In the Southern California case of the Harvest Rock Evangelical megachurch, LIberty Counsel is asking for its request for a restraining order against Gov Newsom to be heard by the US Ninth Circuit appeals court en banc:

Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry filed an en banc petition to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that the entire panel of judges review the case regarding Governor Gavin Newsom’s unconstitutional orders. Harvest Rock Church has multiple campuses in California, including in Pasadena, Los Angeles, Irvine and Corona. Harvest International Ministries has 162 member churches throughout the state.

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision did not grant an injunction pending appeal. However, the Court of Appeals will hear the merits of the request for an injunction in a future hearing to be set in the new year. Due to the importance of the issues, and the fact that now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued two separate 2-1 decisions (in the South Bay and Harvest cases), Liberty Counsel is requesting a rehearing before all the Ninth Circuit judges.

This continues to be a slow process that's clearly estending into 2021. The problem is, of course, that COVID lockdowns, originally intended to last over a period of weeks, have taken on an indefinite life, and civil authorities are claiming to be able to tighten them, loosen them, modify them, and extend them on vague pretexts that, as we're beginning to see, arrn't "scientific" even by their own admission.

It remains to be seen whether restrictions on indoor worship services -- in many cases, forbidding indoor gatherings entirely, or limiting them to very small numbers -- that were seen as at least tolerable over the summer will continue into the late fall and winter. Legal redress may be ineffetive if weather curtails any in-person worship before the authorities can be prevailed upon to relax their restrictions.

Capitol Hill Baptist: More To The Story

I ran across an Evangelical YouTube channel that's generally sympathetic to Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church. The video below referred me to a dispute that gave me much more perspective on what's happening with Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, DC:

The video sent me to a story in Baptist News that portrays the approaches of Capitol Hill Baptist and Grace Community Church as contrasting, with Capitol Hill Baptist much the better case.

Throughout the summer, MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, has been in a litigious battle with Los Angeles County over the county’s public health restrictions against large indoor gatherings. Despite a restraining order entered against the church by a Superior Court judge, MacArthur has defiantly held indoor services with thousands of unmasked, un-distanced worshipers.

. . . Almost as far away from Los Angeles as one can go in the continental United States, [Pastor Mark] Dever has taken a different — and now more successful — approach with the District of Columbia government.

Late on Friday, Oct. 9, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden granted relief to Dever and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in their request to be allowed to conduct outdoor worship services in the District despite the local government ban on such assemblies.

The differences between the two cases and the approach of the two pastors are considerable. MacArthur has been combative and defiant from the start. And even now, while still embroiled in legal battles, he has released a video calling on other pastors across the country to “open your churches.” Dever has stated his case more calmly, without making threats or inciting other churches to follow his lead.

MacArthur has seen Los Angeles County’s ban on large indoor gatherings as persecution of the church and built his case on this persecution complex. Dever has stated a unique theological conviction that biblical worship must be held in-person, not via video or even in multiple services.

But the article goes on to say that the secret to Capitol Hill Baptist's success in the courts is that it holds doctrines that only a tiny percentage even of Evangelicals believe:

In D.C., Dever made a unique case that his congregation’s theological belief is that to fulfill the biblical mandate of “assembling together,” they must meet in person and in one service. Prior to COVID-19, Capitol Hill Baptist Church held only one Sunday morning service, did not offer a livestream and did not employ multi-site campuses.

That gave an opening for Judge McFadden to differentiate the claim of the D.C. church against any other such cases nationwide.

In other words, it holds only one Sunday service not because of clergy shortage, small congregation, or anything else -- it simply believes on Biblical authority that a church must meet in a single body once on Sunday, no matter what. In other words, it's gone to the judge and said, "Judge, you may think we're troublesome Christians just like any others. But that's not the case. We're fringe crazies who don't hold with nearly any other denomination. We're more like Jehovah's Witnesses or Jim Jones. You have to accommodate us just like you'd accommodate a sect that doesn't believe in vaccination."

In other words, the basic argument is we're tiny and harmless, leave us alone.

Beyond that, Capitol Hill Baptist is playing what can only be characterized as small ball. They aren't disputing the District of Columnbia's right to ban indoor worship without masks or social distancing -- they've simply been meeting in a group of over 100 in an Alexandria, VA field, outdoors, masked and socially distanced. All they're asking is the right to move back across the river and meet in a field inside the District the same way. No matter they have a perfectly good building at 525 A St NE in Washington whose doors have been shut by government edict since March and will remain so indefinitely.

And as I posted Sunday, while their church building remains closed, the weather this fall will get steadily worse, so that their little victory, being able move their outdoor gathering of more than 100 back into the District, will be of little value in a matter of weeks.

Cursory investigation shows that the typical First Baptist in any given city has more than one Sunday service, so that Capitol Hill Baptist's views are not usual among most Baptist orgainizations. Wikipedia says Capitol Hill Baptist is a member of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention. I don't know if Capitol Hill's policy is unique even there.

I think MacArthur and other churches that follow his approach are more tactically savvy, recognizing that it's impractical for a group of any size to meet in a field or park (do you read scripture, preach, and celenrate with a bullhorn?), and livestream services are neither church nor mass. To close church buildings indefinitely imposes financial and maintenance burdens. At the same time, experience in places like New York and California has been that civil authorities do not necessarily negotiate in good faith, and they rescind prior "permissions" at whim.

All I can concude is that Capitol Hill Baptist is a very strange place, and even by its own admission, its strategy isn't reproducible -- leaving aside the very limited life of the small success it's achieved.

Two New York Updates

The backgound and legal history of the religious freedom cases stemming from COVID restrictrions are looking more and more complex as information comes to light. (For instance, there's another post to be made on the Capitol Hill Baptist case, which I hope to put up in the next day or so.)

In New York, it appears that there are two separate clusters of cases and issues, one centered in Brooklyn and Queens, the other in Orange and Rockland Counties, which are across the Hudson and just north of New Jersey. Both deal with amended COVID restrictions issued by Gov Cuomo on October 6. I'll call the west-of-the-Hudson cases the "upstate cases". Of these, the Thomas More Society reports,

On October 5, Governor Cuomo threatened to shut down New York churches and synagogues if they did not continue to limit religious gatherings to 50% of their indoor capacity, which was the relief provided for several of the above plaintiffs by federal court order on June 26, 2020, through the exclusive representation of Thomas More Society attorneys. But just one day later, on October 6, the governor pivoted and issued a new policy called the “Cluster Action Initiative,” virtually shutting down churches and synagogues in various newly created “Red Zones” throughout New York City and other state locales. He also completely shut down religious schools in both the “Red Zones” and in the newly designated “Orange Zones.” The most restrictive “Red Zones” single out “houses of worship” and limit them to religious gatherings of up to 25% percent capacity, but cap that number at a maximum of ten people. “Orange Zones” limit “houses of worship” to 33% of capacity but no more than 25 people, and the also newly defined Yellow Zones limit “houses of worship” to 50% of capacity.

This is a separate action from the case ruled on by Judge Eric Komitee on the "red zones" in Brooklyn and Queens on October 9, where he denied a restraining order against the new lockdown. Regarding the upstate cases,

[T]wo Catholic priests, two Catholic school students, and four Orthodox Jewish individuals are renewing an ongoing lawsuit against the head of New York state for imposing new, draconian restrictions on religious services, nearly four months after a federal judge enjoined Cuomo from treating houses of worship differently from exempted businesses and activities.

The Thomas More Society filed an Emergency Amended Complaint and Motion for Temporary Restraining Order on October 9, 2020, in United States District Court for the Northern District of New York on behalf of the priests and individuals. The new filing shows that Cuomo and other state officials are now singling out religious gatherings for special burdens without showing any evidence that religious gatherings, and not countless other exempted gatherings and activities, are unique sources of spreading COVID-19.

It appears that the October 6 color-coded designations of micro-hot spots violate an earlier injunction issued by a federal judge:

On June 26, 2020, Senior U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Governor Cuomo, his Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio from enforcing previous orders treating the original plaintiffs in this case (including the two Catholic priests and three of the four Jewish individuals) less favorably than New York’s COVID-19 “Phase 2 Industries,” which included many offices, retail outlets, personal care services, and more, and which at the time were limited to occupancy rates of 50% of their indoor capacity.

So far, I don't see an outcome of the current Thomas More Society action.

Regarding the Brooklyn-Queens cases,

Leaked audio shows Cuomo admitting that his lockdown orders, specifically those targeting Jewish schools, are not based in science.

The audio is contained in a Twitter post included in the link. The gist is that Cuomo is telling rabbis that the problem is that "everyone" is scared, and there is neither time nor budget to invetigate whether the schools and temples are actually spreading the disease, but they must be shut to avoid panic and give Cuomo time to develop a more equitable approach. At some indefinite future time.

And Judge Komitee has already explained that the Catholic diocese is just "swept up" in this process, but it's the Jews that have everyone in a panic. This is bizarre beyond belief.

So, Have The Illuminati Decided COVID Is No Longer A Thing?

On March 11, the deeply compromised World Health Organization declared COVID a "pandemic", the same term applied to the 1918 Spanish flu. Within days, world governments began declaring lockdowns. On October 11, the WHO officially discouraged lockdowns as a primary COVID control policy.

Whoever it is that actually runs the planet -- the Illuminati, the Bilderbergs, the lizard people, or whoever else -- may be knuckling under. On Monday, the New York Times announced that COVID measures were proving remarkably successful, and the disease would be disappearing far sooner than anticipated.

Rush Limbaugh's reaction echoed mine. From the transcript of yesterday's show:

Now today we have another story. Ready for this? “New York Times: Experts Confident Pandemic To Be Over ‘Far Sooner’ Than Expected, Trump Efforts ‘Working With Remarkable Efficiency.”

. . . Now, something is behind this, folks. Something is behind this. I think part of it is that there must be polling because everything in major political party politics, especially the Democrats, is done bouncing off of or reacting to polling.

. . . Three weeks ago from the election, World Health Organization now admits what everybody’s known, lockdowns are counterproductive and do great damage, are not necessary. And experts — New York Times! — express confidence that the pandemic is gonna be over far sooner.

Well, for one thing, the New York Times and the World Health Organization, which means the global left is trying to take these issues off the table one way or another. If the pandemic is gonna be over soon, it means that we don’t need to have crisis after crisis-related policies regarding it. If we’re defeating it, if it’s naturally fading away on its own faster than anybody knew, great news. And if we don’t need to lockdown, the only reason these two things are happening is something is hurting Joe Biden out there. Something is hurting the Democrat campaign, the overall Democrat position here.

Now, you would think three weeks into the election that the stories would be the exact opposite. Pandemic racing, pandemic worsening, Trump administration horrible at dealing with it. You would think, likewise, that the World Health Organization would be doubling down on lockdowns because the pandemic is so bad, it’s so damaging, it’s so out of control. But it’s the exact opposite. They’ve gotta have some polling data.

One thing I've noticed about current electoral punditry -- and I completely discount corporate media or the National Review -- is that even the more edgy social media commentary is ignoring COVID lockdown resentment as a driving factor. But look at the states where COVID rebellions have been most prominent -- say, Michigan, which since the days of the Owosso barber last spring has been at the center of national attention.

Oh, by the way, the Michigan senate race, with a Republican challenging the incumbent Democrat, is dead even.

Wisconsin, another state where COVID lockdowns have been overturned, was flipped by Republicans in 2016 and is likely to flip again in November.

And absolutely nobody has mentionied California, which won't go for Trump electorally, but there are a number of House districts the Republicans intend to flip. The bellweather is the 25th district, which had a special election in May that was rated a tossup, but which the Republican comfortably won.

(That was the first where the Democrats tried to implement mail-in ballots. The trouble was that Republicans mailed in ballots as well. The Democrats initially planned to delay the count and contest the election, but the margin from Republican mail-ins was so great that the Democrat conceded instead.)

Oh, by the way, that district sends churchgoers to both Godspeak Calvary Chapel and Grace Community Church. The 28th district, where a Republican is mounting an upset campaign against Adam Schiff, sends worshipers there, as well as to Harvest Rock Church. Nobody, but nobody, has covered California in this November election cycle.

As far as I can tell, the media polls voter sentiment on COVID lockdowns in the broad category of "health care issues", which I think is a gross miscalculation. COVID, lockdowns, and compulsory masks seem to be an issue that hasn't been publicly addressed -- but the Bilderbergs may finally have this one figured out. Except that three weeks before the election, it's too late to turn that ship.

It's Easier To Ask Forgiveness Than It Is To Get Permission

Thanks to a visitor for this link:

A federal< judge denied a request made by the Diocese of Brooklyn for a temporary restraining order to block Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing his new COVID-19 rules on houses of worship.

Judge Eric Komitee’s decision, handed down late at night on Oct. 9 following a hearing that afternoon, means that the new restrictions Cuomo mandated can go into effect.

. . . In his decision, Komitee wrote that Cuomo’s executive order was actually aimed at houses of worship in the Orthodox Jewish community and that the diocese “appears to have been swept up in that effort having been mostly spared, so far at least, from the problem at hand.”

Judge Komitee is a Trump appointee. Although Judge Stickman, who has issued the most intelligent and comprehansive opinion striking down COVID restrictions so far, is also a Trump appointee, I noted last week that Judge Amy Coney Barrett also upheld COVID restrictions on houses of worship in an appeals court decision. Trump judges will not be a magic bullet to solve this problem.

Several factors make this decision bizarre. One is that last Friday, a different federal judge issued a restraining order that allowed Capitol Hill Baptist Church to hold in-person services under circumstances very similar to those in Brooklyn.

Another strange factor is that the judge agreed with Gov Cuomo that the problem wasn't the Catholics, who had been following health orders that had already been negotiated and agreed, the problem was ultra-Orthodox Jews, and the Catholics had just been inadvertently swept up. But this somehow justified it.

I'm not sure how this differs from the health department shutting down Joe's Pizza for too many rats and roaches, but also shutting down Bert's Burgers, which doesn't have rats or roaches. Can the judge just say, "That's OK, Bert, this was aimed at Joe's Pizza, and you just got swept up. The health department was OK to shut you down as well. No hard feelings, though!"

The legal envioronment here is presently unstable, and it isn't doing to stabilize anytime soon, especially as "blue" civil authorities continue to assert their ability to impose renewed lockdowns at whim. And this won't stop just because there's a vaccine, or just because the lockdowns have gone on too long.

The Archdiocese of New York issued the following statement before the court denied the restraining order:

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.

That and $2.75 will get them a subway ride. Meanwhile, the faithful are being denied spiritual food. Now, someone may be able to get together with Cardinal Dolan, Abp Cordileone, Abp Gómez, and whomever else and work out an effective strategy that will allow the faithful to receive spiritual food without waiting indefinitely for it. But the fact is that going through the courts is proving to have unpredictable and at best long delayed results.

On the other hand, the strategy of the Southern California Evangelical megachurches has so far been far more effective. To go ahead and hold services is an effective strategy. Does Gov Cuomo seriously believe NYPD will arrest or cite Catholic parishioners? Califonria authorities recognize local police and sheriffs will not. The Evangelical pastors recognize they get good publicity and fill their pews as well. And the local courts recognize that there are First Amendment issues that must be dealt with before penalties can be applied.

It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

Anglo-Catholicism: There's Never Been A There There

A visitor e-mailed me the other day:

I've just come across your light-hearted blog of 24 April 2019: So Why Not Houseling Cloths? I'm reading Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars in which he mentions houseling towels and my subsequent search of the term led to you and your question about whether houseling cloths were ever in Anglican or Anglo-Catholic usage.

Until I left the area a couple of years ago I worshipped at Our Lady Saint Mary South Creake in Norfolk, Diocese of Norwich. OLSM is an example of the late flowering in the 1920s of the Oxford Movement in Norfolk (it's just a few miles from Walsingham). There indeed a houseling cloth is permanently attached to the sanctuary side of the communion rails (see for instance https://flic.kr/p/Jh6hYr - note these rails are placed in front of a nave altar) and, until she had to go into sheltered accommodation a few years ago, the sacristan would pull the cloth over the rail to cover her hands as she received communion.

If such matters interest you, the history of OLSM and its encounter with Anglo-Catholicism in the last 100 years are worth exploring. Fr Roger Arguile has written a short but scholarly history of the church 'A Church in a Lanscape: A History of South Creake Church'; a much abbreviated version of this can be found on the church website, and you can buy a copy of the book if you contact Barbara Allen, one of the Churchwardens, via morleysfarm@afiweb.net. I think she asks for £5 plus postage.

Although Anglo-Catholic ritual continues in the liturgy at OLSM, I think it's fair to say that the original fervour has faded somewhat over the years. The worshipping congregation enjoy the smells, bells, and Angelus and works hard to sustain the pre-Reformation look and atmosphere of the interior complete with rood and images. But I suspect there is limited understanding of what it's all about, certainly so speaking for myself. Although I did discover that what the aforementioned sacristan was doing was to save fragments of the Host falling to the floor, I didn't know until now that she was using something called a houseling cloth. No-one else ever used the cloth and its presence was never discussed or questioned.

I have moved to London where coincidentally the nearby parish church of S. Paul's Deptford sustains a far more vigorous and rigorous Anglo-Catholic tradition. However whilst I'm not certain of this, I don't think the ritual includes a houseling cloth.

This account presents at best a puzzling picture. Anglican papalists in the UK, from everything I've been told, went to the novus ordo mass when Rome did, since their intent was to do as the Romans. Thus there has been relatively less interest in the Divine Worship missal, since that is itself an artifact of the late flowering in the 1920s of the Oxford Movement that the visitor mentions. something that was never really Catholic, as opposed to Anglicn Papalism, which tries to follow contemporary Rome more closely.

What the visitor describes strikes me as eccentrically English, and I think the visitor suggests as much in referring to the sacristan befpre she went to sheltered accommodation. But even as Anglo-Catholicism, it's clearly something at the fringe.

I replied ro the visitor asking whether any UK parishes carrying out this punctiliouis quasi-Catholic observation had any interest in the UK ordinariate, but he didn't reply. And on a day's reflection, I can't imagine they would. They're living out a fantasy of Catholicism, and even the rubrics of the Divine Worship missal would break the spell.

But this brings me to news from my regular correspondent. The Daily Office volume of the Divine Worship missal, we recall, has been delayed due to disagreements between Houston and the other ordinariates.

I refer to Divine Worship: The Daily Office, which is apparently nearing completion, at least the “Commonwealth Edition,” to be used by the UK and Australian ordinariates. Still no word on progress on the Houston version. Canadians just starting to become aware that for purposes of Divine Worship, they are not in the Commonwealth. These are people who still haven’t recovered from the fact that Dominion Day was renamed Canada Day in 1982. Personally they are having none of that. I predict a howl of protest when it all sinks in.

Bemused, I asked from how many the howls would actually emanate, since I don't believe there are more than a few hundred total Canadians in the North American ordinariate, if even that many.

This whole enterprise is a fantasy, a sort of group reification of something that has only an abstract existence.

UPDATE: A visitor comments,

My own impression is that English "Anglo-Catholic" parishes that tried to revive this sort of pre-Reformation stuff - houselling cloths, Easter sepulchres, "Sarumy" stuff - tended to be in the non- or even anti-papalist Anglo-Catholic camp, followers of Percy Dearmer and others like him

These tended to "sarumize" rather than "romanize." Many of these sort of "Anglo-Catholics" have accepted priestesses (so long as they're willing to do so "Medieval Fayre" style church services - and there are a few such priestesses in the Church of England); a few (in England) became Orthodox in the 1990s; and a few tried to start up English "Continuing Anglican" cheuiches, without much success.

And this is specific to the UK. In North America, it's less precise. My regular correspondent says,

OCSP adopters of disparate English Catholic/Anglican/Anglo-Catholic liturgies and vestments are happily piecing together Canterbury caps and lace albs, St Swithun and E. B. Pusey, because it’s all English and therefore somehow “Patrimonial.” People who actually live in the UK don’t have the same romantic notions.

Or perhaps their romantic notions are more particularly specified.

Today's Weather In Washington, DC Is 67 And Rain

Social media, insofar as it's taken notice, is celebrating what it thinks is a big win for Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, DC.

A D.C. church that filed suit against the District of Columbia has won injunctive relief from a federal judge and can begin holding church services in the city again.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! But let's go past the first paragraph.

In a statement, Capitol Hill Baptist Church Pastor Justin Sok said the church is, “thankful that the court has granted us” the ability to hold services in D.C. again. The church, which counts most of its members as D.C. residents, had been holding services at a field in Alexandria, Virginia.

“With this ruling in hand, we are speaking with the operators of a variety of outdoor venues to move our weekly gathering from Virginia to D.C.,” he said.

. . . The judge’s ruling only affects Capitol Hill Baptist Church and no other religious organization that’s still currently barred from holding any indoor or outdoor service with more than 100 people.

So let me figure this out. Capitol Hill Baptist had been meeting in an Alexandria, VA field, which of course is just across the river from the District. In effect, they get to move to another field -- or maybe even socially distanced in high school bleachers or something -- five miles closer to home.

In the fall, that is, when they can find a place to host them. November weather in Washingon has an average high of 59, with an average of six days of rain.

And this applies only to Capitol Hill Baptist. If any other parish in DC had been meeting in an Alexandria field, well, good luck, keep on meeting in the field. Maybe your attorney can get you the same deal, that is, if you file suit in federal court on the same basis Capitol Hill Baptist did. You'll spend thousands of dollars and wait weeks or months so you can meet outdoors at Christmas in the District, not in Maryland or Virginia.

Big whoop.

The DC federal courts continue to function as a well-oiled machine. How on earth is this a favorable ruling? The parishioners at Capitol Hill Baptist, in an exclusive deal, get to shiver in the rain on this side of the Potomac and not in Virginia! And Mark Tapscott at Instapundit thinks this is great!

This raises another question, which is that in other areas like California, the civil authorities have graciously allowed churches to worship outdoors, socially distanced, of course, with no singing and limits on attendance, all summer. But the weather is changing, while the civil authorities may or may not change their rulings to accommodate. That Mayor Bowser, actually the court, would now allow Capitol Hill Baptist to worship outdoors in the middle of winter, a few short months away, is moot.

The churches need better strategy and better lawyers, because these lockdowns aren't going away.

An Interim COVID Strategy That's Showing Results

At best attempts to invoke the US First Amendment to lift the restrictions placed on in-person worship via the courts have been slow and so far, not very effective. The attorney and YouTube commentator Robert Barnes has observed that there are several reasons for this, in particular that judges are also members of the credentialed class that is imposing lockdowns (and I would add often members of the local political machine). In addition, Barnes points out that as an appeals judge, even Amy Coney Barrett, the great conservative hope for the US Supreme Court, has ruled in favor of lockdowns and against churches in one First Amendment case.

But short of what we must hope is an eventual First Amendment resolution, the legal Achilles heel of nearly all lockdown regimes is that they are health department orders. On one hand, they aren't laws passed by legislatiures. Even now, there's an established consensus among sheriffs and police chiefs that law enforcement does not enforce health department orders, and even attempts by political authorities to force them to do so are contentious.

And attempts by health departments to obtain court injunctions against churches that violate health department orders by holding non-conforming worship services have been largely ineffective. The case of Andrew Wommack Ministries International in Colorado is an illustrative comedy of errors. The Liberty Counsel site provides the latest update. The state and county health departments brought requests for an injunction against the ministries in federal court,

Their motion requested that AWMI be held in contempt and prohibit future conferences.

The judge first denied the request to hold AWMI in contempt, stating the court had not issued an injunction against the ministry. However, the judge then stated she had authority to hear the defendants’ emergency motion under state law. Liberty Counsel argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to rule on state law because neither AWMI nor the defendants brought state law claims before the court. The defendants’ motion lacked any legal basis and it also violated many federal rules. Federal courts under Article III of the Constitution have limited jurisdiction. Such courts have no authority to reach outside the record and the legal claims to decide state law claims not before them.

The health departments' legal case was hampered by the fact that health department counsel appeared to have no experience in trying to enforce their orders via litigation. Among their newbie errors was that they tried to get the Wommack ministries declared in contempt of court when there was in fact no court order against them. Thus Wommack continues to hold its ministers' conference without interference.

If federal courts have been reluctant to rule in favor of churches on First Amendment grounds, local courts have been reluctant to rule against them, on the basis that the First Amendment issues are undecided. Although the Southern California Evangelical churches' cases are all in different local courts, the Grace Community Church case appears to be proceeding generally like those of Godspeak Calvary Chapel and Harvest Rock Church.

In the YouTube interview below, Pastor MacArthur gives a brief outline of the situation. Although LA County tried to cancel the contract that allowed the church to use its property for a parking lot, the judge would not allow this to happen until the First Amendment issues are resolved at trial. Health department fines are placed in escrew until the legal issues are resolved as well.

Beyond that, one of MacArthur's overall points has been that as churches continue to meet in oppositoin to political authorities' attempts to regulate liturgy and attendance, it attracts attention, and this in turn brings more people to church and also brings community support. A neighboring synagugue, for instance, as MacArthur explained, realized it wasn't using its own parking lot on Sundays, so it offered it to Grace Community Church for Sunday use, due to the county threat, now in abeyance, to prohibit church parking on county property.

While there have been exceptions -- North Valley Baptist was forced to surrender to its county health department, for instance -- it appears that having the fortitude to commit civil disobedince, combined with effective counsel, is proving to be an effective short-term strategy.

Whether MacArthur's optimism that this will go away by next year is justified is a different question.

Roman Catholic Diocese Of Brooklyn Sues NY Gov Cuomo

Up to now, the most visible Catholic opponent of COVID lockdowns has been San Francisco Abp Cordileone, but his resistance has been limited to public processions and verbal persuasion. Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants have been more willing to sue. But yesterday, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn finally lost patience with moving goalposts and arbitrary limits on capacity:

The Diocese of Brooklyn is suing the state of New York over a new order that restricts some indoor Masses in New York City to just 10 people.

The diocese alleges that the new health restrictions by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, put in place in Queens and Brooklyn amid a new spike in the coronavirus, “arbitrarily reduce capacity” at churches which worked with public health officials earlier in the summer to reopen safely after the initial wave of the virus.

“If this latest executive order stands, parishioners won't be able to go to Mass this Sunday, even though the Diocese has done everything right to ensure safe conditions in its churches,” said the diocese’s attorney Randy Mastro.

. . . Earlier this week, Cuomo capped indoor religious services in Brooklyn and Queens at 10 people in the areas deemed most seriously affected by the virus, and at 25 people in some other areas.

. . . Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio said that churches in the diocese faithfully abided by new precautions including that Mass attendees wear masks and sit at least six feet apart.

“The executive orders this week have left us with no other option than to go to court,” DiMarzio stated on Thursday. The bishop called it “an insult” for the state “to once again penalize all those who have made the safe return to Church work.”

Tensions had also been building throughout the week with ultra-Orthosox Jewish groups in Queens and Orange County, NY

[A] grassroots group representing Ultra-Orthodox Jewish congregations has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to halt implementation of a new shutdown order issued against their communities by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

. . . On Tuesday, Cuomo declared areas with high rates of testing positivity, including the Village of Kiryas Joel and the Town of Palm Tree in Orange County and ultra-Orthodox Jewish areas in Rockland, to be "red zones" subject to new shutdowns. Among the new restrictions were tight limitations on houses of worship: 25% capacity or 10 worshipers, whichever is less.

Other Jewish leaders accused Cuomo of bad faith dealing:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo told Jewish religious leaders that limiting houses of worship to 50 percent capacity was sufficient to beat back the coronavirus surge — only to announce tighter restrictions just hours later.

. . . Cuomo told the leaders that a strict limit on the number of people in synagogues and other houses of worship was necessary, but indicated that it would be set at 50 percent.

. . . But in a 3 p.m. Tuesday press briefing, Cuomo unveiled a new, color-coded system of restrictions set to take effect no later than Friday — including capacity limits on religious institutions well below 50 percent.

In “intense cluster” zones, houses of worship are restricted to 25-percent capacity or a maximum of 10 people.

The ultra-Orthodox communities clearly feel that Jews are being singled out for special treatment, especially as the new controls go into place during high holidays. According to the Times of Israel,

Speaking in separate and overlapping press conferences Wednesday morning, Cuomo, New York’s governor, and de Blasio, New York City’s mayor, both avoided singling out the Jewish community or even using the word “Jewish.”

De Blasio has been criticized in the past for singling out New York Jews who violated regulations, and yesterday, Orthodox leaders accused Cuomo of misleading them regarding the scope of the new regulations. Cuomo also faced backlash on Monday for showing a 14-year-old picture of an Orthodox Jewish event while criticizing recent mass religious gatherings.

The problem I see is the conundrum posed by the non-conforming Evangelical megachurches in Southern California. They claim, and as far as I can see, haven't been challenged, that although they gather in thousands without masks or social distancing, and they sing in church, COVID illnesses and hospitalizations have been minimal -- it would appear well below regional statistics.

This suggests that the causes of COVID infections are traceable to factors other than church attendance. In areas like Brooklyn and Queens, central heating and ventilating systems in apartment buidlings are probably a more likely culprit.

The difficulty with lifting lockdown orders has been that they're based on a sort of adventitious reality sustained by media, health officials, and politicians, with a constantly shifting set of justifications for an oddly uniform set of policies. Masks may or may not be effective, but an increasing "consensus" says everyone must wear them.

If deaths and hospitalizations have remained at a low level, we must focus on "cases" even though nobody can explain exactly what a "case" is -- it may be asymptomatic, it may be a false positive, it may reflect antibodies to other viruses, but it justifies renewed lockdowns.

It's going to take a lot to get the world out of this.

More COVID

Churches continue to bring US First Amendment suits against state and local authorities on the basis of natural rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and free exercise of religion.

Andrew Wommack Ministries in Colorado is in a battle with local authorities who seek to limit attendance at a ministers' conference:

Andrew Wommack Ministries planned to host an in-person ministers' conference expected to draw hundreds of attendees. The group has tried several times since early last week to get exemptions from statewide health orders that limit crowd sizes during the pandemic. Those efforts have all been denied.

In a request filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court of Colorado, health officials with the state and Teller County said the group has gone ahead with the event anyway.

Liberty Counsel represents Wommack. It comments,

The ministers’ conference is ongoing on despite the Colorado government’s threats. To be threatened with criminal charges and fines is a serious matter. I believe we will win this battle, but it may take longer than we hoped. In the meantime, I want to ask for your prayers and support.

As I said earlier, this case is far from over. Despite the lack of an emergency injunction, our appeal on behalf of AWMI remains pending and we look forward to presenting a full argument before the court soon.

Liberty Counsel makes the point that county authorities limit attendance at religious gatherings to 175 with social distance, but they allow casinos in the couhty to operate so that

anyone can sit side-by-side at any number of slot machines and gamble 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is no social distancing or sanitizing the gambling machines that are touched frequently by everyone.

The case is moving through the federal appeals process.

An SSPX priest, Fr Trevor Burfitt, is suing Califonria officials for violations of First Amendment rights:

Attorneys from the Thomas More Society have filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against [California Gov] Newsom and 19 other state, county, and municipal officials on behalf of Father Trevor Burfitt. Submitted on September 29, 2020, the case charges each of the named parties with eight distinct violations of Burfitt’s rights under the Constitution of California.

The US Department of Justice has filed a Statement of interest

in the case filed by Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., against the District of Columbia and Mayor Muriel Bowser. The 853-member church has a strong religious conviction that it must meet weekly and in person, as a single body, for worship. As a result of Mayor Bowser’s onerous COVID-19 orders (first capping worship services at 10 people and now 100), Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) has not been able to meet together in the District since March. As a temporary measure, they’ve been meeting in a field in Virginia.

. . . The statement of interest is part of Attorney General William P. Barr’s initiative, announced April 27, directing the DOJ to “review governmental policies around the country to ensure that civil liberties are protected during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

On the other hand, in what I think is a retrograde step, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, WI reissued a dispensation from attending mass due to increasing COVID "cases" in its area. All Wisconsin bishops had previously agreed to lift the dispensation during September.

The COVID crisis increasingly appears to be an episode of public hysteria, fostered initially by legitimate concerns about the potential impact of an unknown new virus. Almost immediately, politicians and media continued to create an impression that there would be plague--like consequences unless the public consented to unprecedented and draconian measures.

Legal remedies have been slow and largely ineffective so far. A much greater effect will occur as the public at large begins to realize that the actual impact of the virus has been wildly exaggerated. That the US president, age 74, would contract the virus and fairly clearly recover after what was effectively a weekend of bed rest and plenty of fluids, should help to reshape the public impression.

Statements from Catholic bishops either lifting the dispensatoin or simply urging a return to mass are what's needed here, not vacillation over statistical chatter.

Allowing for Pastor MacArthur's knee-jeerk radical Protestantism, his overall message in the video below is what's needed now.