More On Toronto; San Francisco Controversies

I've received several e-mails and reports from visitors that tell me the situation in Toronto is at best unclear. As of late yesterday, the Toronto Department of Public Health issued new guidelines, dated July 8, 2020, that are far less speciric in their restrictions, such as

• Communion and other close contact activities as advised by Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health.
• All social gatherings, including before or after the service, as advised by Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Halth.

There is now no equivalent policy specifically prohibiting communion-related activities. At the same time, my regular correspondent sent me guidelines from the Archdiocese of Toronto datd June 29, 2020, a little over a week after the earlier June 20 Toronto Public Health guidelines I linked yesterday before the new July 8 guidelines were posted, that simply outline protocols for Holy Communion and other activities without reference to those that apparently were in effect from the health department. These were followed the weekend of July 5, apparently without complaint by the health department.

While my regular correspondent suggests yesterday's post was "misleading", it was based on a then-current published policy and various media reports reacting to that policy. The situation in Toronto, as elsewhere, is at best confusing. A visitor forwarded a letter from a member of the Greek Orthodox community in Toronto reporting that the health department did try to enforce its June 20 guidelines with an Orthodox parish:

The past few months and especially the last few weeks have been challenging and confusing to all of us. The Greek Community of Toronto (“GCT”) would like to clarify and explain its stance to the most recent developments in terms of the re-opening of the Churches and its practices. Once the City of Toronto allowed places of worship to re-open, the GCT with respect to the Greek Orthodox faith and at the same time its obligation to adhere to the City of Toronto, opened its churches to the public while following and implementing the guidelines provided. Unfortunately, the City of Toronto Public Health guidelines dated June 20, 2020 intervene with the practices of the Church and because of that there seems to have been a lot of confusion. In order to provide clarity, below you will find a series of factual events as they occurred and forced the GCT to restrict some of the Greek Orthodox practices in its churches.

On Friday July 3, 2020 a Toronto Public Health inspector visited St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. This was a result of a complaint received regarding a breach of the Covid-19 Guidance for Places of Worship that was amended as of June 20, 2020 (See below). According to the inspector St. Demetrios Church has been compliant with all the requirements as stated by Toronto Public Health except the suspension of communion and kissing of the priest's hand.

The inspector was informed that the Archdiocese of Canada is responsible for providing the rules and procedures to all the priests. This was done through a letter dated June 9, 2020 by the Archdiocese of Canada and did not indicate the suspension of communion. The inspector made it clear that the GCT will be held liable if there is a Covid-19 case in its premises.

On the same day, following the inspection, the GCT sent an email to the Archbishop Sotirios requesting to follow the guidelines as set by the amended June 20, 2020 Covid-19 Guidance for Places of Worship (see below). Subsequently, the GCT also sent an email to Dr. Vinita Dubey, Associate Medical Officer of Health for Toronto Public Health asking for clarification regarding the matter of communion in which the Archdiocese of Canada was informed (see below).

The letter seems to conclude with a suggestion that there has been no clear response from either the archbishop or the health department, but now the health department has changed its guidance.

The fact is that in many cases, at least in North America, public health authorities have issued unclear, conflicting, and constantly changing guidance. It appears that both Catholic and Orthodox bishops in Toronto proceeded on a set of assumptions that,. quite possibly without being aware of it, were in conflict with published guidance. "Violations" of this guidance weren't consistently enforced. At some point, behind-the-scenes "consultations" seem to have taken place and sorta-kinda cleared things up in a way that saved face for the public health experts.

UPDATE: It appears from this account that Toronto public health authorities gave informal approval to some Orthodox clergy that communion would be OK, but nobody communicated this generally, and in particular it doesn't appear that the inspector who issued the violation was aware of the policy exception (if that is what it was). I wonder if the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto had received similar back-channel assurances. This, of course, is no way to conduct public policy.

A similar case has occurred in San Francisco (thanks to a visitor for the link):

The Archdiocese of San Francisco is pledging to comply with the city and county public health orders barring indoor public Masses and limiting outdoor services, including funerals, to 12 people.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a letter June 29 to the archdiocese’ lawyer, ordering the archdiocese to cease-and-desist indoor public Masses and giving it one day to comply.

“Upon reviewing the reports of multiple San Francisco parishes holding indoor Mass over the last few weeks, the Health Officer has concluded that the Archdiocese is putting not only its parishioners but the larger community at risk of serious illness and death,” the letter said.

The archdiocese told CNA today that it has made a good-faith effort to comply with the city’s public health guidelines, despite some occasional confusion and last-minute changes to the city’s public health orders.

“Our intention has always been to conform to what we understand to be the City orders and timelines,” the archdiocese said, noting that the city’s orders have been constantly changing throughout the pandemic, sometimes on short notice, the archdiocese said July 2.

The problem is that quite often, public health authorities issue arbitrary "guidelines" that on one hand are unenforceable and at best subject to inconsistent enforcement efforts. They are poorly publicized and poorly understood by the affected parties, by the public, and even by the enforcement authorities. "Complaints" are made either by people intending only to cause disruption, or members of the public who don't understand the guidelines or the most recent updates.

As far as I can see, bishops in both San Francisco and Toronto have made good-faith efforts to comply with poorly publicized and constantly changing directives, which are both arbitrary and ineffective even from a public health standpoint. For instance, the San Francisco directives limit mass attendance to a dozen, while in most of the rest of the state, it's 100. There's no real basis for either number.

The basic problem is that health departments decided in March that they could run the world, and the results have been predictable. Efforts to give control of the world back to the responsible authorities have ben halting and pusillanimous. Again, I'm not sure how this ends up.