- The Toronto health department published "Guidelines for Houses of Worship" on June 20. At the top of the bullet item list was a prohibition on any activities related to holy communion.
- We must assume that a great deal of thought went into these guidelines, by the best experts in the public health field. Those issued on June 20 must have been the product of weeks of work.
- By several accounts, Orthodox and Roman Catholic bishops were also working closely with the same public health experts to develop their own reopening guidelines.
- Cdl Collins issued guidelines for the Archdiocese of Toronto on June 29 that fully encompassed the celebration and distribution of holy communion. I am assured that Cdl Collins would not have issued such guidelines without the full consultation and approval of the Toronto health department.
- Published accounts indicate that Greek Orthodox authorities participated in equivalent consultations, and their guidelines were approved by the health department as well.
- However,the published health department policy as of July 3 continued to be the June 20 guidelines prohibiting holy communion, which remained posted until July 8.
- On July 3, a citizen made a complaint to the Toronto health department that a Greek Orthodox parish was celebrating holy communion in violation of published guidelines. We may assume this complaint was made in good faith, and the complainant had been unaware of the behind-the-scenes approvals.
- The complaint resulted in an inspector visiting the Orthodox parish and issuing some type of violation to the priest. We must assume the inspector was also unaware of the actual health department policy, which was unpublished and behind the scenes.
- This resulted in a stir in Catholic social media over the July 4 weekend, drawing attention to the published health department policy prohibiting holy communion.
- In addition, a non-profit called the Greek Community of Toronto owns several Greek Orthodox parish properties there. The parish that was cited for violating the published policy was one of these.
- The non-profit, presumably out of prudence and concern for potential liability and other legal problems with the properties it owned, told its parishes to stop offering holy communion.
- The non-profit also asked the Orthodox bishop and the health department for clarification. Neither responded.
- Catholic social media continued to cover the story. I did here.
- On July 8, the Toronto health department quietly updated its published policy to remove any reference to prohibiting holy communion. It substituted words to the effect that the policy would come from behind the scenes talks with the health director.
- Various people e-mailed me to say that, in trying to stay on top of the developing story and timeline, I had it all wrong and was misleading people.
I mentioned that other commodities, like beer, also ship in boxcars, but beer mustn't be allowed to freeze. One Canadian participant took vigorous offense at my implication that any Canadian city would consume so much beer that it would need to be shipped in boxcars. Another Canadian complained that only American beer was so bad it couldn't freeze. Over seven decades, I've learned some Canadians are like that. (I have another story that ends, "No, the mounties would never permit it.")
I have a certain sense that the Canadian visitors who've taken me to task for covering this story are reacting in some way to an implication that people are grossly incompetent on both sides of the border, not just in Houston. So be it.
Let's look at this. A major job function for any manager or leader is to communicate effectively. A public health director must certainly communicate health regulations and practices effectively, since his job is to protect lives. Just as we instinctively expect certain attention to duty from a ship's captain, we have nearly as many expectations of a public health director, certainly that policies and regulations be current. If they aren't the health department isn't doing its job and loses credibility.
The Toronto health department, with an unbelievably tin ear, issued a policy that it apparently understood from the start wasn't accurate, since at the same time it published the policy, late June, it was in talks at least with Catholic and Orthodox bishops that would allow holy communion to be celebrated.
I've worked as a policy writer at various times. If I'd been on the project, I would have said something like, "Hey shouldn't we be updating the published policy to reflect that you can get holy communion approved if you palaver with Dr Schmidlap?" But then, that's why I would not have been on that project.
Instead, the health department got a black eye and bad press, it caused completely unnecessary controversy in the Toronto Greek community, it apparently did not respond to requests from the Greek community for clarification, and in the end, it had to quietly update its policy.
There should have been a public apology. That there wasn't indicates nothing will change in the Toronto health department, and I suspect in many health departments on both sides of the border. (By the way, where's the report on what happened when the Lethbridge police took down the Star Wars trooper?)
I suddenly woke up last night and realized there's a problem with the truism attributed to Napoleon, that where incompetence is a sufficient explanation, no other explanation is necessary. The fallacy here is the same as the fallacy in the secularist argument that where the laws of physics are sufficient explanation for the movement of the planets, no other explanation is necessary.
In both cases, the question is the same. But where do the laws of physics come from? By the same token, where does incompetence come from? It's there in the Toronto health department. Where does it come from?
