Some California churches reopened their doors for services on Sunday after the Supreme Court ruled last week that state orders prohibiting closed services during the pandemic appeared to violate the Constitution’s protection of the free exercise of religion.
“This is not just our 1st Amendment right, it is really our biblical mandate not to leave the meeting with the saints,” Ché Ahn, senior pastor at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, told congregants during Sunday services.
The state ban on closed services was challenged in separate lawsuits by Harvest Rock Church and South Bay United Pentecostal Church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, and Friday’s order was applied directly to them. But its legal logic would block the application of a similar ban in other churches.
Bishop Arthur Hodges, senior pastor of the South Bay United Pentecostal Church, said he was “declaring a great victory.” The church continued to hold closed services, despite the state’s rule, but Sunday was the first time in months that it was able to do so legally.
“This is a giant step to affirm that Americans should never be forced to choose between obeying God or their government,” said Hodges during Sunday’s service.
Other churches were still deciding what the Supreme Court’s decision meant to them.
On Saturday, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles issued a statement giving parishes the option to return to internal services that “limit attendance to 25% of capacity”. Until now, services were performed in accordance with county and state requirements.
But, as the archdiocese includes Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties – and each county has issued its own restrictions on public meetings – parishes have developed their own accommodations that meet the needs of their faithful.
In Los Angeles County, for example, the Department of Public Health issued a revised order in late December, which allowed religious services in closed places, as long as the masking and physical distance protocols were followed. (State attorneys told the Supreme Court that, despite the change, the county had no authority to waive state rules.)
The archdiocese is still reviewing the court’s decision, but spokeswoman Adrian Marquez Alarcón said on Sunday that most churches continue to hold outdoor services where capacity is less limited.
“There is more space out there for social distance,” she said. “Pastors are taking into account what their faith communities need and what they are comfortable with.”
Father Ricardo Viveros, of the Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, in the village of Atwater, has been conducting internal and external masses since late December, when the county eased restrictions.
“I’m a bit of a hybrid and I want people to be comfortable,” he said. “But more people are wanting to go back inside and are feeling more comfortable with it.”
With social distance, your church can accommodate 90 worshipers inside, and if more appear, they stay in the front yard. Priests and deacons go out to give Communion.
In the court’s decision on Friday, the six conservative judges, the majority, agreed that California had chosen the churches for unfair treatment, placing stricter restrictions on them than on some businesses.
Judges granted an appeal from South Bay United, which repeatedly contested the state’s restrictions on religious services, including a ban on singing and singing. The decision overturned the decisions of federal judges in San Diego and San Bernardino and the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld state orders despite previous warnings from the higher court.
But the higher court said the state could limit attendance at closed services to 25% of the building’s capacity, and singing and chanting could also be restricted.
San Bernardino and Ventura counties said they would follow state guidelines and allow religious services in closed environments with limited capacity. Orange County did not respond to a request for comment.
LA County said that while allowing religious services indoors, it encourages houses of worship to continue to perform them outdoors or virtually.
“The necessary modifications, including state-specified capacity limits and the requirement that people wear masks and be physically distant in a service, will help reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, but will not eliminate it,” said the Department of County Public Health said Sunday in a statement.
In the bay area, Santa Clara County officials said that closed services would remain banned because local health orders have a different structure than the state.
The county had an average of 164 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents in the past week, according to The Times’ coronavirus tracker, just over half of LA County’s rate of 319 cases per 100,000 residents.
“Santa Clara County, unlike the state, never had specific rules for places of worship and never closed places of worship,” county councilor James Williams said on Sunday. “Instead, we have general uniform rules that apply to meetings of all kinds.”
All counties have the power to impose stricter restrictions than the state, the California Department of Public Health confirmed on Sunday. In the case of Santa Clara County, its separate restriction on meetings has been upheld in two other court decisions for reasons that have not been submitted to the Supreme Court and are not affected by its decision, the department said.
The state issues industry safety guidelines against coronavirus, with places of worship and cultural ceremonies constituting its own industry. Until the Supreme Court’s decision, state guidelines limited that particular industry to outside operations in counties in the most restrictive purple layer of the state’s four-phase reopening plan. All 58 counties in the state, except four, are in the purple belt.
The state allows some other sectors, such as retail, shopping malls and personal hygiene services, to operate indoors with changes in the purple layer counties. Some conservative judges noted the disparity in their views.
But instead of regulating business by sector, Santa Clara County regulates activities based on the level of risk associated with them, said Williams. The municipality allows all establishments, including places of worship, to be open to 20% of the capacity for certain types of activities, he said. And it banned all meetings, defined as people meeting in a coordinated manner for an event, regardless of type or purpose, since moving to the purple layer in November.
“Our concern for meetings is not based on where you are meeting or why you are meeting,” said Williams. “It has to do with the fact that meeting indoors is a high-risk activity, whether it’s a meeting that takes place at a place of worship or at a community center or in a retail environment.”
Calvary Chapel in San Jose held religious services on Sunday, despite the county’s announcement, as it did during much of the pandemic.
“What we are doing here is not so much fighting our county, but simply defending the right that God has given us,” senior pastor Mike McClure told congregants.
He framed the dispute over public health guidelines as a battle between the church and Satan, with holiness on the one hand and idolatry on the other.
“The state is trying to replace the Church and create this fear so that we will give up our freedom and give up to trust them,” he said.
Santa Clara County filed a lawsuit against the church and McClure in November, claiming that they had been holding weekly indoor services for up to 600 people, although they ignored public health rules, such as masking and detachment. Although the county has won an injunction, the church continues to violate it, Williams said.
He said the church and McClure were arrested twice for contempt of court and accumulated about $ 2 million in fines – about $ 5,000 per violation per day. He does not expect the Supreme Court’s decision to have any effect on the ongoing case.
“Most of your violations involve much more than just meeting indoors, although that is one of the problems,” said Williams. “We are talking about no facial masking, no social detachment protocols, singing – they are basically violating each of the basic security protocols that we have in place.”
In contrast, Williams said, most county houses of worship are following the rules, conducting outdoor or virtual services.
“The vast majority of religious institutions in our community are very concerned,” he said. “They care about their faithful. They care about the safety and well-being of the community and take COVID very seriously and understand that we are at a critical juncture. “
The Times staff writer David G. Savage contributed to this report.