By Paul Tuns
Pastor James Coates of the Grace Life Church in Spruce Grove, Alberta, spent a month in jail, after being arrested on Feb. 16, for allegedly violating provincial public health measures that severely restricted the size of church gatherings. He led a service where congregants exceeded the 15 per cent capacity limit. The RCMP had been monitoring the church on Sunday mornings after Alberta Health Services slapped the church with a closure order in January. Pastor Coates was jailed after refusing the bail conditions placed on him. On March 22, Judge Jeffrey Champion freed Pastor Coates, saying the 35 days he had spent in jail would be credited as his $1500 fine, and dropped most of the charges against him. Pastor Coates will return to court in May for allegedly violating restrictions on public gatherings.
Pastor Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God in Aylmer, Ont., was charged several times by local police for violating the province’s stay-at-home orders. CBC reported that during a livestream of a Jan. 31 service “members can be seen singing in close proximity to each other, without wearing masks.” Pastor Hildebrandt was charged with allegedly violating provincial indoor limits on gatherings. A week earlier, 47 people at this same church were arrested for taking part in their Charter right to worship. On Feb. 7, the Church of God held a drive-in service that Pastor Hildebrandt said was a “gesture of conciliation, not an act of consent.”
The Ministry of the Attorney General had slapped the church with a court order and reopening indoor service could constitute contempt of court.
Three British Columbia churches – Immanuel Covenant Reformed Church in Abbotsford, the Free Reformed Church of Chilliwack, and Riverside Calvary Chapel in Langley – challenged the province’s public health orders that have prohibited in-person religious services. They took their case to the B.C. Supreme Court. Their lawyer, Paul Jaffe of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), explained, “their practice of their faith together is extremely important.” He told the court the public health orders against churches are “arbitrary, overbroad, and disproportionate,” and they have been singled out for closure while secular activities are allowed to continue to operate (with limits). On March 19, Justice Christopher Hinkson ruled that while the order infringed their religious rights, it was a justifiable violation of Charter-protected rights in order to stop the spread of COVID-19.
In March, Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, urged parishioners – and all people of faith – to contact their MPPs and sign a petition urging the province to lift the 10-person limit on attendance in places of worship in Toronto and Peel Region, while businesses could operate with up to 25 per cent of capacity. (In other parts of the province, churches were limited to 30 per cent capacity.) “Places of worship, regardless of whether they seat 100 or 1000 people, must remain at a hard cap of 10 people,” Cardinal Collins wrote in his “call to action” to the faithful. He noted that St. Michael’s Cathedral, with a capacity of 1,500, would be capped to 10 people “while around the corner, dozens can enter the local liquor store and thousands will enter the Eaton Center. This makes no sense.” He called on the province to raise the 10-person cap to 15 per cent of capacity. More than 12,000 people signed the petition. Premier Doug Ford relented and agreed to 15 per cent limit or 50 people outdoors.
Throughout the pandemic restrictions placed on churches and synagogues throughout both Canada and the United States, have been more severe than those imposed on most businesses. Church leaders and many church-goers find these double-standards unfair.
Early in the pandemic, the Skagit Valley Chorale in Washington state, was a super-spreader event. Of 122 members of the choir, 53 fell ill (33 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 20 with COVID-like symptoms), and two died. The choir practiced twice before widespread pandemic stay-at-home orders were implemented throughout the continent. The incident was immediately reported by local public health authorities to the Centers for Disease Control and it quickly became an international story. The event influenced early restrictions in many jurisdictions, when there was less information than there is now about how COVID-19 spreads.
In his decision, Justice Hinkson said churches were super-spreaders of the virus.
Numerous state-level restrictions that treated churches differently from businesses or other gatherings were struck down by various courts. However, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case in January from the Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley church in Nevada once the state changed its rules to limit capacity at 25 per cent for most public gatherings; previously, it capped churches to no more than 50 people while allowing other gatherings of 50 per cent capacity at bars, theatres, and casinos. The double-standard was the constitutional issue, not merely the placing of limits on places of worship.
Public health officials and elected leaders have not shared scientific evidence for treating churches more severely than retail businesses or other gatherings. The Archdiocese of Toronto reported that between the reopening of religious venues in June 2020 and the reclosing of them in December, there were no known cases of people contracting the virus at one of their church services despite an estimated million total visits to archdiocesan parishes.
The Calgary-based JCCF has represented several pastors and churches in their legal battles with provinces. Marty Moore, a lawyer for the JCCF, says that, “Government is required under the Constitution to demonstrably justify any infringement of charter rights,” adding: “I don’t think the demonstrable justification has been presented.”
Moore says, “religious services are important and many view them as essential.” Pastor Hildebrandt says “any true pastor surpasses any other front-line worker.”
