On the Theological Significance of Changing Sacraments for Safety during a Pandemic

 In the February 1st Voice of the Shepherd, Archbishop Sample informs us of his recent road trip to the largely rural parishes of Marion County in Oregon. This is an area that has been extremely Catholic for a very long time- every parish that he visited, celebrated a 100 year anniversary within the last 50 years, and one of the parishes he visited contains the grave of Archbishop Blanchet, first Bishop of the now defunct diocese of Oregon City, that the Archdiocese of Oregon replaced.

The talk linked to above is well worth listening to, but one should be aware that in Oregon, there is a huge political gap between such small, rural, close knit communities and the Urban Majority, who has kept Democrats in power for the past 40 years.

Due to this it is perhaps understandable that our dear Archbishop interpreted the encounter with a man who could be from my own family, as being primarily political when he asked for an end to pandemic restrictions such as mask mandates.  The Archbishop says, in his talk above, that politics doesn't interest him, as much as evangelizing Our Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Catholic Church.

I would like to present a potential different set of arguments for the damage to the real mission of the church that has been done in the name of safety and the pandemic.  I will be concentrating on the doctrines surrounding either the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, along with the 12 articles of the Apostle's Creed.

Two years in, we know for a fact that there are people for whom masks do more harm than good.  Some, because they are mentally ill.  Some because they are so young that their brains are still developing.  There are now four and five year old kids who doubt that their priests and teachers have mouths- because they've never seen them unmasked.  If the priest is supposed to be In Vicarious Christi, and the figure on the crucifix is unmasked, how can it not damage the image of Christ to have a masked priest?

At the beginning of the pandemic, one of the first things that happened was the political lockdown of businesses and religion. This put our dear Archbishop Sample in a very hard place- dealing with the tyrant that Governor Kate Brown had become, with a state government that had become very secularist and making decisions behind closed doors- decisions that claimed to be "following the science" but didn't even add up given basic mathematics and statistics.  Like most Bishops, like the Pope himself, the choice was made to withdraw the public sacraments.  Several workarounds for Confession, which actually doesn't require physical interaction, were implemented.  And in a show of heroic virtue, the anointing of the sick continued until priests started dropping dead themselves.  But the "Source and Strength of the Faith", the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, was denied us for four months, in a Lent that started but never ended.  Even Easter was canceled.  All out of a fear of Earthly Death.  The closest anybody got to the Eucharist in those months was once again, a few brave priests, offering "parking lot adoration" through a window, or the completely inadequate online mass with "spiritual communion".  

This directly damaged faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist; a central doctrine that I fear will never recover, a doctrine that was already under attack with less than 40% of Catholics in the United States still having faith in it.

But what it really damaged, was our witness to accompany others in suffering.  It is my belief that in protecting our elderly by harming the young, we violated the very center of our faith.  The remaining of this commentary will be directed to ways in which we all have failed to live up to the 12 articles of the Apostle's creed.  I will be writing this as an examination of conscience, know that these are the questions I've been asking myself about the pandemic.

I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,	God not only made heaven and earth- he made everything that exists in the universe.  From the smallest atom to the largest galaxy; from the smallest virus to the great sperm whale; from north to south to east to west and back again.  He is in control, He controls the universe, we humans control nothing.  What makes us think we should be in control?
and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord	The Godhead, our creator- also created the pandemic.  Maybe not directly, but certainly in the "permissive will" of God.  Who are we to claim that the pandemic isn't a part of his Plan?
who was conceived from the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary,	Jesus was a man like us- born into this life we cling to so tenaciously.  Do we remember to thank God for the life we have, even with all of its problems?
who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried,	In our comfort, we often forget that suffering too, has value; that we should not eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer.  When we isolate to avoid disease, are we avoiding the disease, or are we really avoiding the opportunity to accompany each other in suffering?
descended into hell, rose again from the dead on the third day,	Christ went through hell.  No matter which side of the debate you are on- no matter if you are at risk or young with a strong immune system- are you being forgiving and kind when you come to somebody on a different side of the mask debate than you are?  Are you really so unsure of your own preparations, that you need to remove others from your life?
ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty,	In the end, salvation comes, if we accept it?  Are we even looking to God for our salvation, or are we looking to Pfizer and BioNTech, who use fetal tissue research, for our salvation?
who will come again to judge the living and the dead.	When Christ Comes, how will he judge us?  When it comes to the least of these, say, the special needs child with severe sensory difficulties around needles and masks, who has co-morbidities that makes even the vaccine dangerous, and because of that, their family has been cut off from our community and denied the sacraments other than livestreamed Mass, how will we answer our Lord when he comes to say we put our safety in front of such a Child of God?
I believe in the Holy Spirit,	Discernment of spirits is a hard thing indeed.  In recent years the "Spirit of Mercy" has overtaken the church, even our Pope describes a form of mercy with no repentance as "accompanying the marginalized".  However, we've seen very strict restrictions on the pious and the righteous, and in our mercy, we've denied justice to the very people we've been claiming need to be heard the most.  Have we truly reached out to victims of the four forms of clerical abuse, spiritual, liturgical, financial and sexual?  Now that they've had years away from the Mass, what are we going to do to rebuild past wrongs and provide for the very justice destroyed and denied by inappropriate mercy?  How can we show the Holy Spirit to those for whom their only experience with the Spirit has been negative?
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,	In a particularly bad translation of the Pope's remarks recently, combined with the suppression of earlier forms of the Mass, it has begun to appear to many that the communion of saints has been exiled from heaven, replaced with "those who have denied the faith, who are apostates, who are the persecutors of the Church, who have denied their baptism" and who are not seeking repentance.  I choose to believe this is indeed a bad translation- that the Pope didn't mean to say that even the Saints he's canonized himself are no longer in Heaven, but that the Beatific Vision is only reserved for mass murderers and the worst sinners.  I think instead he meant that the communion of saints includes ALL who ask for repentance- both those who lived lives of heroic virtue and those who only realize their own evil in the last few seconds of life.  Purgatory exists for us both- are we willing to bring the good news of purgatory to the unvaccinated, to the conservatives, to the Latin Mass worshiper and the person who has rejected the easy lust of the sexual revolution for the harder sacrificial love of vocation?
forgiveness of sins,	We are the religion of the 490th chance- for all who repent, for all who are trying to repent but fail repeatedly in their repentance, for all who know the difference between good and evil but have trouble not choosing evil, we offer what Jesus Christ offers- we offer forgiveness, seventy times seven.  And we should.  But often, the repentance suggestions offered are not very effective- because we sinners fail to consider that it is not only God who is hurt when we sin, but also other human beings.  When we get angry at the person who won't wear a mask, or worse, when we're not wearing a mask ourselves and we attack somebody who chooses to, the victim of our anger isn't God, it's our relationships with each other.  In this difficult situation, are we being kind to each other?  Are we being welcoming to those who believe differently?  Or has our fear of this virus separated us?
the resurrection of the body,	Do we truly believe that the end of this life isn't the end, but the beginning?  Why should we fear "that which destroys the body" including the pandemic?  We are working out our salvation, and God is still in charge!  What if a mask is a sign of a failure of our faith in the resurrection of the Body?  What if taking an abortion-tainted vaccine is a sign that we don't really believe that we will continue past death, regardless of what happens to our bodies?
and the life everlasting, Amen.	And finally, do we believe in Hell and Heaven?  Do we believe in Purgatory, that we will be given a chance to even rectify a shortened life?  Do we believe in the gift given to us, the gift of everlasting life?  Why would we reject the sacraments out of fear, if nothing can harm us in the long run?

I write this as much in pain of my own sins, as in suffering from the sins of others.  Everything I accuse the church of above, every cowardice I wonder about above, I'm guilty of myself.  I barely leave my house these days, for I can only tolerate a mask for a few minutes or hours myself, but I do wear the mask.  I know the evil and sacrifice of the 15 to 1500 aborted children that produce medicines I take, but I still take those medicines.  I repent of my cowardice, but when it comes to death and abandoning the responsibilities of my vocation, I am still a coward, and I am still ashamed of the way I've treated others who can't be vaccinated, who can't tolerate the masks.  I am ashamed of the way our church treats those who are more righteous, more pious than myself, and yet I am a member of a Novus Ordo parish, I am very much a child of Vatican II.  I am ashamed also, of the way we've abandoned those who practice the slavery of sexual sin, to their sin, just as I'm ashamed of abandoning my own soul to my own favorite sin of gluttony.   I need justice and feel deeply the lack of justice in my own life, but I need mercy as well to come out of my sin.

Finally, I think we all need more kindness, more inclusion, and an utter rejection of the modern trend of generalized stereotyping- especially genetic generalized stereotyping, the sin of racism.  We need that not only for those tempted to the Benedict Option, hiding away in Catholic enclaves, but also from those whose experience with social justice leads them to become progressives, destroying the good to create the perfect.  We need to be clear with those who accept postmodernist destruction of tolerance while preaching inappropriate tolerance for others.

This is my submission to the Synod of Synodality.  Please forward the link to all who need to read it, and please, use the comment boxes below to add your thoughts.  Teach me to listen.