Before we canonize anyone... .

CP | Gilbert

...let's remind certain proponents of the cause that man does not live on bread alone. "Health and safety" protocols have ignored the importance of the spiritual, emotional and psychological needs of human beings during this pandemic.

Physicians - not all mind you - are prone to the temptation to act like gods. Just ask nurses forced to contend with a doctor whose ego is the size of Jupiter. If there is a heresy amongst physicians, it is imagining that by caring for the body (alone) everything else is well and good. To be fair, most doctors are humble enough to admit their limitations and stick to the care and maintenance of the body, and the same would also readily admit the need to help their patients acknowledge and tend to their psychological and spiritual needs. Unfortunately, we have too many health experts guiding pandemic strategies who completely ignore the other real needs of human beings, needs which if met in a timely manner can stay a person's descent into despair and actually help the physical body regain and retain its strength. With stats confirming an emerging mental health pandemic, tragically culminating in a tidal wave of suicides, surely such information should temper the need to see public safety as solely dependent upon restrained movement and isolated bodies. A simple search produces volumes of websites attempting to address the mental health crisis.

When a medical doyenne - even an obviously intelligent, thoughtful and dedicated one - suggests that the reason restaurants and pubs remain open while churches are closed is because restaurants feed people (and by implication churches do not), she misses the fact that her argument robs people of sustenance that is just as real as beers, burgers and fries. Starve people of music, for example, and their souls shrivel. Starve people of the opportunity to play and their minds fold inward and become stunted, bereft of creativity and imagination. Perhaps we should mention to the government that Catholic Masses freely supply people with the Bread of Life? Perhaps we should rebrand churches as restaurants or public houses with a specialized (and sublimely satisfying) menu and perhaps then the government will allow additional patrons to occupy the pews.

Doctors assign "degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties" (Oxford Languages). That activity is called triage. Unfortunately, when one is an emergency room physician, or thinks exclusively like one, there is a tendency to categorize people, places and things as if the triage hammer is the only tool that can solve any and all crises.

• "Faith is not a building," Henry said. "It's not about Sunday mornings, but it's about every day, and how we connect with each other and how we support each other. It's not about rights." - Dr. Bonnie Henry, Provincial Health Officer for the Province of BC.

That sounds like a definition of faith one might find on the United Church of Canada website. It is true to a point, but there is a glaring deficiency in such well intended sentiment. How can we support and connect with each other if we are not permitted (or robbed of) the agency and means to do so? Again, Dr. Henry's remarks miss the obvious: it is precisely because we acknowledge that connections between people matter, and our support for each other in community is of vital importance to the stability of society, that we insist fundamental rights be fully respected. What are inalienable rights if not right relationship(s) that do not require government consent to affirm their absolute validity?

Hospitals are built to take care of people; Churches offer "physicians" that tend to our spiritual care. For Catholics, churches house tabernacles which house the Presence of God. As for faith not being about rights, there is a reason why religion is the first freedom mentioned in the Charter. It is, after life itself, the most fragile right. Unfortunately, for all the good Dr. Henry has done and is doing, her statement manifests a simplistic understanding of faith and perpetuates a false dichotomy between the personal and the communal aspects of faith and religion. The state protects rights, or it should, so that people with funny ideas about freedom don't go pushing aside fundamental rights when difficult times arise.

CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Fundamental Freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association.

Fortunately, our cousins to the south have awakened to the threat to fundamental freedoms:

“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques,” Justice Neil Gorsuch stated in the New York ruling.

Given the otherwise fair and measured exercise of her office, it is highly unlikely that Dr. Henry is a bigot knowingly bent on trampling upon our fundamental rights and freedoms. More likely, and with all due respect for her medical credentials and person, she is merely ignorant or restrained by other people's ignorance. Her reductionist outlook begs a response. Our job is to awaken in her and others the understanding that we have a right to express our faith in public in responsible ways. Furthermore, the common good requires that people have access to the institutions that ennoble and protect that which the government cannot and too frequently does not. So saith the Charter. No one is arguing that there may not be reasonable limits which protect the public health, for example. However, because religious buildings are being shuttered while liquor stores and pubs remain open, the proscriptive actions currently imposed upon churches, synagogues and mosques constitute unreasonable limits.

Are the restrictions imposed upon Canadians by various provincial governments "reasonable limits... demonstrably justified"? Religious Canadians would say 'no'. Politicians fear that religious meetings could become "super-spreader" events. What is the basis for such a concern? What religious community has become a super-spreader event? None, after many communities have offered limited and responsible openings. Meanwhile, nursing homes have become morgues littered with the bodies of people who trusted in health professionals to keep them safe. Them's the facts. Churches have done a far better job of implementing health precautions than most other institutions.

In all likelihood, once a vaccine is distributed and mitigates fear and the repressive acts of states, all of the above concerns will likely recede quickly from memory. Though, like cholesterol built up in the veins of society, or a cancer unchecked, a willed ignorance of human beings' needs beyond the material will have metastasized in people's minds and will have enabled greater hostility toward people of faith and the free exercise of religion. Responsible resistance to blind acceptance of government policies is part of any and every healthy society. It is the Christian's duty to inoculate society against dangerous viruses that would otherwise go unnoticed. To deny the dangers of covid19 is stupid. To deny the dangers of indifference to the virus of bigotry and ignorance is suicidal.

Saint Thomas More, patron of politicians: pray for them.
Saint Camillus de Lellis, patron of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians: pray for them.