Shared from the 5/27/2020 Houston Chronicle eEdition

Faith leaders urge continued closure

Local group posts video warning against reopening houses of worship too early

Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders in the Houston area are urging places of worship to remain closed to combat the spread of COVID-19.

In a video posted Tuesday, leaders again warned against reopening congregations prematurely, and framed social distancing as an act of care for one’s neighbors.

“We support waiting so that our neighbors are safe,” the group said. “We support waiting so that our hospitals are not overwhelmed. Caring for our neighbors means joining in the fight to beat COVID-19. … It means not increasing community spread.”

The video comes days after President Donald Trump deemed houses of worship as “essential,” a move that overruled restrictions put in place by states, cities and towns across the nation.

“These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united,” the president said last week.

Scott Jones, resident bishop of east Texas’ United Methodist conference, said he decided to become involved with the video message in part because of Trump’s declaration.

“When President Trump talked about faith communities being essential, we wanted to agree with that,” Jones said Tuesday. “We also wanted to be clear that freedom of religion means we make our own decisions.”

In Texas, places of worship were allowed to resume in-person services earlier this month under Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to reopen the economy, so long as capacity was limited and congregants practiced social distancing. The reopening followed weeks of fighting — and lawsuits — over restrictions on in-person worship at churches in Harris County, among other places.

Most churches have remained closed despite Abbott’s order. But some churches — including Second Baptist Church of Houston, which has tens of thousands of members — have since resumed limited services.

Catholic parishes in the area were also permitted to reopen under guidance from Daniel Di-Nardo, cardinal of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

Shariq Ghani, director of Houston’s Minaret Foundation, said that the reopening of larger churches has exacerbated some Muslims’ desires to pray at their mosques, particularly during Ramadan.

“We support waiting so that our neighbors are safe … not increasing community spread.”
Interfaith leaders in a video

“There’s an enormous amount of Muslims that are looking at other churches” to gauge whether they should reopen, Ghani said.

Meanwhile, public health officials have generally been opposed to reopening church services, many of which are held in close quarters and so make it more likely for congregants to catch the virus even if they wear masks and keep distance from one another.

They note that churches have often been linked to large outbreaks of COVID-19, a highly contagious virus that is largely understood to spread through respiratory droplets.

In Washingon state, for example, nearly every member of a 60-person church choir tested postive for the virus after meeting for practice in mid-March. Of those, two died.

And last week, a Houston-area Catholic church said it would again shutter its services after five members of a religious order tested positive for corona-virus. The group shared a residence with a priest who died a few days after being diagnosed with pneumonia.

It’s still unclear what killed the Rev. Donnell Kirchner, but officials at his former church, Holy Ghost Catholic Community, said Monday that the five people who tested positive remain in good health and are asymptomatic. robert.downen@chron.com

See this article in the e-Edition Here
Edit Privacy