Whose churches are they?

The authorities have decided to keep places of worship open, because they recognize the need for people to gather for worship during these difficult times. However, they require that people who attend places of worship must show their vaccination passports. 

Of this we were informed yesterday by the Vicar General. We were also informed that, by government decree, only those who display a passport may enter a church even to receive the sacrament of baptism. So one cannot join the Church, publicly, unless one has previously joined the government vaccination program.

In Quebec the State now determines, contrary to the law of God and without proof of any constitutional power to do so, who can worship corporately, where and when and in what numbers. What is more, in the midst of a pandemic of the "vaccinated" it does so to the extreme disadvantage of the unvaccinated, thus revealing the political motivation of its actions. Moreover, it has reduced the churches to deputizing their laity to do the government's own work, policing their fellow citizens, turning away their own brethren in Christ from what is supposed to be communion with Christ.

I pass over the fact that our bishops, priests, and laity are, for the most part, remarkably ignorant of the medical facts and therefore the more unable to recognize the political nature (and legal ramifications) of what is happening around them. Their ignorance of their own vocation and responsibility before God cannot be passed over.

In Divide and Conquer I observed that the Archdiocese of Montreal, like other dioceses of Quebec, had apparently become a creature of the State, compelled to do homage to the god—the deceptive and dishonest god—of Public Health. I was subsequently heartened, however, by Archbishop Lépine's decision to say Mass for those the government regards as goats, those who have been made to stand at its left hand pending a more severe judgment. Though he has decided to tolerate Masses from which these goats are excluded, rather than to confront the government in the spirit of Ambrose or Anselm, Archbishop Lépine has at least the courage to try to maintain their unity with the sheep through his own personal ministry as bishop.

Credit, then, where credit is due. Their bishop will join them out in the cold, in the name of Christ, who was born in a stable.

In the parishes, such action was permitted for the priests, though many have declined, for one reason or another. Some see no problem in excluding the goats. Others have preferred to close their parishes rather than to permit any division—admirable in its way, but not a solution. (As I've said before, there is no such thing as an on-line Mass; people who fancy there is do not understand the Mass itself.) Still others, though these laudable shepherds are scarce, have decided to cancel indoor Masses and hold only outdoor Masses. None, to my knowledge, have told the government that it has over-reached its authority and that Christians must obey God rather than man.

So where are we now, on Christmas Eve? Collectively, whether as a diocese or as parishes, we are not ready to welcome our Lord. We are not even sure what that means. We are not certain to whose church, whose ekklesia, whose civic assembly with its own proper rights and responsibilities, we actually belong. That of Caesar, or that of God and his Christ, before whom every knee will eventually bow? 

In all likelihood, the new few weeks or months will make clear whose places of worship the authorities are "keeping open."