Religious Liberty in a Pandemic: Constitutional Challenges to Mass Gathering Bans

Caroline Mala Corbin is Professor of Law and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at the University of Miami School of Law

The coronavirus pandemic led to an unprecedented shutdown of the United States. To stem the spread of the highly contagious pathogen, much of the country shut down for at least a month in April 2020, with the vast majority of governors ordering people to stay at home as much as possible.

The emergency regulations usually included a ban on large gatherings, such as any in-person gathering of more than ten people. Although some states exempted worship services, others did not. Churches sued, arguing that these bans violated their Free Exercise Clause rights by treating worship services more strictly than analogous activities that were not banned, such as shopping at a supermarket or superstore—allowed as essential services.

This short essay examines these claims, concluding that the constitutionality of the bans turns on the science of how the pathogen spreads, and that the best available scientific evidence supports the mass gathering bans.

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COVID and Egalitarian Catholic Women’s Movements

Mary Anne Case is Arnold I. Shure Professor of Law and a board member of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Chicago

In his March 27, 2020 extraordinary message Urbi et Orbi, Pope Francis insisted that the time of coronavirus was “not the time of [God’s] judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not.” The injunction “to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing” offered by the Pope came at what may have been a providential time for egalitarian Catholic women’s movements.  As the pandemic closed church buildings worldwide, and both the women and the priests went home and on line, the effect was to energize and unite the former while isolating the latter.  As priests celebrated mass alone, women organized worldwide mixed sex, women-centered participatory Zoom liturgies, and worshipped in house churches and in communities of nuns without benefit of clergy. The choices made during the pandemic may have lasting consequences for both the clergy, who may find it increasingly difficult to overcome their isolation and reconnect with their flock, and the women and their supporters, who seem increasingly disinclined to go back rather than forward.

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“Churches” in a Time of Coronavirus

Zachary B. Pohlman is a third-year law student at the University of Notre Dame Law School

Regular in-person gatherings at churches, synagogues, mosques, and other places of worship came to a grinding halt in mid-March. Six months later, religious attendees are returning to the pews—but in significantly fewer numbers.  Whether churchgoers ultimately return to their pre-pandemic levels of in-person worship remains to be seen.  Regardless of whether they do, the coronavirus-induced, steep decline in church attendance—even if only for the short term—could have lasting effects for how we conceive of “churches” from both external and internal perspectives. That is, how we understand churches as both a legal and religious matter could be shaped by the unique challenges presented by the pandemic. (For purposes of this blog post, “churches” refers to houses of worship of all types, including churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples.)

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