Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Catholic Church, a church in Washington, D.C., is now temporarily closed because a pastor tested positive for the coronavirus, as reported by The Washington Post. According to the Post, about 250 staff and members of the congregation were told to self-quarantine as much as possible for two weeks from the time they last took communion, as outlined in a letter from the Washington health department.
Monsignor Charles Pope, the pastor who has contracted the virus, wrote a piece for the National Catholic Register just over a week before he tested positive for the virus. In part, he acknowledged he is “neither a doctor nor a scientist,” but “I am a priest, and as such I think we must count the other costs. There is more to life than just not getting sick and not dying,” and referenced the cancelations of weddings, funerals, and closures of schools as “losses.”
In the same piece, Pope suggested that watching the news “only exacerbates the anxiety” and that “it has now become politicized and commercialized.” According to local outlet FOX 5 DC, when asked what news channel he watches, Pope said he does not watch any television news.
In a YouTube video posted on Sunday, Aug. 1, Pope wondered aloud about when it will be “safe enough to play in the park again,” adding: “That still remains my concern, even after having contracted this.” He added that “the main thing to battle here is fear.”
When speaking to FOX 5, Pope said he is concerned that “we may have lost permanently a large group of Catholics who became disengaged from the church and may never return even after this crisis is over.”
Pope says he doesn’t know how he contracted the virus, and that he did follow all regulations on social distancing and mask-wearing. As reported by The Washington Post, Pope was hospitalized on July 27 with a high fever. That same day he had a rapid test and confirmed the virus.
In the above YouTube video, which he said he recorded on Saturday evening, he describes having had a lack of appetite, coughing, feeling out of breath, and running a fever. As explained in the video, he said he received a rapid test at local urgent care, and then was referred to Georgetown University Hospital. He described his health as “steadily improving” and his symptoms as “moderate.”
Of course, this is far from the only instance of people being advised to quarantine after a positive case turned up in a religious organization. Forty people recently tested positive after a church event in Alabama, for example, while early in July, at least 12 cases were linked to a Tennessee church that held in-person services. In mid-June, a cluster of 28 coronavirus cases were linked to one West Virginia church.
Earlier in the pandemic in March, we saw the leader of a megachurch in Florida arrested after he insisted on holding packed services. One pastor in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area was also arrested after violating the governor’s order by holding in-person services for groups that were too large. On a positive note, as the novel coronavirus continues to roar across the United States, we have seen a number of religious leaders and organizations go virtual and advise members to wear masks.
However, coronavirus numbers in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. have recently surged.