No California Policy Movement After Supreme Court Signals

On November 25, the US Supreme Court ordered a preliminary injunction in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, holding that New York may not enforce 10- or 25-person congregation-size limits on certain Catholic churches and Orthodox synagogues, pending further Supreme Court litigation. On December 3, the justices sent the dispute between the Harvest Rock International Ministry and California Gov. Gavin Newsom back to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to further consider the case in light of its Movember 23 ruling.

However, as one commentator put it, this effectively changes nothing for California churches.

Vacating the district court decision leaves the Governor's order in full effect. Another two or three full months could elapse before this case gets back to the Supreme Court. Harvest Rock remains subject to the very regime they sought emergency relief on. This punt leaves the church in a very difficult place.

In response, on December 3,

Lawyers for a church with more than 160 congregations across California said they would seek an immediate court order Thursday allowing indoor worship after the Supreme Court told a lower federal court to reexamine state coronavirus restrictions on church services.

So far, there's no news on that front.

Also on December 3, Gov Newsom announced a completely new state lockdown scheme based on models of hospital ICU capacity in regions of the state. As far as anyone can tell, this overlays the existing color-coded scheme based on COVID case statistics by individual counties and does not replace it,

The new guidance allows travel to "important activities" like "worship", but it restricts worship services in all affected regions to outdoors-only, instead of limited worship indoors in a small number of counties. The bottom line appears to be that fewer areas will allow any indoor worship at all.

What the Su[preme Court telegraphed is that, whatever the restrictions the state imposes, they can't single out houses of worship for special treatment. Currently under the color code system, indoor worship is prohibited over most of the state, but much of the retail industry is allowed to operate indoors, albeit under capacity reatrictions. If Target or Home Depot can operate, even at 20% capacity, a church should be able to hold indoor services at 20% capacity as well.

However, Abp Cordileone seems to have been aware of his dilemma in last week's statement quoted here:

We prefer not to go to court to win this fight. We prefer, and have been working hard for a long time to achieve, resolving this impasse with mutual understanding and respect. That would save a lot of valuable time and resources. It would also help to build up good will.

Right now, it seems to me that the Supreme Court signals have put the nonconforming megachurches in a pretty good position, because tjey're continuing to operate indoors without "permission", amd their legal cases for continuing to do so look a lot better. On the other hand, efforts by the churches that play by the full set of rules are likely to be delayed for months, leaving the moral enforcers in a continuing position of power, for however long that lasts.

Remarks by Abp Cordileone earlier this fall suggest that attempts by the archdiocese to submit plans for reopening indoor worship, no matter how carefully worked out, are simply ignored by the authorities.