The Coronavirus Pandemic and Catholic Worship

Back in 1989, the singer Bob Dylan released the song “Everything Is Broken.” The lyrics include lines such as “Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking / Everything is broken” and “Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin’ / Everything is broken.”⁹ In true sacramental fashion, the novel coronavirus has revealed and effected brokenness in U.S. society. Longstanding healthcare and social disparities along racial and ethnic lines have come to the fore. Large numbers of people are without work or working under conditions that expose them to risk of contagion. My focus here is the impact of the novel coronavirus on religious worship, particularly worship in the Roman Catholic Church. I will proceed by first examining what the virus has revealed about Catholic worship. Next, I will assess what effects it has had on Catholic worship. Finally, I will offer some thoughts about worship after the pandemic subsides. My remarks here will be brief; I am looking more to start a conversation than to present one in full.

What the Virus Reveals about Worship

The outbreak of the virus compelled public authorities to shut down many forms of social activity, including gathering for worship. Many Catholics with internet access have been able to view livestreamed Masses from their local parishes or from other parishes around the nation and around the world. Those without internet access have had to make do with television or radio broadcasts or perhaps with no video or audio signals at all. In any case, the vast majority of those Catholics who attend Mass regularly have not been able to do so. My point is that the experience of such Catholics—Sunday after Sunday without Mass— compels them to walk in the shoes of those Catholics who would choose to be at Mass in non-pandemic times but who cannot make it to a church for reasons of health (chronic weakness, confinement to a hospital or nursing home, mobility impairment, and so on) or reasons related to work schedules, access to reliable transportation, imprisonment, etc. Catholics who have since spring 2020 been experiencing the brokenness of Mass-less discipleship have a share now in what is the ordinary brokenness of the Mass-less discipleship of their fellow believers who cannot attend Mass and participate in person.

We have evidence going back at least as far as the mid-second century that Christians who gathered for worship arranged to bring eucharistic communion to those unable to attend.¹⁰ Prior to spring 2020, a great many Catholic parishes made similar arrangements to bring communion to the homebound or the hospitalized. As parishes slowly begin to reopen in summer 2020, many are looking to resume and even expand this ministry given the limits still in place concerning the number of people who can gather and the many people who will be staying home because they judge themselves to be at high risk for the virus. This expansion of ministry is all to the good. Yet bringing communion to believers in this way, though pastorally wise under current conditions, can never be more than a second-best option in the long run. I am not suggesting that it will ever be possible for all persons to be present for worship regardless of health conditions. That would be impractical and unwise, both medically and morally. Perhaps, though, parishes can investigate ways to bring to Mass some whose reasons for not going are connected to issues other than severe medical conditions. Perhaps believers who are able to be at worship can have greater empathy for those unable to attend and act on that empathy according to their various gifts and talents.

The Effects of the Virus on Worship

Having by and large forced the experience of worship into the realm of the virtual, the pandemic means that believers no longer see and hear their fellow worshipers directly, if at all. Believers can, however, have greater access to what their fellow worshipers are thinking. Parishes that stream their worship services on platforms such as Facebook have the option of employing chat boxes. During the Universal Prayer of...