
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 11, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- After Virginia’s governor appeared to suggest that church attendance is immaterial to the act of worship, one theologian says that Catholics see worship differently.
On Thursday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) asked religious leaders to consider holding liturgies outdoors or virtually during the Christmas season, as he announced new restrictions on public gatherings to control the spread of the coronavirus.
“The holidays are typically times of joy and community. We gather together, we celebrate our faith, and we celebrate with family,” Northam said. “But this year, we need to think about what is truly the most important thing. Is it the worship, or the building?”
“To me, God is wherever you are. You don’t have to sit in the church pew for God to hear your prayers,” said the governor.
Northam, who has no formal theological education or training, added that “worship online is still worship.”
“So I strongly call on our faith leaders to lead the way and set an example for their members. Worship with a mask on is still worship. Worship outside or worship online is still worship,” he said.
Dr. Timothy O’Malley, director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life and academic director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, told CNA on Friday that for Catholics to stay home out of caution during the pandemic might be laudable or necessary, but it is incorrect to say personal prayer, or even watching Mass online, can like-for-like replace attending a Mass in-person.
“You can’t just watch Mass and get the same thing out of attending the Mass,” he said. “The Eucharist alone makes that impossible, to receive the Body and Blood of Christ on Christmas is a gift. It requires presence.”
“In-person worship matters,” O’Malley said, and if Catholics are unable to attend Mass, they should consider the possibility to “worship together in smaller communities,” including as individual families in the home.
“For Catholics, matter matters,” he explained. “And that means the Church building is not just a container for human activity. It is a sacramental sign of the mystery being celebrated, the union of heaven and earth, the embodied memory of what Christ has accomplished on the cross.”
But, O’Malley said regarding Northam’s suggestions for outdoor liturgies, Catholic priests have historically offered Mass outdoors and, given the spread of the virus indoors, it might be a smart move for Christmas Mass.
“Much of the history of the liturgy has grown out of, at least initially, outdoor processions,” said O’Malley. “There is nothing intrinsically un-Catholic about outdoor Eucharistic liturgies. And in the time of a global pandemic, it may be wise to consider such opportunities.”
Churches were not subject to the Northam’s new gathering limits in Virginia, and the governor indicated that the exemption was due to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo. In that ruling, a 5-4 Supreme Court majority halted the state’s restrictions that limited some indoor religious services to as few as 10 people.
“We are following suit with that,” Northam said on Thursday, noting that he would only encourage faith leaders and would not impose a legal mandate on them. He also imposed an indoor mask mandate on Virginians, but said the state would not be actively enforcing the order at churches.
In March, Northam’s public health restrictions made it a criminal offense to be at a non-essential gathering of more than 10 people—including inside a church. Local police stopped a Palm Sunday service at a Chincoteague Christian church that was attended by 16 people.
While both the Arlington and Richmond dioceses curbed Sunday Masses in the spring due to the spread of the virus, churches have been open again for Mass with the Sunday obligation still lifted during the pandemic.
O’Malley suggested that, for Catholics who are homebound during Christmas, they could perhaps pray the Liturgy of the Hours together.
“We can bend the knee before Christ in the creche. Worship in this sense, again, is not just thinking pious thoughts. It is using the material dimensions of Catholicism to enter into deeper communion with Christ,” he said.
In his letter Let us return to the Eucharist with joy released in September, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said Catholics must return to Mass “as soon as circumstances permit.”
Cardinal Robert Sarah said in his letter of televised or live-streamed services that “no broadcast is comparable to personal communication or can replace it. On the contrary, these broadcasts alone risk distancing us from a personal and intimate encounter with the incarnate God who gave himself to us not in a virtual way.”

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Honor to this President for standing up for Palestinian rights and for warning our nation against the inordinate influence of Israel.
May God grant salvation to President Jimmy Carter.
Yes, let’s pray for his soul. But let’s not forget that Carter—in addition to being pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage”, and slanderous towards pro-lifers—praised Castro and Cuba, China, Tito (“a man who believes in human rights”), Kim Il Sung, Yasser Arafat, and the PLO, Mengistu, Cédras, Assad, and Hamas. Jimmy was most inept (whereas Joe is mostly corrupt), but he was also a sanctimonious embarrassment far more often than his hagiographers (that is, the legacy media) will ever admit. For more, see my July 2009 post at Insight Scoop.
Upon Carter’s election, the astute and long-time Singapore President Lee Qwan Yew wrote (of world leaders) in his own autobiography, “we knew we would just have to put up with him for four years.”
And, on the domestic scene, we recall that it was President Carter who gave us the cabinet-level position U.S. Department of Education, surely as a reward to the teachers’ unions that helped him get elected (formed on May 4, 1980, as a result of the Department of Education Organization Act–Public Law 96-88–of October 1979; President Jimmy Carter signed the bill into law.) The gift that keeps on giving.
Educationally speaking, Shakespeare gives us a clue: “The fault is not in our ‘stars,’ but in ourselves” (“Julius Caesar”). That is, the fault is not in those who are elected but in those who elect them. The corporate Peter Principle transferred to the gummint.
Yes, the establishment of the Department of Education was foolish. Yet, who kept it going, despite, as I recall, promises to the contrary? Oh, yeah, his successor, that “great conservative” Ronald Reagan.
Bravo! Sick to death of the hagiographies popping up everywhere.
Not that Pres. Carter endorsed this policy, but something to keep in mind from the late, great Huey Long:
“I don’t know much about Hitler. Except that last thing, about the Jews. There has never been a country that put its heel down on the Jews that ever lived afterwards.”
— Huey Long
For all his faults, Huey had some wise insights. May he & Jimmy Carter rest in peace.
Palestine must earn nationhood. Terrorism must never be rewarded. For over three quarters of a century, the only thing that Palestinians have excelled in is their ability to inflict incalculable suffering on a global scale, not only on others, but also on themselves.
It will only be by a direct intervention from God Himself that the hearts and minds of radical Islam will be converted.
It is for this we must pray.
Aside from rationalizing numerous acts of Islamic terrorism, possibly to downplay and make his years of cowardice not seem so bad while president, the post-president, “great humanitarian,” Carter met with leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. He embraced Nasser al-Shaer, the man who ran the Palestinian education system, brainwashing children into believing Jews are the descendants of pigs and dogs. He laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, the most notorious terrorist thug of the 20th century.
Oh I forgot. Francis seems to indicate the Islamic world can’t do much that is morally wrong. He once reminded us that beheading children was the equivalent of domestic abuse, which he assumed was done by Catholic men since he read it in an Italian newspaper.
Freemasons defend the reputation of fellow members. Not suggesting that is what Bergoglio is doing at all, what so ever.
Thanks for your counter-witness, Carl. I confess my (naive) views of Carter have hitherto been based on the so-called mainstream media.
If Carter was mainly inept, what does that make Francis with his (supposed) assessment of him?
I volunteered in Jimmy Carter’s campaign & he was the first president I ever voted for . (And the last Democrat.) He really was a decent & faithful man in many ways but a very incompetent president.
In the beginning we believed he was a solid Christian believer but over time he veered off in some strange directions. God rest his soul.
Good question. I think there are a few factors involved. First, Pope Francis had to say something nice; it would be uncharitable to do otherwise. Secondly, Francis (I’m guessing) knows very little about Carter’s faith, life, policies, etc. Some of that is to be expected, as the Pope isn’t supposed to be an expert on all previous and current world leaders. But, thirdly, his remarks (praising “the deep faith” of Carter) just follow the standard, mainstream line, which is par for this pope and his inner circle. Fourth, I think that Francis is so keen on politics and political gestures that he probably believes Carter was a good president of deep faith. After all, that’s what the media legacy is trying to feed us here, even though the record says otherwise. Fifth, I think both men, in real ways, are 1970s liberals who have “evolved” on certain stances. Carter (as noted already) ended up embracing a hazy form of liberal Protestantism—or, better, of Protestantized liberalism—and jettisoned core moral beliefs, which in turn meant dismissing any sort of traditional, biblical Christian anthropology.
The bottom line, for me, is that Carter was mostly a disaster as POTUS and while he did some good things afterwards, he was a pro-tyrannical, pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage”, post-1970s liberal whose Christianity was thin at best.
Carter’s was a failed presidency and American voters rejected him and his policies. I find it amusing and laughable how the leftists (inclusing Bergoglio) are tripping over themselves to canonize this man. Some of us are not fooled by the posturing. The guy was book smart but had the leadership skills of an idiot.
Carter was not a good President. I voted against him twice. He let the Iranian Shiite fanatics push him around, that said, he did become a decent ex President with the Habitat for Humanity business. I recall seeing a picture of him years ago, after he left the White House, wearing a tool belt and hammering nails at a construction site. I thought that was nice that he found some task that he can accomplish.
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Agreed on his presidency. It was, overall, a train wreck. Carter was a nice guy, and that meant that he did some nice and good things. But “nice” isn’t the same as principled or strong, and Carter (in my estimation) was neither of those.
Jimmy Carter’s single greatest accomplishment was in giving the United States of America eight years of Reagan.
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I took your recommendation, Carl, and read your 2009 article. I believe I am now sufficiently inocculated against the current media and papal hagiography.
I do think Habitat for Humanity does good work.
Respectful farewell to Jimmy Carter. RIP.