New Jersey is the only state where in-person church services are still banned, and it’s unclear when Gov. Phil Murphy will lift those restrictions.
During a Friday afternoon press conference, the governor said he hopes to allow churches to resume in-person services on June 12 but that it all depends on the trends of “health metrics.”
“I and my administration will continue our deep partnership with our faith communities as we work through the proper safeguards that will need to be in place before we can welcome our communities back into their houses of worship,” Murphy said. “Our houses of worship are cornerstones of our communities, often rooted in historical and cultural tradition. We want them to be strong and safe.”
Murphy is the sole holdout after President Trump threatened last week to “override” the governors still prohibiting services and Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department sent several letters asking for the same. California, Minnesota, and Vermont lifted restrictions over the weekend. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced an end to the ban on Wednesday.
Murphy, however, has remained vague in his directions to churches, not offering any details on what the coming move back to normalcy will look like.
“This is a question of doing it responsibly and doing it at the right time,” he said during a Tuesday press conference after police fined several churches for holding services in defiance of his order over Memorial Day weekend.
“At least up until now, if somebody has more than the amount of gathering capacity that we’ve got, which is 10 people indoors, and communion is being served, we would ask, respectfully, to not do that,” Murphy added, encouraging churches to hold drive-in services instead.
Murphy hinted on Wednesday that he will release reopening guidance for churches “sooner than later.”
But for many churches in the state, that’s not soon enough. Several churches have sued, and many more have openly defied Murphy. Among those that haven’t, some are announcing their reopening plans regardless of when Murphy gives them the green light.
An internal email from the Archdiocese of Newark instructed priests to begin offering public Mass at the start of June. The email stressed, however, that the opening date is “flexible” and “dependent upon the parish’s ability to prepare appropriately according to guidelines and the capacity, or possibly the vulnerability of the individual pastor.”
The archdiocese has stated that it is working with Murphy’s administration to design a reopening plan.
But another Catholic diocese has not been so gentle. Arthur Serratelli, bishop of the Diocese of Paterson, announced hours after Trump’s message to governors that he is pushing forward with reopening.
“President Trump stated earlier today that houses of worship should be considered essential services and be open for worship,” he said in a statement. “We must act with careful consideration for health and public safety. We have already sent out guidelines mandated for the reopening of our churches. Now the time has come.”
Following Serratelli’s announcement, St. Peter the Apostle, a Catholic church in the diocese, announced that it will begin public Mass in early June, making it one of the first Catholic churches in the state to do so since March.
Many Protestant churches have already resumed services despite the possibility of receiving citations. More than 50 pastors last week threatened to sue Murphy if he did not announce a reopening date, alleging that his order put an “unfair burden” on churches.
“In the case of a pandemic, which lasts month after month, you cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely nor do so at the expense of each New Jersey resident’s fundamental liberty,” they wrote in a letter addressed to Murphy.
Murphy angered many religious leaders when he told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in March that he “wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights” when he banned church services because it was above his “pay grade.”
