‘I am a big believer’: Pelosi urges prayer amid coronavirus pandemic

“I am a big believer in prayer,” she said, “especially, as we come up on Holy Week, that we will not be able to come together in this most glorious feast of my Catholic faith and the Christian world.”

Holy Week begins on April 5, Palm Sunday, and ends on Easter.

“But we can be prayerful and have maybe a National Day of Prayer or something specifically to this,” she said. “Some of my members are suggesting that.”

Churches across the country are closed so the public is able to practice social distancing, but some church leaders say now is the time places of worship should be open to the public.

“In a time of national crisis, we expect certain institutions to be open and certain people to be on duty. We expect hospitals to have their doors open 24/7 to receive and treat patients. We expect our police and firefighters to be ready and available to rescue and to help and to keep the peace. The Church is another one of those essential services. It is a place where people turn for help and for comfort in a climate of fear and uncertainty,” a megachurch in Florida said in a statement. “Therefore, we feel that it would be wrong for us to close our doors on them, at this time, or any time.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke also criticized “secular governments” that treat going to church the same as going out to eat during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We cannot simply accept the determinations of secular governments, which would treat the worship of God in the same manner as going to a restaurant or to an athletic contest. Otherwise, the people who already suffer so much from the results of the pestilence are deprived of those objective encounters with God, who is in our midst to restore health and peace,” Burke said in a statement at the end of March.