The Catholic archbishop of San Francisco on Sunday said that the city’s coronavirus restrictions on church services are “mocking God.”
Speaking at a rally against the city’s stay-at-home mandates, which ban indoor services and limit outdoor services to 50 people as of last weekend, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said he would no longer tolerate the city’s “unjust treatment.” The limit for most of the pandemic was 12 people at an outdoor service, with only one person allowed to enter the church at a time.
“One person at a time in this great cathedral to pray?” Cordileone said. “What an insult. This is a mockery. They are mocking you, and even worse, they are mocking God.”
Cordileone last week wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for the city to allow churches greater freedom.
“In imposing these restrictions, the city is turning a great many faithful away from their houses of prayer,” Cordileone wrote.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic and Cordileone’s representative in Congress, at a Friday press conference addressed the archbishop’s concerns by telling him to “follow science.”
San Francisco’s restrictions are consistent with those issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in July. Many church leaders throughout the state have spoken out against them, calling them an infringement on the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.
