Beginning next week, Catholic schools in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs will be mask-optional for the first time in two school years, but their brethren in the District of Columbia will still be masked under the order of Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The Archdiocese of Washington says it is lobbying the D.C. government to remove its mandate and implores parents to join in the lobbying effort. The call to action came in a Thursday afternoon letter announcing the new mask-optional rule. (See the letter below.)
“Beginning on February 21, 2022, face coverings will no longer be required indoors in our Maryland school facilities for students, staff, or visitors,” reads the letter from Kelly Branaman, the superintendent for schools in the Archdiocese of Washington, which includes D.C. and five Maryland counties.
Maryland has no statewide school mask mandate, and Maryland counties’ mask mandates do not cover private schools. Those schools have been mask-mandatory all school year, solely on the basis of the Archdiocesan mandate.
In D.C., though, the government’s school mask mandate applies to private schools, as well as public ones. Bowser’s order lifting the district’s indoor mask mandate on March 1 explicitly leaves the mandate in place for schools. “In the District of Columbia,” Branaman wrote, “Mayor Muriel Bowser’s February 14 executive order continues to require masking in all schools in the District, both public and non-public. The Archdiocese is reviewing these requirements and advocating with city officials to make face coverings optional for our school families in the District. We invite parents to do the same.”
This wouldn’t be Cardinal Wilton Gregory’s first battle with Bowser over COVID rules. In 2020, the archbishop sued Bowser over illegal COVID rules that capped attendance at church at 50 people, even in churches that could hold many hundreds of people. No such rule applied to stores or restaurants. Bowser backed down in that case.
Below is the letter from Branaman.
