The following is a Feb. 26 statement from San Jose Bishop Oscar Cantú:
I join all Catholics and people of faith in Santa Clara County in expressing our satisfaction in tonight’s U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting Santa Clara County’s ban on indoor worship services. Santa Clara was the only county in the country to continue such a ban. Banning indoor worship and yet allowing people to gather at airports, personal services establishments, and retail shopping is unconstitutional — and the Supreme Court has said so several times.
In support, the Diocese of San Jose worked with Becket Law to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the matter of Gateway City Church v. Newsom before the Supreme Court on February 24, 2021. We are grateful to San Jose’s Gateway City Church and The Spectrum Church, Campbell’s The Home Church and Orchard Community Church and Morgan Hill’s Trinity Bible Church for their efforts to uphold our right to worship in Santa Clara County, as guaranteed by the US Constitution.
All parishes, missions, and chapels in the Diocese of San Jose may resume indoor worship services up to 20% capacity effective immediately, but only if and when each parish can safely do so following all masking, social distancing, and sanitization protocols.
As we continue to protect the most vulnerable among us, the dispensation from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass is still in effect. Parishes will continue to offer outdoor and livestream Masses wherever possible for parishioners who are vulnerable to COVID-19 or hesitant about indoor worship.
Let us move forward in hope, continuing all necessary safety precautions and receiving the vaccine when it is our turn as we seek to protect life in our communities. Let us pray for all those suffering from the effects of the pandemic and its aftermath.
Statement provided by the Diocese of San Jose.
This guy leads from behind. Sure, maybe we’ll move forward in hope, but he won’t be leading the way.
Exactly, he celebrated Mass outside this past Sunday. Case in point…
The COVID trend is encouraging, not only here in CA but for the first time since the pandemic, there is really no state that is surging in cases. I am keeping my eye on the New York – New Jersey – Conecticut cases, as the decline seems to have haulted there.
God willing, our people will continue to mask and double mask, keep distance, and do things outside and the decline continues and the variants don’t take over. We aren’t over this horrible thing yet, but hopefully we can do this until as many people get vaccinated as are able.
I hope your Lenten disciplines are fruitful and that you all stay safe and healthy!
The elites are going to use coronavirus to control us.
They anonymous-ites are going to make us stupid.
CPAC was filled with Harvard grads, Yale Grads, etc etc all decrying the “elites”. Give me a break.
Are you and I the only people who understand that?
YFC, do you even care about the thousands of businesses shutdown by your beloved lockdown? Everyone take off your masks, quit being sheep.
Of course I care. I have had 3 friends die of this virus, and about twice as many infected who recovered. And they died because people deny there is even a virus going around or that masks don’t protect. These people died. They weren’t sheep, they were people. And they died. And many more will die unless we mask, distance, outside, and vaccinate. Many many more will be saved if we do.
They didn’t die because people deny there is a virus. Underlying conditions? Survival rate better than the flu. It’s a flu, for crying out loud. Just a flu. Lives were upended and an election was tampered with because of a flu.
Mask do not protect you just refuse to admit it. People die everyday YFC, What you and your leftist friends are doing is using this scamdemic to exert complete control until your Marxist dreams fulfilled ie everything will be controlled from DC and any opposition will be labelled as terrorism as it currently is. Your side is snuffing out freedom and smiling while doing it. Burns your masks…
At least the Diocese of San Jose filed an amicus/friend of the Court brief with the Supreme Court last week, in support of our evangelical brothers and sisters who are leading the fight for religious liberty. I spoke with one evangelical pastor and he was glad the Catholic church(es) joined in. Let’s give credit where credit is due. Better late than never. Thank and encourage people when they do the right thing and maybe the next time they’ll step up sooner.
Yes, but at 20% capacity? Where does that paltry number come from?
Sure glad I live in Southern California — much more sanity here, despite our liberal bishop.
Yes, the Catholic Church “joined in” but they did not lead like they are supposed to do as shepherds. Were they fighting for us? No. I am ashamed that all the filings were from mostly evangelical churches (of which I used to belong). Does the CC really care about the sheep who mostly haven’t been able to receive Sacraments for a year, esp. the dying?
Is there an update on Bishop Cantu’s decision to hire an abortion supporting and gay marriage supporting woman to be the president of his Catholic high school?
I’ve asked around and heard nothing. For many, if she is permitted to become president of a diocesan institution on July 1, any notion of Bishop Cantu being pro-life will be blown away. San Francisco Archbishop John Joseph Mitty may be turning in his grave. Currently, there’s nothing on the Mitty High website about the new president. Yet, I learned, “Recognizing that the world is constantly changing, Archbishop Mitty educators strive to be ‘guided by a changing generation and know that, therefore, every educator…is required to change, in the sense of knowing how to communicate with the young’ (Pope Francis).” I suspect they intend that to mean more than simply learning how to communicate with the next generation. A religious studies teacher there was promoting gay marriage years ago.
over half the department was teaching gay marriage would become accepted by the church eventually. now it’s probably just about 100% of them. when my daughter was enrolled there the girls’ baskeball coach and a Spanish teacher were in lesbian relationships/civil unions, and everyone knew about it. never again would I send a child to that school. problem is none of the Catholic high schools in the diocese are any better. probably get a better Christian education at Valley Christian.
The percentage of Catholic students at Valley Christian High School is surprisingly high. (I don’t know about their elementary and middle schools.) And, for the most part, Catholic parents and students are happy there. The percentage of Catholics on staff there has also increased. At least they know that Jesus is the Savior; sex belongs in marriage, which is one man and one woman; the Ten Commandments, etc. It’s tragic that most Catholic schools don’t even have that clarity.
YFC: Stop drinking the Leftist Kool-Aide.
“God willing, our people will continue to mask and double mask, keep distance, and do things outside and the decline continues and the variants don’t take over.”
Or maybe you should be really safe and wear 4 or 5 masks…
Dear Peggy…a half million of us have died. Two million around the world have died. I wish there were a cool-aid for that, but we have people who deny reality and drink the cool-aid of denial.
So YFC when do you and rest of the ruling let us live our lives again, let kids return to school, when will you release your iron grip, answer=never you are loving this power in the name of safety.
God bless Texas for declaring freedom from the covid dictators!
More people fly on planes wedged shoulder to shoulder every week than go to Mass every week (I’ll bet)…where are all the travelers dropping dead everywhere?
“And many more will die unless we mask”
Ignorance like that is the real pandemic.
Masks for another whole year, according to Fauci. Except Texas, the land of the free.
YFC we don’t know the actual covid death numbers. If you tested positive and someone shot you and you died from the gunshot you were counted as a covid death. Cynical but true…follow the money/power. Do you not know that you will not live one second longer than God wills it? I’m sorry for your loss of friends but God was ready for them. Would you have reacted to theirs deaths from say a car wreck the same way? I prefer to die while living rather than live like I was already dead.