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Religious Gatherings and Messages Around the World
Questions around the pandemic repercussions of religious gatherings continue to reflect both cooperation and tensions with state authorities, both of which may be putting down deep roots as well as shaping the course of the pandemic as it unfolds. Likewise religious messages, positive and false, underscore that these bodies play significant roles.
President Jair Bolsonaro in
Brazil has continued to push for houses of worship to hold services indoors, even as COVID-19 has killed more than 437,000 Brazilians to date. Many point to his relationship with the evangelical community, though there are differing opinions as to who is gaining more politically from his push to keep churches open. Two lifelong evangelicals who co-founded Christians and the Vaccine, a partnership with the Ad Council and the National Association of Evangelicals that engages with vaccine-hesitant evangelicals, wrote in an
op-ed in the New York Times that “the pathway to ending the Covid-19 pandemic runs through the evangelical church.”
The recently released
annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) touches on the tension between public health measures and restrictions of religious freedom. A section devoted to the topic reports on restrictions that harm religious minorities or otherwise violate freedom of religion or belief, as well as a wave of misinformation targeting religious minorities associated with the outbreak of COVID-19, including a global rise in anti-Semitism.
Sad news continues from India, where the pandemic is
spreading rapidly in rural areas. With a poor health care system that is not equipped to handle the influx of cases, many people are turning to religion and faith. Clashes over burial rites continue, with a
Parsi petition in Surat, India, seeking permission to perform traditional last rites (
dokhmenashini) of community members who lost their lives due to COVID-19. Meanwhile,
religious sisters in India are working around the clock to serve COVID-19 patients.
Vaccines also continue to dominate the news, with
resources for church leaders and
calls for vaccine equity from the Catholic Church and other leaders. The World Health Organization has partnered with Religions for Peace to launch a
webinar series on vaccine communications, with a first meeting on the role and impact of faith actors in global and national advocacy for vaccine equity and access held on May 20.
The video is available here. As a reminder, the
Faiths4Vaccines National Summit, a multifaith gathering to support equitable and far-reaching vaccine distribution in the United States, will be held from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. EDT
today, May 26, 2021.
Click here to register for the event. Houses of worship across the United States that have been holding virtual or restricted services since the start of the pandemic are also beginning to grapple with
when and how to reopen their doors, including the question of whether to require proof of vaccination.
Broader reflections come from an article on lessons to be learned from
interfaith leaders who have confronted global fearmongering and disinformation fed by the coronavirus crisis and the
2021 Strategic Note on Religion & Diplomacy, produced by the Advisory Council of the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy (TPNRD), which includes a special section on "Religious Actors, Health Care, and COVID-19 Response," with contributions from Katherine Marshall and Olivia Wilkinson.
