#192
Fighting for the Vulnerable, Adapting Rituals, and Caring for the Dead

An interesting story coming out of Oregon this past week offers a glimpse of the social protection and advocacy roles that many religious institutions have played during the pandemic. St. Timothy's Episcopal Church is suing its city government after an ordinance limited their ability to serve meals to the homeless to only two days a week, instead of their regular six days a week serving meals that began at the start of the pandemic. This ordinance also requires churches and other charitable organizations to apply for a permit to provide “benevolent meal service” up to two days a week and with specific hours. This ordinance comes after residents complained that “vagrants” living in or congregating around the church had caused problems in the community related to theft, trespassing, and littering. St. Timothy insists that the residents’ complaints drove the city government to limit the help they provide and that it conflicts with their religious beliefs. St. Timothy’s has refused to apply for the permit, saying the restrictions “target and interfere with the congregation’s free expression of their Christian faith which calls them to serve others in need.”
 
China rang in the Lunar New Year on February 1. Many chose to gather outside shut temples to offer traditional prayers for the Year of the Tiger, while others lit incense at home. In Beijing, many gathered to bow in prayer before the gate of a famous Tibetan Buddhist temple that was shut because of pandemic restrictions. China has doubled down on pandemic restrictions as it hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In Turkey, ritual corpse washers called ghassals, who prepare the bodies for burial in accordance with Islamic rituals, say that their job has never been harder than during the pandemic. One ghassal, Eda Elal, said her sense of spiritual duty has helped her continue her work despite exhaustion, fear, and contracting COVID-19. "Believe me, getting COVID was more difficult than washing someone who died of COVID. Because you are sick yourself, you are waging a battle of life and death," she said, adding she received therapy because she couldn't go outside fearing she would be re-infected. Elal said two ghassals normally wash five bodies a day though, during the height of the pandemic they washed as many as 40 a day.