The District of Columbia’s COVID-19 pandemic limits on attendance at houses of worship -- set at 25 percent capacity or 250 worshippers, whichever is less – were struck down in a March 25 ruling in United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The ruling by Judge Trevor N. McFadden noted that with Holy Week and Easter approaching, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington sought emergency relief from these regulations under the First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“The District contends that its restrictions on houses of worship are lawful and indeed necessary to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the Court acknowledges the District’s interest in stemming the spread of the virus, it finds that the archdiocese is entitled to relief,” Judge McFadden wrote in granting the archdiocese’s motion for a preliminary injunction against those restrictions.
The Archdiocese of Washington reacted to the ruling in a statement that said:
“We are pleased with the court’s ruling that the District’s 25%/250-person capacity limits on religious services are unconstitutional as applied to Catholic churches in the District of Columbia. This ruling enables us to make the sacraments more fully available to our faithful in time for Holy Week, Easter, and beyond. In our Catholic churches, we will continue to abide by our own safety protocols of social distancing, masking, cleaning, and other safety precautions to ensure safe access to worship while we also continue to broadcast our worship services online.”
In a March 26 email to priests in the Archdiocese of Washington, Father Daniel Carson – the archdiocese’s vicar general and moderator of the Curia – noted that, “As a result of this ruling, our churches in the District are no longer bound by either the 25 percent or the 250-person capacity limit. This ruling is effective immediately.”
Father Carson in his message to the priests said the archdiocese’s guidelines for the public celebration of Mass during the pandemic, first issued in May 2020 and updated that October, remain in effect. Those guidelines require strict safety protocols, including mandatory social distancing, mandatory mask wearing, hand sanitizing upon entering the church, and for pews and other church surfaces to be regularly and thoroughly disinfected.
The archdiocesan official’s message included a link to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s March 17, 2021 executive order, which extends her declaration of a public health emergency through May 20. In its section on places of worship, the mayor’s order, besides including the now-struck down capacity limits of 25 percent or 250 worshippers; also encourages virtual services, especially for those who have not yet been fully vaccinated; requires that places of worship must use a reservation system or other means to ensure there will not be crowding; and says household members may be seated as a group, but each group must be at least six feet apart from others.
Father Carson’s email pointed out that “the District’s requirements include no crowding inside or outside of churches, cooperation in the District’s contact tracing efforts, masking, social distancing, wellness checks for Mass leaders and other health and safety protocols that are consistent with the archdiocese’s own guidelines.”
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced in a Dec. 22, 2020 statement the settlement of a lawsuit filed 11 days earlier by the Archdiocese of Washington regarding the District of Columbia’s previous cap on attendance at houses of worship during that stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Nov. 23, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had issued an order setting a cap of 50 people at churches in the District of Columbia, which the Archdiocese of Washington challenged in a Dec. 11 lawsuit, saying that cap violated the religious freedom and First Amendment guarantees for religious groups by singling them out for more restrictive COVID-19 limitations on public gatherings compared to those placed on businesses and other venues in the city.
In an executive order issued Dec. 16, 2020, Mayor Bowser in response to the archdiocese’s lawsuit issued five days earlier, modified the limits for gatherings at houses of worship in the District of Columbia during the coronavirus pandemic to 25 percent of capacity and no more than 250 persons and established those same limits for other businesses and venues.
In mid-February 2021, the Archdiocese of Washington asked the District of Columbia to revisit its 25 percent or 250-person limit on houses of worship, to be in line with recent Supreme Court rulings and with lesser restrictions being enacted across the country for houses of worship as the pandemic’s severity lessened.
The District of Columbia declined to revisit those restrictions, so the archdiocese refiled its lawsuit, as was its right under the earlier court ruling.
Many Catholic churches in the District of Columbia had been faced with reaching capacity under the District’s restrictions, with some even turning away people for Ash Wednesday services and for the Sundays of Lent.
“As we were approaching Easter, we were finding this as an untenable position for our parishes” in the District, said Chris Anzidei, the archdiocese’s general counsel. “Anticipating the need for more worshippers for Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter and beyond, we petitioned the court to remove the 25 percent capacity and 250-person cap in place on religious worship in the District of Columbia. We asked to be treated on par with big box stores, supermarkets, and other essential businesses, and we have proven that we can worship in a safe and responsible manner.”
In their legal brief for the case, the lawyers for the archdiocese argued that the District’s restrictions were out of step with the rest of the country. The District of Columbia was the last jurisdiction in the country that retained a hard cap on attendance at religious services, and, at the time of the ruling, 49 states allowed more than 25 percent capacity for religious worship. Both Maryland and Virginia had already removed all capacity limits on religious worship.
The case examined the balance between the District of Columbia’s responsibility to enact safety guidelines during the pandemic while respecting the First Amendment rights of churches there.
Judge McFadden in his ruling wrote that the District’s capacity restrictions “discriminate against houses of worship” and that “the District’s restrictions substantially burden the Archdiocese’s religious exercise.”
The judge also said, “The Court finds the 250-person cap particularly troubling. It does not appear that this restriction was narrowly tailored to stem the tide of the virus. As the District’s order shows, it was designed simply to ensure ‘parity’ between houses of worship and restaurants.”
After noting that “the Archdiocese has self-imposed restrictions beyond what the District has required,” Judge McFadden wrote, “The District admitted at oral argument that there have been no reported outbreaks from attendance at the Archdiocese’s Masses.”
Near the end of his ruling striking down the District’s restrictions on attendance at houses of worship, Judge McFadden wrote, “The Archdiocese has represented to the Court that it will continue to adhere to the extensive precautions it has been taking already and limit the number of parishioners at gatherings in accordance with the size of its churches.”
A woman prays during a Dec. 24, 2020 Christmas vigil Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington. (CS photo/Mihoko Owada)
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Cardinal Gregory's Holy Week and Easter liturgies will be livestreamed (March 26, 2021)
National Shrine congregation capacity increased to 1,000 for Holy Week and Easter (March 26, 2021)
