Thread by @emdeardo

OK I think the time has come for my thoughts on the letting people back into church issue.
For those of you who are new here, I am immunocompromised. I had a double lung transplant 15 years ago. I know of what I speak. (1/

Throughout this whole thing I've kept hearing, we can keep the churches open! We totally can. People just need to not come if they're sick!
Folks. No one does this. VERY VERY VERY few people, in my experience, don't come to Mass when they're sick. (2/)

I know this, because I am acutely *aware* of who comes to Mass when they're sick. People come who have no business coming.
AND THEN they want to shake your hand at the sign of peace!
People do not realize that when they come to church sick, they risk other people (3/)

Response to this that I've seen: Well, at risk people just need to stay home (forever? I guess).
"at risk" people includes a LOT of people. My parents care for an "at-risk" person. Should they not go to Mass either? (4/)

There are people who have kids with cancer, or RA, or lupus, or etc. So should entire families just not come to church? Maybe we should consider other people when we decide to come to church sick. We are not *required* to attend Mass when we are sick! (4/)

(Oh wait, that's five. Sorry.)
Second thing I see: Oh, we can just limit how many people come in.
Can we think about this for a second? What are you going to say to people: Sorry, we're full, you can't come in?
That's a PR NIGHTMARE. (6/)

You want to tell a mom that she can't come in because church is "full" after she was fighting getting the kids dressed and diapers changed and all that? REALLY? (7/)

And besides that, how do you ensure "equal access" to Mass? Say you have 200 people. So the first 200 can come in--but if that's the same 200 people all the time, that's not exactly fair. "Tickets" are the same thing.
(8/)

Now, you could say well people just need to get to Mass earlier. Well, OK. That's fair--but sometimes life happens, guys. We all know this. Do we REALLY want to turn away people at the door? (9/)

I've also seen "Well, have a mass for the high-risk", but I think that goes back to the previous point, that people VASTLY underestimate who is high risk, and then, you're assuming people LOOK sick, or old. I don't, in either case. (10/)

I want Mass to come back. I miss Mass. I have gone through periods of my life where I haven't been able to go, so this is a lot like that for me, but I do miss it, like I missed it then. I miss receiving Jesus, like I think we all do.
(11/)

But talk about "tickets" or cutting off numbers at the door, or whatever, are all sort of terrible ideas, frankly. What needs to happen is people need to realize that if they are sick, they need to STAY HOME. FULL STOP. (12/)

Now, the issue with COVID is that you can be asymptomatic for awhile. OK. That creates an issue. So I'd say that we need to be cleaning churches--like, with Lysol wipes--often. We need to be wiping down pews and hymnals every Sunday or every Saturday. (13/)

Do it once a week. That might help. Wipe the door handles and such. Work it into general maintenance.
But the idea that people who are "at risk" should stay away from Mass just gets my dander up. (14/)

If you are sick, STAY HOME.
And do not shake hands at the sign of peace! My goodness!
Thus endeth the thread. (15/15)

OK no it doesn't, sorry.
IF YOU ARE SICK, or if you are coughing or blowing your nose, DO NOT DO THE SIGN OF PEACE. Do not extend your hand and then make me feel like a jerk for not shaking your hand b/c you are clearly ill!

And vis a vis: coughing, etc. This can be problematic too. Obv I coughed a lot, pre-tx. It wasn't contagious to other people--but people thought it was and I'd get lots of dirty looks sometimes. (cont)

I am a cough connoisseur now, so I can generally tell, but I know a lot of people can't. So yeah, this is hard. Coughing for a CFer is just par for the course, it doesn't mean we're going to get *you* sick. But, again, hard to tell.

So, again, one must practice *some* charity, and in that case, I probably wouldn't shake hands at the sign of peace just to give the people around me "peace" of mind, lol. And I'd maybe wear a mask.