Government’s ‘deafening silence’ leading archdiocese to court: Catholic lawyer

Archbishop J. Michael Miller has filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court to seek an exemption from religious service restrictions. He told The B.C. Catholic the decision to file was taken in case legal recourse through the courts becomes necessary, “but we are certainly not at that stage at this point.”

On Friday, Warren Smith of the St. Thomas More Catholic Lawyers Guild spoke with CKNW’s Lynda Steele about the legal challenge. His comments have been edited and abridged for clarity and space.

WARREN SMITH: (The lawyers guild) wrote to Dr. Henry and Minister Dix back in December, as we were obviously mindful that we were not going to have an opportunity to participate in Christmas, and asked for some clarification and guidance on what it might look like for us to be able to attend Mass again. We never heard back, and so we wrote again in January, asking if we might get some answers on that, and reached out subsequent to that to the Attorney General, and we’re sort of left with deafening silence.

In the interim a few more things have happened. Three churches in the Valley have now gone to court and are looking for an answer from the courts, and when the most recent set of rules (Feb. 4) were set down, setting us on an indefinite path, I think that brought to bear for the archbishop the question: do we need to go into a bit more of an active process to see whether there might be something that could be done for Catholics to be able to come back together for Mass and in time for Easter?

Like everybody in the community, we’re all in this together and we’re trying to find a way. I know that Dr. Henry believes the end is in sight, but the end has been in sight for what seems like the better part of a year, so it’s frustrating.

We saw 10 more churches this week file actions in the court along similar lines to the Catholic Church filing an action. (Archbishop Miller) had made a formal exemption request. The archbishop has been very good about wanting to work with government, wanting to help be a part of the solution. We have respected the government’s orders all the way through. We have stood down our Mass attendance, and that is something central to the Catholic faith.

The challenge is we haven’t had the feedback, we haven’t had the conversation, and it starts to get to a point where it’s frustrating.

We unfortunately received a letter from Dr. Henry declining our exemption request in the last 24 hours, and so now we’re having to think about what that means for us. I think we had put a very reasonable request in the hopes that we would be able to avoid litigation, but unfortunately they have taken the view that it is not something they were going to be able to grant to the Catholic Church at this time.

I think the action is going to be around seeking the orders be either suspended or struck down and I will leave that to counsel. Obviously, the archbishop has formally retained counsel on that matter.

There’s a frustration, and I think the struggle has been more of a question of fairness, and that’s what a lot of people in the community are struggling with – what’s allowed versus what’s not allowed. When you look at the question that the archbishop has asked – why is it that 40 people can gather for an AA meeting in a church and that’s perfectly allowed but the moment they open a Bible and start to pray and have a Mass service that would be not allowed – I just don’t understand that.

You talk about people gathering in restaurants and pubs and having spreader events. I don’t know the last time you’ve been in Costco, but it’s bedlam in there. Those are things that we’re currently seeing are allowed under the current orders, but you want to put 50 people in Holy Rosary Cathedral that can house nearly 1,000 people – you can have a person in every pew six feet apart and you still wouldn’t begin to have any issues – but that’s not a permissible event under the current orders. Is that fair?

We’re trying to do the right thing and we’re being denied the ability to do something that frankly is pretty central to a lot of people that are practising their faith, and it’s at a time when people are struggling with mental health issues. To suggest that taking away the ability for someone to be with their God and attend Mass is not permissible, but all these other things are, I think that’s where a lot of the struggle comes from.