(The Center Square) – Springfield’s Catholic Bishop is arguing against government-imposed shutdowns, saying the extraordinary measures to mitigate COVID-19 should be avoided in the future.
Illinois is still in Phase 4 of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 mitigation plan he unilarieraly implemented in May. That was after more than six weeks of a stay-at-home order that allowed only businesses the governor deemed essential to be open to the public, like grocery stores, hardware stores and even cannabis dispensaries.
In that time, more than 1.4 million people filed for unemployment in Illinois with tens of thousands filing for first time benefits each week.
The public was told the stay-at-home order was meant to “flatten the curve” of hospitalizations. Illinois had more than 5,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations on April 28 but since the second week of June the state hasn’t had more than 1,800 COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki made arguments against locking things down because of a virus in the bioethics journal Ethics & Medicine this month. He told WMAY radio in Springfield Monday his thinking is derived from Pope Pius XII differentiating between ordinary and extraordinary measures in end-of-life care.
“Yes we should do the ordinary things for protecting life, but we don’t have to do the extraordinary things that are being mandated,” he said. “What we did in the last six months was really extraordinary, in shutting everything down, putting people out of work, telling them to stay home, don’t go to school, don’t go to church.”
He equated the extraordinary steps Pritzker took earlier this year that closed businesses, schools and churches to taking everyone off the road to save from vehicular deaths.
“We should shut our highways, but we don’t do that,” Paprocki said. “But we don’t do that because it’s extraordinary, we have to go to work, we have to go to school so we drive our cars but we take ordinary precautions, we use seatbelts, we have airbags, we follow the rules of the road.”
During Pritzker’s stay-at-home orders, parishioners’ spiritual health was harmed as were young students’ development, Paprocki told WMAY. Not only that, he said lockdowns could be unconstitutional.
“No governor can say, ‘I’m suspending that right until this virus goes away,’ so I think there are real concerns here, avoiding any hyperbole or anything like that, of criticism,” Paprocki said. “But I think there’s some real legal and constitutional concerns of what Gov. Pritzker is doing.”
The bishop wants people to take away the message that it’s acceptable to follow guidelines to keep people healthy, but citizens should question government mandates that limit people’s civil liberties, such as attending church.
Messages seeking reaction from the governor’s office were not returned.
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