By Very Rev. Bryan W. Jerabek, J.C.L.
Pastor & Rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul

The question of how to respond – as a society and as a Church – to the COVID-19 pandemic has not been without heated controversy. Responses seem to have ranged from "it’s a government conspiracy" to "it’s the end of the world as we know it," and criticisms against civil and Church leaders have run the gamut based on those responses. For example, some have seen the suspension of public worship as not total enough: we should not even offer confessions or the anointing of the sick (even with precautions) until the pandemic passes. Others have seen this policy as a renunciation of religious liberty or a lack of supernatural faith.

Early on in this collective struggle, it came to light in Church circles that this was not, in fact, the first time in our history that public worship in churches was suspended. The example of St. Charles Borromeo, the great cardinal-archbishop of Milan in the 16th century, was raised: when a plague hit that city in 1576, he ordered the churches closed, recognizing that contagion spread more rapidly in enclosed spaces. He organized Masses in prominent residential intersections so that people could "attend" from the windows of their homes nearby; he also personally ministered to many of the sick, ultimately contracting and dying of the disease himself.

Well, the 16th century was a long time ago and, anyhow, our times are different. But then another historic example emerged: namely, concerning when the Spanish Flu afflicted the United States in 1918. Yes, even in our country – and just over a century ago – churches had been closed due to an epidemic. Where some alleged that our current Church response was without precedent and lacking a supernatural outlook, here we now had two prominent historic examples of largely similar actions being taken, including one more recent. (Students of history can find plenty of other like examples; there have been many plagues and pandemics.)

Indeed, the Spanish Flu arrived in Birmingham, also, and in October of 1918 the decision was made to close churches here, as well. Last week, a parishioner of the Cathedral forwarded me a scan of a newspaper clipping in this regard. It contained part of "An address to Catholics" that had been published in The Birmingham News by Father Coyle, pastor of the then St. Paul’s Church, now the Cathedral. This item got my wheels turning: I first contacted Greg Garrison, the religion reporter at AL.com to find out how I might be able to research their archives to get a better copy of this article (it turns out, this can only be done at the public library – which is presently closed). But then, I realized that we had parish chronicles compiled by Father Coyle himself, and I set out to see what I could find in them.

Much to my surprise, I found not only an original clipping of Father Coyle’s "address," but also several other things that had been published in The News, including a letter to the editor, sermons from city pastors of various denominations and also a rabbi, advice for how to worship at home as a family, and some surprisingly frank editorial commentary on practical public health policies and measures that were being taken. (This last item was an article about how all known prostitutes in Birmingham – "unfortunate women" and "women of the underworld," as the article called them – were being rounded up to be examined for diseases.)

These clippings seemed to span about the last three weeks of October 1918 – corresponding to the time that churches were closed due to the Spanish Flu. And besides reminding us that history tends to repeat itself, they offer many valuable lessons for us today. It is my pleasure to transcribe in full Father Coyle’s "An address to Catholics," previously mentioned, which was in the collection of sermons the paper published. Father Coyle’s "A message to Catholics" is also reproduced herein. I have annotated both of these discourses with footnotes, since some of the expressions used in them might not be so clear to us today.

We must remember that in 1918 the entire state of Alabama and part of the Florida panhandle was one single ecclesiastical jurisdiction: the Diocese of Mobile. Father Coyle, as a dean (regional vicar) and pastor of St. Paul’s, then the most prominent church in the northern part of the state, would have been a well-known and influential voice for Catholics in Birmingham. He was also a zealous preacher. It’s not surprising, then, that he took full advantage of the opportunities presented by The Birmingham News to reach the faithful. If social media and things like live-streaming existed then, we could imagine he would have used those means, also.

Before reproducing his "address" and his "message," however, I would like to point out a few of the other relevant details I found in the archival material. First, there was the letter to the editor: it was a dissenting opinion, written by a bible teacher named C.H. Watson – we don’t know from which church, but presumably a Protestant one. He or she did not agree with the closure of churches and provided an argument with ample scriptural citations, including the ideas that the epidemic was a chastisement from God and that we should worship Him more, not less, as a result. The letter was written very respectfully, and from it we can easily see how decisions to close churches were and are prudential ones, about which good people can disagree.

Father Coyle's approach differed. In an article entitled, "Masses will be held in homes. To be first Sunday services are not held in Catholic Churches," he instructed Catholics to read the texts of the Mass devotionally from their hand missals together at home. He saw this response as a reasonable civic duty: "…in loyal cooperation with the State, county and city health authorities no services will be held in the Catholic Churches until these authorities advise that all danger of infection is past. Unlike non-Catholics, Catholics are bound under pain of sin by the precept of the Church to hear Mass Sundays and certain holy days. A legitimate excuse, of course, annuls the obligation."

Father Christopher Smith, a priest of the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, commented last week on Father Coyle’s "address" and highlighted his courage: Coyle was no shrinking violet. He was committed to doing what was right even if it meant dying for it – and die he did, only three years later, after he presided over the marriage of a Birmingham convert from Protestantism (against the will of her father) with a Puerto Rican man. The girl’s father shot Father Coyle to death as he prayed his breviary on the front porch of the St. Paul’s Rectory; worse still, the culprit was subsequently acquitted on the charges of murder by a kangaroo court.

A Cathedral parishioner, Amy Welborn, also commented last week on Father Coyle’s response to the Spanish Flu on her popular blog, Charlotte Was Both. After noting that the response then was analogous to what we are doing today with livestreamed Masses and email blasts, Welborn quoted from a section of Father Coyle’s "An address to Catholics" and concluded: "faced with this circumstance, this justifiable order from the civil government to suspend the public practice of one essential aspect of Catholic practice, what does Father Coyle do? Evangelize." For whereas other ministers had published sermons, Father Coyle wrote his "address" as an apologetic explanation of Catholic worship, clearly knowing that non-Catholics would read it. 

Livestreamed Masses are most certainly not the same as the real thing. But who knows how many people are seeing Mass for the first time as a result? How many are being touched spiritually by this effort not only to reach existing Catholics but to evangelize, thus experiencing an invitation to learn more about the Catholic Church, as the videos pop up in their social media and email? This is one probable "silver lining" of the otherwise "dark cloud" that COVID-19 has been for us all: our local Church’s prudent response may, in the end, help some lapsed Catholics and non-Catholics come to the practice of the Catholic faith. 

Good people can disagree on many things, including how we handle the present concern. But let us pray that good fruit will come out of our good-faith efforts – and then wait with patience to see what the Lord does. Some of our ancestors in the faith lived through similar times and similar decisions; they kept the faith and handed it on to us. Thanks be to God!

AN ADDRESS TO CATHOLICS.
By Rev. Father James E. Coyle, 
Pastor of St. Paul’s Catholic Church.

My Dear Catholic Brethren:

A situation unprecedented in the history of our State presents itself to you today.

By order of the civil authorities, and by the advice of your religious leaders, you will not assemble, as you were wont to assemble on Sundays, in your various Catholic churches to assist at Holy Mass. That you may have some words of uplift and cheer, The Birmingham News, with its wonted up-to-dateness, has courteously invited me to write a few words for its many Catholic readers, and I am thus enabled to address, by means of the printed word, a congregation greater far than the five congregations that Sunday after Sunday gather at St. Paul’s.¹ I gratefully accept the courtesy of The News.

You are for the first time in your lives deprived of the opportunity of hearing Mass on Sunday, and you will, I trust from this very circumstance, appreciate more thoroughly what Holy Mass is for the Catholics. Sunday service is no mere gathering for prayer, no coming to a temple to join in hymns of praise to the Maker, or to listen to the words of a spiritual guide, pointing out he means whereby men may walk in righteousness and go forward on the narrow way that leads to life eternal. No, there is something else that draws the Catholics, to the wonderment of non-Catholics, from their warm homes on cold bleak Winter dawns to trample through snow-covered streets in their thousands and hundreds of thousands to a crowded church, where they kneel reverently absorbed in the contemplation of a man, who in a strange garb, at a lighted altar, genuflects and bows and performs strange actions and speaks in a long dead tongue.² What draws the multitude? 

The Mass, the unutterable sweetness of the Mass. Nothing human could draw, but the Mass is the God-given sacrifice offered the Creator, it is Holy Thursday come down and Calvary made present today. Mass is God really and truly present on our Catholic altars, a living unbloody victim offered again for the sins of men, offered, too, in thanksgiving for all the wondrous graces that unceasing flow from God’s great mercy throne on high.

Yes, the Mass is the center of Catholic worship. It is the Mass that matters. Where the Mass is, there is God Himself, really, truly, though under sacramental veils. What a glorious history the history of the Mass! See it offered in the first centuries, in the catacombs over the bodies of martyrs by men who themselves will be martyred tomorrow. The Missionary leaving Rome for lands afar brings with him to sway the hearts of men, when the persuasive words of human wisdom fail, the Eucharistic God, made present in the Mass. See, in Ireland an entire people kept true to St. Patrick’s faith by the Mass. See Columbus and his men, kneeling at Mass on the early morn of the day, when they sailed away from Palos, to lift forever the mists from the Atlantic, and to win half a world for God. Ah, brethren, let us today reflect on the meaning and the history of that great sacrifice at which we may not assist, a sacrifice that links us with the saints and sages of every age from Christ’s time till now, and let us beg God in His mercy to remove from us that sickness that keeps us deprived of the great sacrifice, so that soon we may again with glad, worshipful hearts, meet in our churches and assist in offering to the All High that clean oblation, seen by the prophet Malachy in vision,³ that sacrifice that is offered in every place from the rising to the set of sun.

A MESSAGE TO CATHOLICS.
By Rev. James E. Coyle,
of St. Paul’s Catholic Church.

The vigorous efforts made by the health authorities of our city to stamp out the epidemic is, in one form or another, working hardship and discomfort to every single citizen, and this hardship and discomfort is cheerfully endured for the universal good. "All partial evil universal good."¹

Sunday without Holy Mass is the chief discomfort the Catholics have to put up with. To many the memories handed down from penal days, "when godless persecution reigned, and Ireland hopelessly complained," vividly arise.² We can appreciate how they felt in those days now happily passed forever. Sunday for Birmingham Catholics was wont to be a joyful day. These Sundays it is the reverse. It is certain as good comes from every evil, that a deeper appreciation of the holy sacrifice will result from this necessary legislation. How true it is that we never really appreciate our blessings till deprived of the same for a season.

After Mass the sacraments are missed. When we speak of the sacraments we ordinarily mean the two of the seven that are so frequently received by the devout Catholic, the sacrament of mercy, penance and the sacrament of love, holy Eucharist. Sunday after Sunday, thank God for it, large numbers of our people, having cleansed their souls in the blood of the lamb by a sincere confession of sin, have knelt at the altar rails and received into their hearts the very body and blood of the Son of God. Nay, not only on Sundays, but the piety of some induced moreover the reception of the sacraments on Thursday at holy hour, and some there were that every day took daily supersubstantial bread,³ the living bread coming down from heaven, His flesh for the life of the world.⁴ Deprived of this they grieve and hope and pray that the time of exile will be short, and that soon again daily Mass and daily communion will bring some of heaven’s brightness into their daily lives.

Indeed and indeed, “the times are out of joint.”⁵ Holding as we do with firmest faith a belief that to many is folly, that Holy Mass is Calvary continued, that our sins, when repented of sincerely and confessed to one of those who inherit apostolic powers, through Holy Orders handed down, are washed away, that Holy Eucharist is the true, real substantial body and blood, soul and divinity of God’s Son, the incarnate second person of the trinity, Jesus Christ, small wonder that deprived of access to these we hope and pray fervently that the epidemic will soon pass away, that our churches may once more be thrown open to our devout worshippers. Darkness in a sense is at present over the face of the city. May there soon be a fiat lux.⁶

Footnotes for "An Address to Catholics."
¹Father Coyle here means that there would have been five distinct Masses each Sunday morning at St. Paul’s at that time.
²Mass was only offered in Latin then.
³Here Father Coyle refers to an Old Testament passage from the prophet Malachi that has traditionally been understood as referring to Christ’s sacrifice as perpetuated through Holy Mass: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a clean offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 1:11)

Footnotes for "A Message to Catholics."
¹This is a quotation from “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope, first published around 1733 – which evidently was better-known to readers in 1918.
²He quotes from a poem called “The Penal Days” by the famous 19th century Irish poet, Thomas Osborne Davis.
³Here Father Coyle refers to the Lord’s Prayer as it came down through the Latin Vulgate, in which, instead of saying, “Give us this day our daily bread,” said, “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread.” This variation arises from the fact that there are many [] biblical manuscripts in existence, among which there are differences. Because we do not have the original copies of any of the biblical manuscripts, scholars have the task of determining which variants are closest to the original; this they do through critical evaluation. Therefore, since Father Coyle’s time, scholarship has settled largely on the “daily bread” version instead of “supersubstantial bread.” Both variants are an important part of our Catholic textual tradition.
⁴It must be remembered that Holy Communion was generally not received as frequently in Father Coyle’s time. Devout Catholics always attended Mass but did not always receive Holy Communion at every Mass they attended.
⁵This appears to be a quotation from a 1904 work of fiction by Herbert Hayens, My Sword’s My Fortune: A Story of Old France. Father Coyle’s frequent use of literary quotations indicates that he was well-read.
⁶“Fiat lux” is Latin for “Let there be light” – the first words that God spoke in the book of Genesis, as they came down through the Ancient Vulgate version of the Sacred Scriptures.