Covid Mea Culpas?

Zeynep Tufekci is a Princeton professor who writes regular op-eds for The New York Times. Her March 16 column, “We Were Badly Misled by the Event That Changed Our Lives,” generated no small amount of pushback. That was somewhat surprising, considering that just three years ago Tufekci was still being lionized as “consistently ahead of the curve” for pushing tougher responses to Covid.  

That was then and this is now. The column is another one of those “Oops! Excuse meeeee!” pieces about how the elites misunderstood Covid and their response to it. As we mark the fifth anniversary of the great global pandemic shutdown, expect to see a few more “you know, we made a wee mistake” essays.  

These were the people who were soooo clear about the “science” that we “deplorables” denied, the “science” on whose basis politicians mandated experimental vaccination and on which ecclesiastics relied to claim “charity” demanded we submit. Now, five years later, it seems many of those experts’ “certain” premises about Covid weren’t so certain after all. Tufekci’s mea culpa confesses we yet “may not know” the origin of Covid, but she is more willing to admit it may have been a Communist-Chinese-and-experimenting-gain-of-function-scientists’ lab leak.  

As I said, social media reaction to Tufekci’s moderate breast-beating was severe. In my judgment, one of the best reactions argued that we should convene a national truth commission to establish clearly and to everybody’s satisfaction who knew what when. I’d endorse that, but I want to follow up with a specifically Catholic angle.

I have repeatedly called for Catholic discussion about whether the Church’s response to Covid was proper and what should have been changed. I argue that precisely because of the pope’s own image for the Church just before Covid. Prior to the pandemic, Francis was promoting the image of the Church as “field hospital,” an image that was supposed to illustrate his “welcoming accompaniment” leitmotif that seemed to downplay the need for conversion and metanoia. But, when the pandemic hit, the Church globally shut down. Public Masses or sacraments were not offered for months.  

That response was evidence for me of the vacuity of the “field hospital” imagery. Real field hospitals do not strike tent in the middle of a battle. That’s when they’re most needed. Imagine a MASH tent closing down because the war is on and lots of people are dying. “We’re outta here…” That response was evidence for me of the vacuity of the “field hospital” imagery…Imagine a MASH tent closing down because the war is on and lots of people are dying.Tweet This

Now, 2020 was not the Church’s first pandemic rodeo. Church history is replete with examples of having to minister amid plagues, fevers, diseases, pandemics, and wars. There isn’t much history of the Church retreating from the scene.

Nobody, of course, wants to die; and early Covid presented all sorts of questions about what were appropriate or inappropriate responses. I won’t argue that. But engaging in “Monday morning quarterbacking” is not to reverse Sunday’s loss but to figure out how to win next time.  

Again, when a real hospital faces a crisis—a localized disease outbreak, a mass casualty event, or some other crisis—it typically does what’s called a “postmortem.” A freewheeling discussion should ensue about all its procedures and protocols to identify what went well, what didn’t, and how to fix the mistakes that were made. That’s normal postcrisis procedure.

Except in the ecclesiastical field hospital.

In the five years since the start of Covid, when has the Church in the United States had a comprehensive discussion of “field hospital” response? Whether closure of churches for as long as happened in particular places was correct? Whether how we provided sacramental ministry—including Last Sacraments for the dying—was proper? Whether there were other ways to offer in-person, not “virtual,” liturgy and/or spiritual support? Whether the intersection of local public health policies and church regulations properly respected the Constitutional priority of free exercise of religion (especially when abortion clinics and casinos were “essential services” but churches weren’t)? Whether the Church’s response to those public policies at the time (legal challenges) and subsequently (legal reforms) has been adequate to address what hamstrung the Church?

A year and a half after Covid broke out, Pope Francis launched his “synodality” project, a process that ran through two Roman sessions, the last of which ended in October 2024. The prolix document that came out of that Synod manages to talk about all manner of things, including how after 1,700 years we might change fixing the date of Easter. But in 67 pages of single-spaced text, you won’t find “Covid,” “pandemic,” or even the word “disease.” (Perhaps that’s balanced: the Pontifical Academy for Life’s 20 Point Declaration on Vaccinations never says “Jesus” or “Christ.”)

Isn’t it amazing that the defining event of the period immediately preceding the “synodal dialogue process,” launched at a time when there were still local churches not back in full operation, an occurrence that literally locked the Church’s doors is utterly absent from the Synod’s “Final Document”? A document subtitled “Communion, Participation, Mission” that does not address how the Church’s approach to Covid denied Communion, foreclosed participation, and impeded ecclesial mission in most places for almost a year of Sundays is surreal.

Catholics are repeatedly told to be guided by the insights of the Second Vatican Council. A major Conciliar emphasis was reading “the signs of the times.” If that is part of how the Church should address its mission today, it seems lots of people in the Vatican reading the signa temporis who managed to overlook Covid as a critical historical phenomenon need badly to visit ophthalmologists.

Pope Francis just promised another round of “synodality.” I’ll admit I am not sanguine, amid the ongoing sniping at settled doctrine and discipline that has characterized some of the synodal process to date, that we’ll get to an honest discussion of how the Church responded to Covid, even though we’re promised three more years of talking. Even about how St. Peter’s Basilica, with an interior area of 163,000 square feet, could accommodate only 200 people for Christmas Midnight Mass in 2020.

So, while the secular world is slowly admitting “mistakes were made” about how we responded to Covid, I’m not optimistic any similar admissions will come from our clerical caste.