April 30th Massachusetts Department of Justice Complaint Alleging Governor Baker is Violating First Amendment

April 30, 2020

 RE: Complaint against Governor Charles Baker of Massachusetts alleging violations of rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution

Dear Enforcement Officer:

 I submit this Complaint on behalf of myself, my family and Massachusetts Catholics who are subject to Massachusetts Governor Charles Baker Executive Orders (“Executive Orders”) which interfere with access and reception of Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, depriving those individuals of their right to the free exercise of religion under the 1^st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.   

                                                                                                I

Executive Orders for COVID19 State of Emergency

On March 23, 2020, Governor Charles Baker declared a public health emergency relating to COVID-19. He issued a list of businesses and organizations that provide ‘essential services’, a stay-at-home advisory and ordered all non-essential businesses to cease in-person operations. The Baker Administration ‘encouraged’ their determination of non-essential services to ‘continue operations remotely’.

1.       Houses of Worship/Religious Activity/Salvific Sacraments are not listed as essential services 

2.       Non-essential services prohibit gatherings of 10 or more which effectually bans reception of Holy Eucharist.

3.       Oversteps constitutional boundaries by providing unjustifiable exemptions for non-essential services while denying same exemptions to suspect classification

4.        Non-essential classification to Houses of Worship imposes unnecessary and irreparable harm that is wholly disproportionate to expected benefit.

                                                                                     II

Essential Nature of Catholic Sacraments and Why They Must Be Received in Person

The Properties of Catholic Sacraments cannot be received through the television or other media sources. They must be received in person.

Through Apostolic succession, Catholic priests have the power to confer Sacraments which contain Properties of Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Without the reception of the Sanctifying Grace and Properties contained in Sacraments, Catholics are deprived of spiritual food necessary to fight off temptations to engage in the commission of mortal sin.  The properties of Divinity in Sanctifying Grace ferment in our soul to affect how we think and act.

 Sacraments are the tools of sanctification and conversion.  Sacraments keep the devil suppressed in each and every life of those who know how to use their power. Sacraments seed vocations and avocations. They save marriages, keep people from addictions.  They are the power behind the efficacy of everything Catholics undertake or forbear. The continued deprivation has serious and potentially life-changing effects upon the spiritual welfare, and in fact, the eternal salvation of Catholics. 

On an April 20th webinar, Cardinal O'Malley of Boston stated that hospitals are reluctant to admit priests to give dying Catholics the Last Rites of the Catholic Church.  This obstruction effectuates a person dying in a state of mortal sin. 

In accordance with Catholic teaching the outcomes of the above rob Catholics of eternal salvation.

The April 20^th Boston Archdiocese webinar also announced the compliance with Governor Baker’s Orders would delay a return of religious civil liberties “two years or more” due to alleged burdens that ‘must be met for any consideration of opening up’, which include the following:

1.       Before Catholics can obtain Sacraments, the world must be free of any kind of symptoms of not just COVID-19, but any symptom that would be present in any kind of influenza.

2.       Each parish must set up ‘robust medical facilities’ for temperatures to be taken and conduct immunity testing

3.       Once yet to be invented immunity tests are conducted, scientists must determine “what that even means”. Citing numerous questions that will/may never be answered, a subjective opinion was expressed that ‘parish closures will go on forever’.

4.       Meeting criteria of all three phases of the National COVID Response team, Sacraments will not resume due to the possibility of reactivation and resurgence. 

Among Governor Baker’s determination of ‘essential’ are businesses that sell products for intoxication and inebriation.  In his granting of an exemption from the law to liquor stores, none of the above burdens are required.

III

Executive Orders Exercise Police Power in an Unreasonable and Arbitrary Manner by

Singling Out Places of Worship for Inferior Treatment

In order to be in the wheelhouse of lawful under the First Amendment, strict scrutiny mandates that government policy-based judgment calls contain no abridgment of constitutional rights unless it is necessary to accomplish legitimate, important and compelling government interest.

In various court challenges, U.S. courts reviewing laws subordinating constitutional freedom to police powers held:

1.       Restricting religious liberty must make a significant contribution toward state’s end to justify its incursions

2.       Restrictions upon religious liberty must further its compelling interest through appropriately tailored means

3.       The government must restrict other conduct producing substantial harm or alleged harm of the same sort

Applying the history of judicial review in US case law of Constitutional and justified use of police power restricting religious liberty to Governor Baker’s Executive Orders requires examination of:

a)       Whether Governor Baker’s determinations of ‘essential’ services are unbiased, neutral, rational and appropriately tailored

b)       The nature of conduct producing alleged harm required to obtain secular vs. religious services

c)       When conduct allegedly producing harm is so important that it requires repressing the fundamental right to the free exercise of religion, how does Governor Baker justify exemptions for alleged harm of conduct of the same sort to purchase Jack Daniels at a liquor store, coffee at Dunkin Donuts and daffodils at Home Depot?

What is possible justification goes into Governor Baker’s decision that coffee is an essential service but Sacraments are not?

Comparing risky conduct and cross-contamination involved in the purchase of coffee at Dunkin Donuts vs. Reception of Blessed Sacrament at Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

Dunkin Donuts

Observing recent rush hour at Dunkin Donuts, I counted 122 cars pulling into Dunkin parking lot to drive up to an outdoor window for a transaction with a person at a cash register. A high-school age young man wearing the same pair of gloves for each of the 122 transactions received money/debit card from a potential COVID-infected customer.  Wearing the same gloves, he then grabbed a paper coffee cup, poured coffee from a pot, grabbed a lid for the cup and putting his entire covid-infected gloved hand over the parts where customers would be putting their mouths to drink the coffee, applied pressure to snap the lid into place. Then, taking his gloved hand made two-three connections to the hand the customer to give them their coffee, donuts, card, likely cross-contaminated money from the cash register. During that one hour, cross contamination of contagion of 122 individuals was wiped on the mouthpiece of every single cup of coffee.   This activity happens every hour of every business day for tens of thousands of transactions across the Commonwealth.

Outdoor Mass to Meet Catholic Sunday Obligation Requirements of First Commandment

Outdoor Masses with families remaining in their car for the Mass and pulling up to priest who sanitizes his hands and administers the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist once a week involves far less risk of contagion than the above-described purchase of coffee.  The communicant does not hand anything to the priest that cross-contaminates his hands, and thus, nothing from the previous communicant gets transferred to the next communicant.

What is the constitutional justification for making an exemption for risky conduct in purchase of coffee, while not extending the same exemption for the reception of Sacraments which involves lesser risks?

How do exemptions from the law to accommodate the sale liquor and plants as ‘essential’, while the same reasonable accommodations are not given for the reception of Sacraments necessary for eternal salvation, pass the legal test of ‘least restrictive means’?

Governor Baker’s exemptions permit the admittance of hundreds of people into thousands of buildings every day.  Customers wearing the same pair of plastic gloves for 7 weeks are cross-contaminating products and conveyor belts. But the same people, meeting the same social distancing requirements, in the same-sized building across the street, are not afforded the same reasonable accommodations to receive Sacraments.

The failure to enact feasible measures to restrict other conduct producing alleged harm of the same sort renders the justification of the restriction of religious liberty in the Executive Orders to be unconstitutional.  There are approximately 1.8 million Catholics in Massachusetts who are affected by the Executive Orders. 

I respectfully request the Department of Justice commence an investigation into Executive Orders of Governor Charles Baker of Massachusetts and possible enforcement action for violation of First Amendment Rights to the Free Exercise of Religion.

Respectfully Submitted,