Illinois State Police, ministers want you to stay home for Easter to fight coronavirus
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Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly and church ministers on Thursday urged all persons of faith to obey Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s order to stay at home this week of Easter and Passover to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that has caused 462 deaths across the state as of Wednesday.
Bishop Henry Phillips of the Power of Change Christian Church in Cahokia said religious leaders and their followers need to break traditions this week and stay home to help save lives.
In southwestern Illinois, nine people have died in COVID-19-related cases.
Phillips and three other ministers spoke during a news conference at the Illinois State Police District 11 headquarters in Collinsville. They suggested residents watch religious services online this week instead of gathering in places of worship.
Easter and Passover are important occasions usually marked with large crowds but Phillips said, “With COVID-19, those traditions have to be broken.”
“It’s not as many have said, ‘Well, this is the state impeding upon the church.’ This is not an issue of separation of church and state. It’s a separation of life and death,” Phillips said.
Kelly, the former St. Clair County State’s Attorney, said police officers will not be “storming” into churches on Easter morning, but cautioned that if there is evidence that large groups had gathered, there could be consequences.
Kelly said informing and educating the public is best tool to prevent large gatherings where the coronavirus could spread throughout a congregation.
Illinois State Police last month outlined a six-step process on how law-enforcement officers would enforce Pritzker’s order:
▪ Education about the order
▪ Verbal or written notice to comply
▪ Possible sanction from regulatory authorities that may oversee non-essential activity
▪ Civil liability
▪ Court ordered closure or quarantine
▪ Criminal charges
Pritzker has ordered all state residents to stay at home and all schools to remain closed until April 30 in an effort to prevent the spread of the respiratory disease caused by new coronavirus first identified in China this winter.
“There are some signs of hope that the curve is being bent but now is not the time to let up on that pressure,” Kelly said.
“The message from the governor has consistently been that we want people to voluntarily comply. There are incremental steps for enforcement. Use of law enforcement … is frankly the last resort.”
Phillips said he’s heard the argument from pastors that banning large groups and ordering people to stay at home instead of going to religious services is not in scriptures.
But he countered that with his own message from scripture and cited the passages about the Passover in the book of Exodus when people were told to stay home until the plague passed and how Noah and his family were part of the “quarantine” on the ark to avoid the “pandemic flood.”
“Go back to the scripture,” Phillips said. “If you understand the very first Passover, it was a quarantine. This is a quarantine exercise that we need to practice.
“So pastors, there are many, many, many passages of scripture that support this principle of quarantine. Stay home.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 11:46 AM.
