Your Excellency,

Our leaders' response to the COVID-19 virus has posed an unprecedented challenge to our society. The shutdown of countless businesses, massive unemployment, social isolation, and the canceling of all public events, including public Masses, have taken a heavy financial, emotional, and spiritual toll on all of us. At this time, we need Christ and His Church more than ever.

While we are grateful for the technology that allows many of us to livestream Masses and unite ourselves at least in heart to our pastors and parish families, we also acknowledge that the graces received from watching a Mass remotely are not the same as those received from assisting at Mass in person. We also sadly acknowledge that the Eucharist, as the true Bread of Life which nourishes our souls, cannot be received over an internet connection, nor Its strength communicated to us in fullness by our desires alone. At a time when some people are sick with physical illnesses, many more are spiritually ill and hungry for the grace that can only be obtained by physically attending Holy Mass.

Many of the faithful are eager to return to Mass, and desire to receive the One Who is present there in a special way. However, Your Excellency has not publicly joined us in the urgency of our desire, nor expressed "holy impatience" for the faithful to return to the public celebration of the sacraments. We urge you to take a cue from the liquor stores of Denver, who successfully protested their closing as detrimental to the lives of those who rely on them. Is the Mass less necessary for the spiritual life than alcohol is for physical life? Yet most of the messages we have received have prioritized avoiding illness, as though the life of the body were more important than the life of the soul.

We acknowledge that reasonable precautions may be necessary to minimize the risk of disease transmission during Mass, and that dispensations from attending Mass may be prudent for certain individuals at high risk of contracting life-threatening illness. However, we do not believe that a complete shutdown of all public Masses in the Archdiocese of Denver is prudent nor proportionate to the danger we face from COVID-19. To the contrary, we believe that its suspension weakens us spiritually, and adds to the great harm we are already experiencing from our society's shutdown.

If you truly hold the Eucharist to be the source and summit of the Christian life, as stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, show forth that belief by reopening our churches for public Masses.

In Jesus and Mary,
The Faithful of the Archdiocese of Denver