
CDC/Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAMS. Public domain.
Just over a week ago, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve announced that the church was (temporarily) suspending meetings throughout the world as a response to the novel coronavirus. In the announcement, we’re asked to continue to care and watch out for each other. The letter also tells bishops and stake presidents to figure out how to allow members to take the sacrament at least once a month.
I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but the idea of taking the sacrament at least monthly, while nice in theory, could be a significant problem in reality. A couple days ago, a well-meaning member of my mother-in-law’s ward came to visit her. The visitor was, apparently, unaware of the risks of coronavirus, but my mother-in-law is in a high-risk demographic (older than 65 with some underlying health issues).
My mother-in-law lives by herself; she doesn’t have a priesthood holder in her household. Under current church policy, then, the bishop can’t authorize her to bless her own sacrament. For her to take the sacrament, somebody would have to bless it and bring it to her. (I’ve heard stories from and about other zealous—and caring—members working to ensure that single women, including older women, get sacrament, so my mother-in-law’s experience appears not to be unique.) But the person who brings it to her could be a carrier; after all, it appears pretty clear that asymptomatic individuals are a not-insignificant source of community spread. Imagine if an asymptomatic member of a ward brought the sacrament to a number of older women in a ward, infecting a number of those? That would be tragic. (And if any lived in an assisted-living facility? That would be terrible.)
But, in many locations, that would also be impossible. This afternoon, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a shelter-in-place order[fn1] for state residents, the third statewide order (after California and New York). While it allows for certain movement, I sincerely doubt that delivering the sacrament would qualify for those movements. In those cities and states with shelter-in-place orders, delivering the sacrament is not only a terrible idea, it isn’t possible.
So what do we do about the sacrament? One idea is just not to worry about it. After all, early in church history, members took the sacrament irregularly. It wasn’t a weekly (or even necessarily a monthly) occurrence.
If it is critical that members have access at least monthly to the sacrament, Jared has clearly explained that there’s no reason we couldn’t remotely bless the sacrament. (And what about the fact that some homes won’t have a teacher+ to prepare the sacrament? Well, preparing the sacrament doesn’t require priesthood, so that’s not a problem.)
It’s worth noting that the coronavirus underscores the disadvantages that face women in the church. Sure, we’ve shifted our rhetoric to assert that women have (or have access to) priesthood (in some undefined form). But priesthood without ordination, it turns out, is basically meaningless. We’re a social people, and we’re more than willing to go out of our way to help, whether it is giving a blessing or delivering sacrament. And most of the time, that can more or less make up for women’s lack of ordination.
But with social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, those makeshift corrections don’t work. If women can’t use their priesthood to bless the sacrament, and priesthood holders can’t bring blessed priesthood to their homes,[fn2] the priesthood that we claim women have, which we claim obviates the need for women to be ordained, is functionally useless. In a time when we need to stay away from other people, women don’t have access to the tangible benefits of priesthood unless they have male priesthood holders in their household.
For now, we really need to deemphasize the need for regularly taking the sacrament. After this pandemic has passed, though, we need to think seriously about the role that priesthood plays in our church, and how women and girls fit into that paradigm.
[fn1] Yes, I know New York Gov. Cuomo objects to using “shelter-in-place.” I also don’t particularly care.
[fn2] And I can’t emphasize enough: DON’T BRING THE SACRAMENT TO WOMEN WHO ARE IN HIGH-RISK DEMOGRAPHICS!!!!!1!