Reverend Henry Torres told his parishioners, who had gathered on Palm Sunday in socially remote rows of half-empty pews, that God had not forsaken them.
The coronavirus had killed dozens of church regulars, St. Sebastian’s Roman Catholic Church in Queens, New York, and the pandemic forced it to close for months last year. But the parishioners were there now, he said, which was a sign of hope.
“Even through hardship, God is at work,” said Father Torres. “Even when people are in pain, even though it may seem that God is silent, it does not mean that God is absent.”
It’s a message many Christians – and the cash-strapped churches that serve them – are eager to believe this Easter, as the spring celebration of hope and renewal on Sunday coincides with rising vaccination rates. and the promise of a return to something resembling normal life.
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Church services during the Holy Week holidays, which started on Palm Sunday and end at Easter, are among the busiest of the year, and this year they offer churches a chance to start rebuilding their flocks. and regain their financial health. But the question of whether people will return is crucial.
Across New York City, many churches still have not reopened despite state rules that would allow them to do so.
The Rev. falls.
Nicholas Richardson, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of New York, said many of its churches have not reopened either. When the diocese implemented a program last fall allowing its 190 parishes to pay a reduced tithe to the diocese, about half of them applied.
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“It varies church by church,” he said. “Pledges are not necessarily drastically reduced, but donations to the fundraiser are desperately declining.”
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