WINNIPEG, Manitoba (LifeSiteNews) — Another Canadian province has created new rules which restrict church attendance size based on the congregation’s COVID vaccine status.
Beginning today, the province of Manitoba, citing the omicron COVID variant, will restrict churches that do not require its “worshippers to be vaccinated” to 25 percent capacity or 25 people, “whichever is lower.”
Churches that require “proof of vaccination” however only have a 50 percent capacity limit.
According to the province’s Minister of Health Audrey Gordon, the new restrictions are “a necessary step.”
“This is difficult, especially around the holidays, but it is a necessary step,” said Gordon in a press release sent out Friday.
In addition to severely restricting churches that don’t discriminate based on whether one has had the COVID shots, the province is also banning the unvaccinated from gathering at home.
“Private indoor gatherings are limited to 10 additional people plus the household if all are fully vaccinated (youth aged 12 and under are exempt),” reads the press release.
In response to the new rules, Archbishop of Winnipeg Richard Gagnon, Archbishop of St. Boniface Albert LeGatt, and Archeparch of Winnipeg Lawrence Huculak, issued a joint statement allowing for Masses to be said for vaccinated-only congregations.
“A parish may choose to designate one or more Masses on each of the days of December 24, 25, 26, for fully vaccinated persons only, including those under five who are not eligible for the vaccine. In this case, the number attending must not exceed 50 percent of the normal capacity of the church space. Physical distancing and mask wearing must be maintained,” wrote the archbishops in a letter dated Monday.
The archbishops wrote that if a parish “chooses the above option, they must necessarily also provide a Mass on the same day which is open to everyone, with the understanding that these celebrations are to be restricted to 25 people.”
For the fully vaccinated Masses, someone at the church door is the be in charge of verifying one’s COVID jab status via the province’s vaccine passport, said the archbishops.
Manitoba’s new crackdown on places of worship is the latest in a series of provinces that have enacted new rules on churches due to the omicron variant.
The province of British Columbia enacted new rules which restrict church attendance size based on the congregation’s COVID vaccine status.
Many Canadian consider vaccine mandates an indefensible assault on individual freedoms given COVID-19’s high survivability among most groups, minimal risk of asymptomatic spread, and research indicating that post-infection natural immunity is equally protective against reinfection.
One of the inventors of the mRNA vaccines Dr. Robert Malone himself said that it is the vaccinated, not the unvaccinated, who are the “super-spreaders” of the disease.
The COVID-19 injections approved for emergency use in Canada, including the Pfizer jab for children ages 5 and up, all have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. For this reason, many Catholics and other Christians refuse to take them.