The Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Religious Exercise: Preliminary Remarks

Adelaide Madera

doi:10.3390/laws10020044

Abstract

Since 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has had an overwhelming impact not only on our personal lives, but also on domestic regulatory frameworks. Influential academics have strongly underlined that, in times of deep crisis, such as the current global health crisis, the long-term workability of legal systems is put to a severe test. In this period, in fact, the protection of health has been given priority, as a precondition that is orientating many current legal choices. Such an unprecedented health emergency has also raised a serious challenge in terms of fundamental rights and liberties. Several basic rights that normally enjoy robust protection under constitutional, supranational, and international guarantees, have experienced a devastating “suspension” for the sake of public health and safety, thus giving rise to a vigorous debate concerning whether and to what extent the pandemic emergency justifies limitations on fundamental rights. The present paper introduces the Special Issue on “The crisis of the religious freedom during the age of COVID-19 pandemic”. Taking as a starting point the valuable contributions of the participants in the Special Issue, it explores analogous and distinctive implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in different legal contexts and underlines the relevance of cooperation between religious and public actors to face a global health crisis.

Highlights

Since 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has had devastating consequences for our daily lives and on the European and U.S legal systems.1There is little doubt that there have been other deadly and widespread outbreaks in recent history, such as the 1918–1919 Spanish flu and, more recently, the H1N1 infection
The COVID-19 pandemic has been qualified as unprecedented due to its global character, high death rate, high and fast rate of infection, the lack of effective preventive strategies and scientific uncertainty, its devastating impact on health, political and economic systems and its social implications so as to give rise to a global crisis, in terms of public health. Such an unprecedented health crisis has negatively affected the enjoyment of fundamental rights
Several law journals have already produced Special Issues dealing with religion and COVID-19, and have suggested different keys to understanding the current tension between public health and religious exercise, emphasizing the urgency and complexity of the new constitutional conundrum that the clash of competing values has given rise to

Summary

Introduction

Since 2020, the spread of COVID-19 has had devastating consequences for our daily lives and on the European and U.S legal systems.. Several law journals have already produced Special Issues dealing with religion and COVID-19, and have suggested different keys to understanding the current tension between public health and religious exercise, emphasizing the urgency and complexity of the new constitutional conundrum that the clash of competing values has given rise to. The aim of this Special Issue is not to provide a directory of various legal responses to the COVID-19 health crisis. There is little doubt that restrictive measures have not been enacted with the intent to target religion and that they are expected to have a temporary nature. religious assemblies have often been considered as superspreader events, which require careful monitoring, giving rise to concerns about a risk of intruding into strictly church matters. Academics have warned about the danger that the authoritarian overtone generated by the pandemic crisis could be worrying in terms of fundamental liberties in the long term.

The Fragile Balance between Mainstream Religions and Religious Minorities

Reactions of Religious Communities to the Restrictive Measures

Structure of the Special Issue

Conclusions