Re: The President's comments on churches:

Churches are indeed essential for Christians, and the desire to worship together is a holy desire. But holy though your desire may be, it's not just about you and your desire....

It's about protecting the other person, especially if you are, like many people, asymptomatic. Wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and even not gathering in churches, protects the other person....

There have already been confirmed cases in Texas and Minnesota where Catholic churches have opened and the priests were found to have been unknowingly infected. Coming into contact with their parishioners, and exposing them to infection, may end up causing death...

...especially among the most vulnerable--the elderly, who are in many denominations the majority of churchgoers....

I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. If you have the measles and a doctor tells you, "Don't go to church because you might infect a woman who is pregnant," you don't rail at your doctor for "impinging on your freedom...."

What does the loving person do? You listen to the doctor, and stay home, even though it's a sacrifice, as a way of protecting the other person....

All these preventive actions are ways of caring for the other person--that is, ways of loving.