Sen. Kamala Harris invoked her faith during the vice presidential debate to insist that Judge Amy Coney Barrett would be treated fairly on account of her faith during her upcoming confirmation hearings.

“Joe Biden and I are both people of faith and it’s insulting to suggest that we would knock anyone for their faith,” Harris told Vice President Mike Pence.

Her comments came after the vice president lamented Democrats who have raised questions about Barrett’s Catholicism.

“We particularly hope that we don’t see the kind of attacks on her Christian faith that we saw before,” Pence said, referring to questions about Barrett’s faith that arose during her appointment to a circuit court.

Harris was raised in a Hindi and Christian household. Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, is Jewish. Biden is Catholic, and Harris boasted that he would be the second Catholic president to take office.

Barrett, Trump’s nominee to the open Supreme Court seat, faced scrutiny over her faith by Democrats in 2017 when she was appointed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor. “And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.”

Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow at The Catholic Association, accused Harris of being the “ringleader of anti-Catholic bullying,” pointing to Harris’ treatment alongside Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, of U.S. District Court nominee Brian Buescher. The pair questioned whether he was fit for the seat because he is a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable organization.

Harris, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Nebraska lawyer whether he knew Knights of Columbus “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and were against “marriage equality” when he chose to become a part of the organization.

Buescher responded that his involvement in the group consisted mostly of charitable work and community events at his local Catholic parish. He indicated he would abide by judicial precedent regarding abortion.

Researchers from the United Kingdom studied the association between religious affiliation and risk of deaths due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in England and Wales. Their study titled, “Religious affiliation and the risk of COVID 19 related mortality; a retrospective analysis of variation in pre and post lockdown risk by religious group in England and Wales,” was published in the pre-publication site medRxiv*.

Background

Researchers led by Charlotte Hannah Gaughan from the Office for National Statistics, Newport, UK, write that there have been several socioeconomic and behavioral factors that have been associated with the risk of deaths due to COVID-19 caused by SARS CoV2. Some of these factors have been associated with lockdowns that have prevented people from gathering. They wrote that “religious gatherings had been linked with the spread of COVID,” and they tried to understand the variations in the risk of COVID 19 related deaths among religious groups in the UK both before and after the lockdowns.

Religious gatherings and COVID-19

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concerns that religious practices and gatherings can “contribute to the spread of COVID 19”. The authors write that transmission risk is raised with “communal religious prayers and large attendance at religious gatherings and festivals” that raise the chance of community transmission. The authors write, “several studies have shown that outbreaks worldwide have been traced to centers of worship and religious ceremonies.”

UK stance on religious gatherings and lockdown and this study

In the UK, law mandated the prohibition of religious gatherings on 23 March 2020 to prevent community spread of COVID-1. The authors of this study aimed to see if the risk of COVID-19 mortality was different in England and Wales before and after such lockdown measures.

The authors write that around 67 percent of the UK population identify with a religion, and this does not corroborate with participation in religious practice. They noted, “75% of Sikhs attend regular practices while only 29% of Christians do”.

Study design

The team used the 2011 Census of England and Wales and the death registrations to look for age-adjusted risk of dying with COVID 19 for each religious group. They also gathered the socio-demographic information on the deaths as well as the risks for occupational exposure to the disease.

This was a retrospective cohort study, including 48,422,583 individuals from the 2011 Census. Death certificates were used to detect the risk of deaths among individuals. To assess the association between the two, they used Cox regression models. They calculated the hazard ratios (HR) pre and post lockdown period. There were a total of 36,726 COVID deaths, they noted. A total of nine religious groups were identified, “No religion, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Any other religion, or Religion not stated.” Follow-up time was from 2 March 2020 to 15 May 2020.

Findings and results

Results of the study showed a distinct association between religious affiliation and the risk of mortality due to COVID-19. Overall findings were:

• The average age of the participants was 47 years
• Compared to Christians, all other religious groups had a raised risk of death due to COVID-19.
• The risk of deaths was lowest among those who practiced no religion before and after the lockdown. The authors wrote, “For both males and females, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists experienced greater age-adjusted rates of COVID 19 related mortality than Christians”.
• Risks of deaths were more significant for males than females
• Muslim and Jewish males had the highest Hazard ratio of death due to COVID-19 when adjusted for age. The HR was 2.5 (95 percent confidence interval 2.3-2.7) and 2.1 (95 percent CI 1.9-2.5), respectively.
• HR for Muslim and Jewish females was 1.9 (95% CI 1.7-2.1) and 1.5 (95% CI 1.7-2.1), respectively.
• The HR for Buddhist males (1.0) and females (0.8) was reduced as was for Hindu males (1.3) and females (1.3).
• The team found that the risk of deaths was lower for some groups such as “Sikhs, female Buddhists, and those of any other religion, no religion, or unknown religious affiliation,” when compared to Christians when all factors were adjusted.
• The researchers wrote, “For all non-Christian groups, the national lockdown was associated with reduced mortality risk compared with the Christian group.”

Conclusions and implications

The researchers concluded that “Jews remained at a higher risk of death (due to COVID-19) compared to all other groups”. They wrote, “Lockdown measures were associated with reduced differences in COVID 19 mortality rates between religious groups,” and called for further research to look at the efficacy of prohibition of religious gatherings in reducing the risk of COVID-19 related deaths.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

The BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies broadcasted the 27th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium from Oct. 4-6.

The theme of the symposium was Religious Freedom: Rights and Responsibilities. Sessions of the symposium were broadcast online, unlike previous years when speakers and students gathered on campus. Translation of the symposium was provided in five languages.

Center director Brett G. Scharffs started the event with an online presentation. He noted that the center celebrates 20 years since its founding this year.

“The crown jewel of everything we do is our students,” Scharffs said. “Perhaps our greatest regret in not being able to gather in person this year is that you who are participating with us online will not have an opportunity to meet these students.”

President Henry B. Eyring, the second counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke in the Sunday afternoon plenary session. He introduced the topic of religious freedom.

“We have a deep commitment to the brotherhood and sisterhood of all and feel an obligation as followers of Jesus Christ to serve and bless those in all countries, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. In the spirit of our Master, who went about doing good, we seek to help lift the burdens of those in need, in any faith, throughout the world,” President Eyring said.

In the beginning session, Secretary General of Religions for Peace International Azza Karam spoke on the responsibility to speak in behalf of those who have lost their freedom of religion.

“Religious communities are persecuted today more than ever before. This is the time to be able to speak for your brother and your sister in the other part of the world whose right to thought, whose right to conscience, whose right to belief is being actively taken away. This is the time to speak out,” Karam said.

Addressing the audience from Nigeria, Ayodele Atsenuwa was part of the Monday breakout session panel. Atsenuwa is a professor of public law and dean of the faculty of law at the University of Lagos, and the director of the West African Regional Centre for Law and Religion Studies. Some of her insights dealt with the effect COVID-19 has had on religion, as many religious groups have been restricted from their places of worship.

“What people initially thought were limitations of fundamental freedoms, over time they came to accept that it wasn’t a government clamp down on religious freedom, but it was just an exigency,” Atsenuwa said.

Sharon Eubank, president of Latter-day Saint Charities and first counselor in the Relief Society presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared stories on her involvement providing humanitarian relief after natural disasters. Religious groups worldwide have joined together to serve affected communities. Their tolerance of other beliefs have allowed for occasions to worship together.

“Our principle of, ‘People deserve to express their faith safely and securely, whatever it is,’ allows for those kinds of opportunities,” Sister Eubank said.

Among other speakers during the three day event were Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service; and Suzanne Akhras Sahloul, founder and executive director of the Syrian Community Network.

In regard to minority and majority religions, speakers shared thoughts on how to help all religions feel welcome to worship wherever they are located.

Faizan Mustafa, vice chancellor of NALSAR University of Law in India shared his experiences. He said there is no harm in giving religious freedom to all groups because it will benefit everyone.

“If we do not give this freedom to them, people will feel suffocated and they will not have harmony and peace in the society,” Mustafa said. He went on to discuss that if India, being a multi-religious society is to survive, “we must celebrate our diversity.”