Proof of Vaccination for Congregations?

This week the local YMCA began checking on the vaccine status members as required by the province of Ontario. I had registered a couple of weeks ago so everything went smoothly. I have toiled away at the Y for periods beginning last Fall when there were no vaccines, so I haven't been overly concerned, but there is a degree of reassurance in knowing that everyone around me is double-vaxxed. It certainly hasn't been busy at the gym during the past 18 months. 

There has been some discussion as to whether communities of faith should have been included in the list of institutions and businesses requiring proof of double vaccination. I feel that as long as congregants follow careful protocols it isn't necessary to require proof of vaccination, although there has been some discussion on the subject within our United Church Region.

Broadview Magazine, the United Church publication, has offered a worthwhile article on how the United Church is proceeding, with interviews from across the country. The UCC as a denomination won't be requiring proof of vaccination and the observations of Rev. Tricia Gerhard make a lot of sense to me:

 Rev. Tricia Gerhard, minister at Sunset United in Regina, is chair of the executive council for Living Skies Region and former member of an ecumenical Saskatchewan COVID-19 advisory group. She is fully vaccinated and encourages people to follow suit, but says “mandatory vaccines make sense health and science-wise, but I am not sure they make sense pastorally.”

“Once we start segregating our communities of faith into vaccinated and unvaccinated, we deepen the grief and trauma that already exists in our communities because of the pandemic – it becomes another way of making worship and community support unreachable.”

Here is the link to the Broadview article https://broadview.org/united-church-vaccine-passport/