CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 09:30 am
New Mexico has agreed to apply the same reopening criteria to churches as it does to retail businesses, after the governor issued updated safety regulations for the coronavirus pandemic.
"Great news out of New Mexico in a religious freedom case: The state told a federal judge that it will now allow houses of worship to have same percentage of people attend worship services that can attend all [state] retailers," Montse Alvarado, vice president and executive director at Becket, tweeted on Saturday.
Becket filed an amicus brief in the case of Albuquerque's Legacy Church against the state's public health order.
New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham closed non-essential businesses on March 24 and banned "mass gatherings" of five or more people in the state. Churches were initially exempt from the ban, although the state's Catholic dioceses stopped public Masses by the end of March to help curb the spread of the virus.