This made me laugh out loud. Early this afternoon I walked by a local church on the way to do some shopping and there was a group of 8 or 9 people kneeling in front of it praying. They were holding signs with various slogans, one of which said exactly that: Churches are vital business.
I should mention this is a Catholic church that serves the Eucharist during every mass where multiple people hand out wafers to eat, using their bare hands.
[edit: grammar and additions]
Catholicism has a long storied history, so there are provisions for almost everything.
I remember in school learning that if you were on shipwrecked on a desert island, you or anyone else could perform sacraments yourself and they would count just as well as if they were done by a priest.
This is the practice of “spiritual communion”. In modern times, it has most notably been used where a person is sick, or otherwise inaccessible to a priest (e.g. stuck in a mine shaft or on an oil rig or in space). This is currently what the Catholic Pope is promoting.
There is also a happy debate going on about if you can perform sacraments via the internet. There is nothing liturgical about distance to the participant. The rules regarding sacraments are more about intention and who is performing it. Some priest believe that physical presence is always unimportant, but our slow moving Papacy takes a more conservative stance.
Lowe's and Home Depot are open, Sherwin-Williams paint stores are open, the gun stores are open... People have different views on what is essential, to them, and nationally we don't have any agreement on what is and isn't essential or vital. There are many exceptions. Yes, to many people, their church is a vital service.
They probably could be. Policy responses have erred on the side of caution, which is entirely fair, but it's unlikely that clothing stores or bookshops are a significant vector of infection.
I guess next you'll tell me a church is a vital business like a grocery store.