I don't know why you're getting voted down. It's a pretty central quote in the article, and it is of course ridiculous to assume that all religious people were at church between 8am and 9:20am on good friday.

if you read what I wrote again, you'll notice that our statements are not contradictory. Even if we assume that everyone religious visited church that day, even the Buddhists, I will continue to assert that they weren't all at church during that hour and 20 minutes.

I don't have any evidence, but I guess we could start looking at the schedules of nearby churches :) Wikipedia says that just over half of New Zealanders identify as Christian, but cites a survey that says only about 15% of the country attends church regularly. I wonder how many of the rest of them went to church at 8am and not, say, 10am, or that night, or maybe just skipped over Good Friday and waited until Sunday?

Anyway, that whole angle of the article was kind of silly. I was a bigger fan of the store owner's commentary.

It is at that early in the morning. Many would probably be out getting last minute supplies for dinner before heading off to church. If not that, then sleeping or working.

Good Friday is not formally marked by many non-Catholic denominations. There would be many religious people shopping on Good Friday who observe Easter but don't spend all day in church or at home on Good Friday. In fact, it is not even common practice in the United States for the general population to take Good Friday as a holiday.

I will add to that that Catholics in particular are highly unlikely to be at church in the morning on Good Friday since the Mass is not celebrated that day and none of the sacraments are celebrated. The only religious service churches have is around 3:00 in the afternoon.