Revised Mass Times
Church Health and Safety Measures
Phase 3 of the government's easing of Covid-19 restrictions will come into effect on Monday 29th June (full text here ). Under the heading Social : Indoor Gathering we read: "Indoor gatherings of up to 50 people when conducted in line with public health advice are permissible." Weddings and church services are examples of such gatherings.
For its part, the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference published a Framework Document on June 9th which began as follows: "As we look forward in joy and hope to the re-opening of our churches for the celebration of Mass and the Sacraments, we offer this Framework Document to the dioceses and parishes of Ireland. The purpose of this document is to assist priests and people in their own preparations and to help ensure that the re-opening of our churches for public worship happens in a safe and measured way."
Calculating how many people a church could safely accommodate in keeping with the 2m distancing requirement was a vital part of this plan to re-open. Parishes were asked to address the question: "Having considered the most up-to-date advice on physical distancing, what is the number of people that can be accommodated safely in each church?" (Framework Document, Action 5). Such numbers were duly calculated by the PPC and Parish Team for our three churches, in the expectation that Saggart, Rathcoole and Newcastle would each re-open on Monday 29th to receive varying numbers of parishioners according to each church's capacity. But these calculations based on the Framework document of the 9th June were not to be those arrived at by the government in its Phase 3 measures published on the 19th June (updated 21st), with their entry limit of 50 people no matter how big the church. Hence the disappointment expressed by Archbishop Martin (see here). The end result is that we will have to wait until Phase 4 on July 20th before we can open up our churches to admit the number of people we had hoped to welcome on June 29th.
The Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Team held a Zoom meeting on Thursday 18th. They discussed a range of issues to do with re-opening our churches, e.g. setting up a Steering Group, determining our churches' capacity, forming teams of volunteer stewards and cleaners, providing signage, drawing up procedures for separate entry and exit etc. We will keep you informed of all developments both here and on Facebook.
