Chai Brady
Baroness Nuala O'Loan Baroness Nuala O’Loan has said that a statement made by the Association of Catholic Priests advising that Christmas Masses move online was “overly cautious”.
The ACP said last week that there is “alarm” in parishes regarding how Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Masses will be organised due to the traditionally higher number of people attending.
They said it’s time for reflection regarding placing “safety and science as our top priority”, “estimating the value of a token Mass” and challenging churchgoers “by asking them to sacrifice them [Christmas Masses] for this one year for their own and the community’s health and safety”.
Baroness O’Loan said the statement would be “disappointing” for volunteers and stewards who have worked hard to make churches safe during the pandemic to hear.
“If you control the risks as best you can, you just need to get on with life and I think that closing all the churches sends a terrible message, that it doesn’t really matter if you’re there or not. The message to my mind should be ‘Ok we accept that we have to have restrictions but let’s do it and let’s do it with a joyful heart’,” she said.
“It’s obviously possible to make them safe because churches have been functioning, on and off I grant you, throughout the time that they’ve been allowed to be open and they have made it safe. It does seem overly cautious. If you can go to the supermarket, go to the pub, go to all these places I think people will want to take the risk to get to Mass.”
However, Baroness O’Loan said that the health of an individual parish priest must be taken into account particularly when they are elderly, but “it’s very, very important that we put the Eucharist at the core of the question and we say that this is central to our Faith and we should do what we can to allow people to go”.