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Priests in parishes in Laois, Offaly and Kildare say that the local lockdowns have been met with a mixture of “frustration and disappointment”, as most parish activities were shut down overnight.
“The last time the response was fear, this time it’s more frustration,” says Fr Tom Cox of Clonmacnoise, Co. Offaly. “On social media, people are quite angry about it.
“We were just getting our confidence and poise back – [then] we had to cancel baptism and confirmations and that made for some awkward conversations at short notice,” he told The Irish Catholic.
Fr Cox’s experiences were shared by priests and parishioners across the Midlands, as public Masses were cancelled, and sacraments put on hold once again.
For a number of parishes, it allowed less than 24 hours’ notice before cancelling Confirmations, Communions, Baptisms and weddings.
Disappointment
Fr Peter Burke of Ferbane, Co. Offaly says the cancellation of sacraments was “a shocking disappointment”.
“We had confirmation ready for the Saturday,” he says. “The lockdown wasn’t announced until six on the Friday evening.”
Fr Paddy Byrne of Raheen/Ballinakill, Co Laois, says the lockdowns will test the resilience of those already “tested hugely” by the pandemic.
“The immediate disappointment was for families I was to celebrate Confirmation for,” Fr Byrne said, “wedding couples who for the third time are being faced with this reality and the big difficulty is the numbers restricted to attending funerals.”
The lockdown has also caused confusion as a number of parishes and dioceses cross county borders, while others queried the relevance of county borders in conducting local lockdowns.
“We’re sort of asking, ‘why Laois?’,” says Fr David Vard of Portlaoise. “When you compare us to Kildare, we’re not that bad.
“There doesn’t seem to be a real sense of geography in that Dublin is much closer to the centre of the outbreaks than I am in Shannonbridge, Offaly,” says Fr Tom Cox.
Pressure
While this puts pressure on some priests to continue the sacraments, the priests say that parishioners have accepted the restrictions and are abiding by them.
“Overall, I see people have hope,” said Fr Byrne. “It’s different than the last lockdown, not as draconian and hopefully it will be temporary.”
Similarly, Fr Liam Rigney of Athy, Co. Kildare, said that there is “a huge acceptance” of the lockdown: “Health and safety always has to come first irrespective of anything else, I know the decisions that have been made were not taken lightly.”