Credit: Mazur/cbcew.org.uk The French bishops’ conference announced last Friday that it would submit another appeal to the Council of State, calling a proposed 30-person limit on public Masses during Advent “unacceptable.”
In a statement issued November 27, the bishops said that they “have a duty to ensure the freedom of worship in our country” and therefore would file another référé liberté with the Council of State regarding the latest government coronavirus restrictions on Mass attendance.
A référé liberté is an urgent administrative procedure that is filed as a petition to a judge for the protection of fundamental rights, in this case, the right to freedom of worship.
On November 24, President Emmanuel Macron announced that public worship could resume November 29 but would be limited to 30 people per church.
“It is a totally stupid measure that contradicts common sense,” Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris said November 25, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.