Chai Brady
A Dublin parish which was allowing people to come to their church after online Mass to receive Holy Communion has been told to stop by gardaí.
Traffic collision
Fr Binoy Mathew SVD of Mountview/Blakestown parish told The Irish Catholic that after a traffic collision on February 14 at the gates of the church drew attention to the practice, a garda told the priest Covid-19 restrictions required them to stop. The gardaí said that the hour and a half window given to parishioners to go to the church to receive the Eucharist was akin to an organised event.
The parish has not distributed Holy Communion since then but are now in contact with senior gardaí in relation to resuming it while adhering to pandemic restrictions.
“We are looking into the possibility of extending the time – maybe about five hours from after Mass online until about 4pm. If somebody comes, we can give them Communion and they won’t be allowed to stay in the church at those times” Fr Mathew said.
He started doing this last year in March when churches were first closed, saying it’s a way to administer the Blessed Sacrament and keep in touch with parishioners during the pandemic.
“You can take a host and walk away. This is maybe one way of keeping people sane in Ireland, keeping them connected to their faith. For some people religion means a lot and faith means a lot and this is a way of keeping in touch with them and lots of people have said they are very, very appreciative of what we were doing,” he said.
Meanwhile, a priest based in a parish in Munster who wished to not be named confirmed to this newspaper that he had been celebrating Mass for a limited number of people behind closed doors as he considered it to be safe with all social distancing and other regulations observed. An anonymous tip-off from someone alerted gardaí to the practice and he was asked to stop by local officers, which he did.