Time to let us go to Mass again

Few people in Ireland seem aware that we are one of the only countries in Europe that has put a total halt to public worship, writes David Quinn

The four Catholic archbishops have met online with Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, once again to express their wish that Catholics be allowed to gather in churches for Mass and other ceremonies as we get close to Easter Sunday, which falls on April 4 this year.

By then, we will have been barred from attending Mass in person for more than three and a half months. That is on top of all the time we were prevented from doing so last year.

Public worship

In 2020, we could not attend from the end of March, until the end of June. In places like Dublin and Donegal, public worship stopped again in September, and in the rest of the country from the following month until early December. Everything shut down again on St Stephen’s Day.

In other words, by the time Easter comes around, we will have been unable to attend public worship for about two-thirds of a year.

But there is absolutely no guarantee public Masses will resume by Easter either. The way the Government is talking, it might be weeks after that again, maybe sometime in June.

If public worship does not resume again till June, by then we will not have been to Mass in person for almost six months straight.

All of the main churches in Ireland have been reasonably content to go along with this for most of the time with little public objection. They know that their members tend to be in the vulnerable age groups, they are extremely sensitive to public health concerns generally, and they feel that stopping public worship is a form of social solidarity with all the other sectors of society that have been forced to close.

But there are probably very few people in Ireland who are aware that we are one of the only countries in Europe that has put a total halt to public worship, and for so long.

Almost all countries stopped public worship during the first lockdown last year, from March, through to some time in May.

In Italy and Spain, to name two of the bigger EU countries, no attempt has been made to stop public worship again”

But since then, governments in other countries have been very reluctant to stop public worship completely again. Limits on numbers have been commonplace, as have social distancing and hygiene measures, but for the most part, public worship has been permitted, or else courts have intervened to ensure it takes place, like in France and Germany.

In secular France, for example, since May, public worship was stopped again only for a very brief period in the autumn.

In Italy and Spain, to name two of the bigger EU countries, no attempt has been made to stop public worship again.

Public worship cannot currently take place in the North or Scotland, but both of those regions were slower to take this action than the Republic. And north of the border, the executive has been careful to consult the Churches and hasn’t simply imposed a ban on them, as happened in the South.

Recall that in late September, when Dubliners were being prevented from going to Mass again, the deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, told reporters that in the context of a pandemic, public worship was considered to be of “less importance”.

Recall also that public worship stops under level three, not just four and five. In level three, you can still go shopping, to the hairdresser, to the gym, but not to Mass.

Both the Government and NPHET have reduced public worship to an afterthought at best. It is one of the first things they stop, and one of the last things they reopen.

Furthermore, under the law as it stands, a priest could potentially be prosecuted for saying Mass in public and you can be fined for doing anything ‘non-essential’. Going to Mass is considered ‘non-essential’.

There are reports of Gardaí intervening in churches in Clonmel and Arklow because it was decided too many people were in those churches praying privately.

UK variant

Notably, in England Catholics can still attend Mass. England is where the more infectious ‘UK variant’ of Covid-19 is said to have originated. Nonetheless, neither the Government there, nor the equivalent of NPHET have said that public worship should be stopped again because there is no evidence it increases infection rates in the community.

This is the key point. Anything the Government does to slow down the virus must be backed by hard evidence, not supposition. If NPHET and the Government want to restrict a fundamental right like freedom of worship, the onus is on them to provide the evidence to justify such a decision.

They have never provided such evidence because there isn’t any.

Yes, you can find isolated examples of some churches in some countries that did not observe safety rules and caused an outbreak, but isolated cases do not amount to a proportionate reason to bring a complete halt to public worship, which is why so few European countries have taken such a drastic measure again.

Effect

When Boris Johnson did temporarily stop public worship in the autumn, religious leaders in England wrote a letter to him to voice their objection. This seems to have had an effect.

Unfortunately, no similar effort has been made here. Why not? Are our religious leaders too timid?

A statement issued by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in response to the meeting between the Taoiseach and the four archbishops would indicate that some are.

ACP leaders don’t even want public Masses restored by Easter. The statement said: “The ACP is concerned about calls for an Easter return to community worship.

“ACP members have significant misgivings about re-opening churches for Easter ceremonies, believing it to be a premature and potentially detrimental move.”

They provided no evidence in support of their misgivings and no mention was made of the much greater freedom Catholics and others enjoy in almost every other part of Europe. It was an extremely parochial statement in every possible sense of that term.

Logically, they should upbraid Pope Francis and the Bishops almost everywhere else in Europe for supporting public worship now. Logically, the ACP must think even the Pope is being irresponsible.

But of course, he is not being. There is no good reason for continuing the ban on public worship. It should be restored under safe conditions next month.