Dear All,

As I’m sure you’ve already heard, the First Minister today announced that places of worship will be able to reopen for public worship from Friday 26^th March (the Friday before Holy Week). This is great news, but it is conditional on the current improvements in the statistics continuing, and a final decision will be made on Tuesday 23^rd March. Whilst it is conditional, I’m sure the Government would not have announced this unless they were pretty confident that it would happen.

If/when we do reopen, the maximum permitted attendance will be 50 (not 20, as it was before the latest shutdown). This is, as always, dependent on keeping 2m social distancing – smaller churches may have a lower maximum.

 All the other rules that we previously observed will still be in force – taking names for track & trace, cleaning pews etc. after Mass, wearing face masks, no singing, no sign of peace, the possibility of omitting gloria, second reading, creed, etc. to reduce the time spent in church, etc. We must follow all the same precautions that we were following last year, although hopefully the situation will continue to improve and these will be gradually lifted.  

If the Government/the Bishops do issue any updated requirements I will pass these on when I get them. We do not yet have all the details, but it is likely that the permission for public worship will allow baptisms, confessions, Stations of the Cross, etc., as well as Mass, but importantly for just now weddings will remain capped at 5 and funerals capped at 20. We cannot yet open halls, have social activities, etc.  

 In the near future I will send out advice on how to celebrate the Holy Week liturgies safely.

 As before, we must not reopen unless we have in place the plans and the stewards to allow us to do so safely, and we must make sure that we have sufficient supplies of sanitiser and disinfectant.

With best wishes, 

Canon Paul Gargaro

Diocesan Coordinator