Clarity is sought on some celebrations as diocese eyes church reopenings
WHILE peaceful places generally, Co Wexford’s churches remain even more silent than usual. While some priests around the diocese have thoroughly embraced technology as a means of keeping in touch with parishioners, for many the inability to visit their local church has left an inescapable void for them.
With the exception of severely curtailed funeral services, everything else has been postponed until the dust settles on the pandemic. Included in this are baptisms, communions, confirmations and weddings and while members of the clergy are still fielding calls from an anxious public keen for these celebrations to go ahead, they are on unsteady ground. The diocese is seeking clarity in particular on baptisms and weddings, while they are reluctant to put any plans in place for confirmations and communions just yet, lest they be changed and cause further uncertainty.
A situation in Bunclody garnered headlines recently, after a priest agreed to perform a small family wedding, however, gardaí called it off with just hours to go. This has led to some confusion.
‘Well on one hand we have Leo Varadkar saying that some small weddings and baptisms can take place, but the gardaí in Enniscorthy are saying no,’ said Fr John Carroll, Communications Officer for the Diocese of Ferns. ‘I mean there are instances where people are keen for these things to go ahead because somebody is ill or something like that. We’re awaiting advice on that at the moment.’
On communions and confirmations, Fr Carroll said that the diocese is keen not to add to uncertainty by making an announcement before they are sure of how things will work out.
‘Until things are a little clearer, we don’t want to make any announcements on what will happen there,’ he said. ‘There’s enough uncertainty out there at the moment. It will probably be a few weeks before we know. For the moment, we’re working hard on a plan to be able to reopen churches on Sundays and ensuring all the churches are compliant with the health and safety guidelines.’
‘Currently, the government has us to re-open in phase four which is July 20,’ Fr Carroll continued. ‘That’s only the guts of five weeks before kids in confirmation classes head off to secondary school, so I’m not sure how things will work at the moment. No diocese is able to call it. The focus for now though is getting re-opened.’
This is a trickier process than you may imagine.
‘We’re in the process of calculating capacities and what our new capacities will be with social distancing,’ Fr Carroll explained. ‘We’ll have to mark out seats, put stickers on the floors to show distances and ways around the church and make sure we’re fully stocked up on things like hand sanitiser. Obviously in larger churches like Bride Street or Rowe Street, there’s plenty of space so that’s not an issue, but we have a great attendance here in Barntown for example, which makes things a little trickier. We’re probably looking at having about one third of our capacity.’
With little dresses and suits remaining neatly hung in wardrobes across the diocese for communion and confirmation days that never were, in Fr Carroll’s own parish, they ensured that children due to celebrate their first holy communion still had some kind of connection on their big day.
Principal of Scoil Mhuire Barntown Nicola Roche and teachers of the communion classes Ms Furlong and Ms Cullen attended a special mass with music and readings and spoke to the children via webcam.
‘It was really nice,’ said Fr Carroll. ‘I think if you look at it, there is a very palpable hunger among young people to return to church, which is really encouraging.’