‘Saying mass is surreal as we are all suffering’
“IT isn’t easy. Our gates are closed and the church is locked,” said Fr Bryan Shortall, echoing the sentiments of many priests during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Capuchin friar had to take on extra funerals at crematoriums in north Dublin because many local priests are over 70 and confined to cocoons in their homes.
“I’ve done the funerals but it’s rotten, it’s awful,” said Fr Shortall, explaining how he is deeply saddened to witness the suffering of bereaved families being made worse by not being allowed to sit together, or hold each other in almost empty churches.
Yet he remains hugely positive about his work as a priest and believes the challenge of the Covid era is “a great time to be in religious life”.
Aged 50, he is parish priest of Saint Francis of Assisi parish in Priorswood, Dublin The parish has been served by Capuchin Franciscans since it was established in 1974.
He sat on a wooden bench in bright sunshine at a grotto on the church grounds as he spoke of the upheaval in parish life in Ireland.
As traffic passed on Clonshaugh Drive, he said he found his niche in life after joining the Capuchins straight from Synge Street CBS in Dublin when he became “more and more captivated by Saint Francis of Assisi”.
“Never was the message of Saint Francis more relevant than it is today in recognising the dignity of nature, the dignity of the earth… and the greatest of God’s creation is the human person,” he said.
He shares the presbytery with Fr Bill Ryan, who was his first mentor in the Capuchins. Fr Bill is in his 70s and is cocooning. Fr Shortall said he does not doubt that many priests who are cocooning are feeling lonely. Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who is himself cocooning, has been on the telephone regularly with his cocooning priests.
The parish priest uses his smartphone to stream his masses on Facebook Live from a small chapel within the church at 11.30 each morning. He said 150 to 170 tuned into his mass last Wednesday and a total of 460 people had viewed it throughout the day.
He recites the rosary on Facebook Live at night. He said: “Last night, I did a nighttime prayer and a decade of the rosary here at the grotto and it had 370 comments, six shares, and 902 views.”
Suddenly, his flow of conversation halts and he looks up at an Aer Lingus jet climbing in the sky. He checks an app on his phone and says: “That’s off to Beijing. It’s going off to collect PPE… I’ve got my flight radar app. I’m a big plane spotter. The thing I miss most while being in lockdown is not being able to go out to the airport… I love aviation and it’s killing me that I can’t go out to the airport.”
Having a pastime must help priests to unwind after busy and stressful days. Fulfilling duties at funerals when only nine mourners are admitted into a church is particularly difficult.
“I would always be afraid that if rules were broken that people would be put in danger but luckily rules weren’t broken,” he said of a recent funeral. “Saying the mass is surreal in that we are all suffering… Not being able to console each other is very hard.”
Funerals of people who died with Covid-19 are even more restrictive because of closed coffins. “Death is tough enough and loss is profound without the added pain and trauma of Covid-19. It’s an awful disease,” he said.
He said parish life will not return to normal when churches are allowed to reopen on July 20, because numbers attending masses will be restricted by social distancing rules. A group of 100 could not be accommodated and only around one-third could be allowed in as only three people were allowed in a pew with the ones in front and behind being kept empty. Many children have been disappointed in the cancelling of first communions and confirmations. While children in primary school will eventually receive their first communion, he feared many pupils leaving primary school with cancelled confirmation ceremonies will never be confirmed.
He misses not being able to hug his parents, who live across the city in Kingswood. It is “hard and painful” that he cannot hug his two brothers and four sisters.
He said later that there may be an additional outcome to the Covid-19 crisis: “Maybe in another way, it has perhaps woken us up again to the importance of boundaries between people. Not being in each other’s faces. Not being space invaders. That’s not a bad thing.”