CREATIVE WAYS TO REACH THE FAITHFUL
Father Richard Vigoa, the administrator of St. Augustine Church, talks with a churchgoer for a drive-thru confession in Coral Gables on Saturday. Due to COVID-19, churches have had to use technology and different ideas to help reach parishioners. ‘Right now, people are looking for God. So as a church, we need to be church in a different way,’ Vigoa said.
In the sparsely shaded corner of a church parking lot, Father Richard Vigoa offers absolution by the SUV.
Vigoa, a Roman Catholic priest, sits in a padded chair in his church’s parking lot, with an iPhone in his lap and the microphone part of the headphones clutched close to his mouth. He nods, listening intently.
Ten feet in front of him, a parishioner of Coral Gables’ St. Augustine Church spills her guts on her cellphone from the virus-free safety of her car’s Bluetooth system.
It’s confession, drivethru style.
Sweat beads on Vigoa’s neck, not yet staining the full vestments he’s wearing, including the purple stole to signify the solemn Catholic celebration of Lent. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter, and Catholics usually mark the 40-day period by giving up something in their lives.
This Lent, Catholics are doing without an awful lot.
Restaurants, bars, beaches and parks, everything “nonessential” is closed to stop the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus. That includes churches. On Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Miami halted nearly all religious gatherings, with exceptions for small, healthy groups of immediate family for funerals and weddings.
Faith leaders like Vigoa took this as an opportunity to get creative.
“Right now, people are looking for God. So as a church, we need to be church in a different way,” he said.
His parking-lot confession session followed a live stream broadcast of morning Mass, something his church began offering this week. On Twitter, Vigoa posted a video captioned “Wash your hands and pray!” In it, he demonstrates proper handwashing technique for the amount of time it takes to say one “Our Father” prayer.
Saturday morning, Vigoa and St. Augustine’s other priest, Father Phillip Tran, took their spots in the parking lot and listened to sins in the mid-morning heat, a welcome chance to be outdoors again. Both priests spent last weekend in isolation after Vigoa interacted with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who tested positive for COVID-19 last Friday. On Monday, the priests’ tests came back negative.
Parishioners formed a tidy line, waiting around 20 minutes before they pulled up to the construction-cone-designated spots in front of either priest.
They called the phone number posted on a sign at each spot, which connected them to a priest.
After they confessed their sins, they hung up and rolled down the window so their priest could offer them absolution and tell them their penance, usually several rounds of prayer.
“It’s no different from the confession booth,” Vigoa said. “There, we were separated by a screen. Here, we’re separated by a car window.”
Belen Presas, a 61-yearold Coral Gables resident, straddled her road bike as she waited her turn in line. When seemingly everything in society has shut down, it’s a relief that she can still access absolution, as well as Mass.
“It’s what keeps me going,” she said. “I place myself in His hands.”
Presas, blowing kisses at church employees and striking up conversation with her fellow parishioners through their car windows, clearly felt comfort in being surrounded by her church community once again.
Her husband, also astride a bike, was one row over. He called out in Spanish, joking that they should take their turn together.
“Oh yeah, I want to hear your sins,” she said with a grin.
A few cars behind her,
Mauricio Castillo, a 20year-old employee of the archdiocese, compared missing confession to one of those errands everyone now in self-isolation is kicking themselves for putting off too long, like getting a haircut.
“I was watching everything shut down and thinking ‘Oh no, I never got that confession,” he said. Then he got a text from a friend about this weekend’s event. “God opens doors.”
His 85-year-old “super traditional” grandma never misses church, even though she can no longer drive. This week, Castillo taught her how to tune into a live stream. On Thursday, she watched her firstever virtual mass, from none other than Pope Francis himself. She was delighted.
“This is the time to practice our faith,” Castillo said. “This is the time to hold onto our Lord very, very tightly.”
The faithful lining up for a chance to get right with God praised the church’s ingenuity in offering a way to keep their faith in these trying times.
“If I could, I would hug Father Vigoa,” said 73year-old Eleira Morales, a retiree from Coral Gables.
For her, confession has taken on additional significance as the coronavirus continues to ravage the elderly population.
“When you get to a certain age, especially with all this going on, you realize you don’t know how long God is going to keep you here,” she said.
But in the era of virtual Mass and drive-thru confession, there’s one aspect of the Mass that’s hard to replace — communion.
The sacrament involves handing out the consecrated bread to participants, in some cases even placing it directly in their mouth. Even before Mass was shut down, many priests stopped offering the other part of the Eucharist sacrament — sips of wine out of a communal cup.
Vigoa said he’s planning for all kinds of drive-in and virtual gathering for his flock in the coming week, including more drivethrough confessions. And he’s working on the communion problem.
“Trust me, I am thinking day and night how to figure this out, and I will figure it out,” he said. “Christ continues to walk with his people.”
For more information on upcoming virtual and drivethru religious services, visit www.saintaugustinechurch.org.