New Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell came in for stinging criticism recently after his recent directive for priests to withhold Communion for the foreseeable future.
However, he has now released a strong statement urging the Irish government to start implementing consistent and competent policies regarding the pandemic, to replace the current inconsistent and incompetent ones.
With news that Northern Ireland will have Mass in a public setting this coming Easter, the incompetence of the Irish government is becoming more frustrating each day.
You can read the Archbishop’s remarks, given on RTE Radio, below:
"... Catholics are not foolish. They understand the importance of their health. They understand the importance of safety and you know when our churches were open, they were probably the safest place in this country and I've talked to people and people have contacted me regularly ... about that they see the restrictions as being too rigid and they see them as an extremely blunt instrument and there are so many people that are not able to attend you know the funeral of a loved one that they've spent perhaps all their life with, brothers and sisters. You've a husband or wife dies for example and they have 5 or 6 children and that person maybe has some brothers and sisters and they find themselves being confronted with having to leave some of those people outside the door of the church which is perhaps the safest place in this city. I take the church up the road from me here in Whitehall. It seats 1500 people. Are you, is somebody telling me that 10 people scattered around that church are a threat to each other or our health?" (...)
"I go down to my shop or whatever to get my milk in the morning and I have to wade my way through the isles to get there and when the cathedrals of commerce open, we'll see the amount of people that are congregating within those settings and yet the Catholic people and the people of all faith find themselves locked out of worship when everything else in this country is open" (...) "the current restrictions are far too rigid, they're far too blunt, they could be relaxed somewhat and people would still be safe. You know, if you take a church with 15, 16 hundred people, is it unfair that people from the local parish could go in there, 2 to 3 metres distanced. These places are sanitised almost to a medical standard by volunteers as was proved when we opened the last time. So I'm saying to the Government, you know, people's patience is running out and that has been expressed to me day in and day out with regard to the fact that they're not going to accept a situation where they are locked out of worship until we get to Level 2 and I think you know and they're saying to me they have a Constitutional right to worship, it's protected by the Constitution’’.
