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THE CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP of Dublin has said the easing of restrictions on Mass attendance “has a better statutory claim” than other activities that are “pressed by powerful commercial interests”.
In a St. Patrick’s Day message, Archbishop Dermot Farrell also described the limit on funeral attendance to 10 people as “harsh and unfair”, repeating previous requests from the church to ease restrictions on funerals.
Under the current Level 5 restrictions, 10 mourners are allowed attend funerals, six guests can attend weddings but public Mass cannot take place, with worshippers being forced to follow Mass online.
In a homily today, Farrell said that the right of people to worship in public must be considered when restrictions are being eased. He also suggested that other “powerful” business groups may press government for restrictions to be eased but that religious worship has a better legal claim.
“The planned exit from the current severe restrictions is being watched by many citizens who expect their religious practice to be respected by the public authorities, and not be subordinated to commercial interests,” he said.
The archbishop pointed to Article 44 of the Irish Constitution which acknowledges that “the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God” and should be respected.
Farrell argues that the numbers allowed to worship “cannot be randomly determined as if were some mathematical formula”.
“This is about people: the protection of people’s health, and the fostering of people’s wellbeing,” he said.
While a balance must be struck, easing restrictions on worship has a better founded statutory claim than other activities which may be pressed by powerful commercial interests.
“Worship has a clear human priority over other activities that do not possess that priority of themselves.
“In particular, the restriction on attendance at funerals to 10 people is harsh and unfair,” he added.
Close family members are frequently denied the right to be present in Church at the funeral of their loved ones: at times, people who have been with the deceased for years. This is tolerable only in the most extreme circumstances, and for the shortest possible period.
Speaking last week, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that the government would “love to” increase the numbers at funerals, adding that the issue was not with the church Mass.
“In a big church you can space people very well. But there is very strong evidence that everything else that happens in around weddings and funerals is a problem,” he said.
“It’s just the nature of the events people want to go back to the house for a cup of tea, they want to shake hands, they want to share hugs.”
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Or in other words “These collection plates don’t fill themselves y’know”
@The Risen: rubbish statement and in any case the money raised is put to good use
@Sean Doheny: oh do tell us, where does the money raised go?
@The Risen: give it a rest Tony
@JustBEERbarry: are you being wilfully i gnorant or just i gnorant?
@Sean Doheny: How much is a Bishops salary these days.
@ÓDuibhír Abú: About 40K. Less than most people
If I was in charge the bishop/Rome would pay all their historical AND current victims the compensation they were ordered to pay first before opening their mouths on anything in the future.
@JustBEERbarry: they’ll never do that. They’ve got away with it, so there’s no way they’ll do the honourable thing and pay their debts.
The flock will keep giving them money, so they don’t care.
@JustBEERbarry: this is Matthew 10.14 ..Jesus said “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.” So, the Church should sell up and go to where they are wanted and welcomed. Their loveless rules, abusers and institutional cover ups are not welcome here anymore.
@Neil Neart: maybe not on the Journal.ie comment section but despite what the comment section will have you believe, the church still has a strong presence and following in many communities around the country. Churches might not be as full as they were in to 90′s but they are still a very present body in Ireland, weddings, funerals, Christmas, Easter, it’s an institution in Ireland and while there is a cohort following, the church will always have a place in Irish Society, despite Keyboard warriors on the Journal.
@The Divils Avocado: And a very forgiving cohort they are too. Welcoming its agents into its communities in spite of horrendous acts by them to innocent children, mothers and babies, driving a loveless wedge between parents and their unwed pregnant fearful daughters, isolating the LGBT+ community, denying family planning to parents resulting in large poor families etc. But the Vatican led institutional cover up to protect the good name of the Church at the expense of innocents is probably as low as they could go and as far from the teachings of Jesus Christ as was possible, yet the dwindling cohort forgave them for that too. The short memoried dwindling faithful and their aging dysfunctional agents in black are most welcome to each other.
@JustBEERbarry: money will sort it, will it??
@Neil Neart: but you do know that Christianity is worldwide and over 2000 years old and not just the past 100 years in Ireland?
@The Divils Avocado: True, But not Catholicism.
@ÓDuibhír Abú: Catholicism is also practiced world wide for over 2000 years
@The Divils Avocado:
That period includes the Inquisition of course.
See the film Goya’s Ghosts: brilliant but harrowing and unfortunately exactly what your wonderful Church did to human beings.
Cult leader needs cash. Doesn’t want people talking to their imaginary friend from safety of home.
Commercial organisations (other than the Roman church) do not spread the disgusting myth of Original Sin. Teaching children that they were born bad is immoral. Coming from a non-tax-paying organisation that hasn’t paid what it owes for previous wrongs, seeking to imperil everyone else in order to start collection plates moving again, such statements as from Mr Archbishop are risible.
@Fachtna Roe: toxic organisation that has fooled a large amount of people. Disgust¡ng creatures. There is no such thing as a baby born with sin, get real FFS.
God is sooooo last century. Get with the times dude. Hairdressers are considered more important now.
Ok so we need a referendum to remove any reference to any god in our constitution.
@Melissa OHara: absolutely, and to completely remove religion from schools.
Funny how people still want to worship someone who has blindly ignored them for 13 months. God moves in mysterious ways. . Or in no ways whatsoever
@Joecantdance: perhaps “God” works in Strangeways, as a prison officer. Remove article 44 from the constitution.
@Kadie Oglesby: No I think you mean you want Gemma O’Doherty in prison… Doesn’t everyone want that?
After reading, and although I do recognise the need to look after the mental health of people, the message for me was we should revoke Article 44 of the Irish Constitution….
When is the Catholic Church going to accept their reign of terror is over , long gone are the days of ( believe in me and do as I say not what I do) and we’ll keep a seat in heaven for you
Money money money…
Religion does nothing for me personally and I’d consider public worship to be up there with football club worship – one sided and an unnecessary distraction. I must concede though that many of the churches which were built during peak Christianity now attract rapidly dwindling numbers of people so there would be plenty of space to socially distance. However I doubt that it would be possible to encourage a mostly older population of mass goers to attend even if the restrictions were lifted.
@Sean: knock them, sell the land and pay their victims. One in each city is more than enough these days.
@Sean: a lot of those churches were built during the famine genocide with money that was raised to help the starving Irish.
@JustBEERbarry: Well unfortunately Bertie Ahern wrote the religious institutions a blank cheque in the dying days of his Government by capping their liability without consulting his then Attorney General or anyone else in his cabinet for that matter. Hard to imagine what his motivation might have been.
@Sean: it was Dermot Aherne
@John Mulligan: it wasn’t it was Bertie.
The contribution of religious orders was capped at a once-off payment of €128m under an indemnity agreement overseen by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in 2002.
@Ian Downes: citation needed
They would want to pay people that were abused by the church and hid it
@Fran O’Keeffe: LOUDER
@JustBEERbarry: what
@Fran O’Keeffe: your comment
These chancers are only after a few quid to keep the lights on. Jesus and prayers don’t pay the bills like
Time to change the constitution and take out all references to sky daddy. Separate church and state ASAP.
The church recently announced a big initiative to decide the direction of the organisation in the future…
Suggest just packing their bags, turning out the lights and fecking off might be simplest and best overall…
It is fascinating to me the level of vitriol in these comments coming from the same mouthpieces as always. If it were directed at anyone besides Catholics the comments would be culled & closed but as always anti Catholic rants are always welcome on the Journal.
@Seamus Mac: Many are citing very valid examples, the language might be heavy handed but the points are valid. These comments are the church effectively saying it’s more important that folk go to mass then go back to work. It’s another sign of how high and mighty they think they are with little real sympathy for the public.
@Jason Walsh: for religious people it is essential. If you do not accept that perhaps it is you that is lacking in sympathy. As for the comments they are mostly little more than one sided ranting that try to blame the church for all of societies ills with no concept of historical or societal context.
@Seamus Mac: Essential = possible infection and death for the age profile of typical mass congregations. Poor judgement and leadership on display from the church.
Greedy Ghouls.
No. F off!
The Catholic Church position on condoms directly has caused the deaths of millions of Africans from AIDS. They don’t mind the martyrdom of their followers.
@Thomas Paine: * It is hard to believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They express a preference for ‘natural’ methods of population limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation.
@Thomas Paine: and subjugated hundreds of millions of women through poverty by imposing large families on them which they can’t feed or educate. One MILLION good acts will never wipe out the damage caused by the abuse of one child by an agent of the Church. The Vatican sanctioned cover ups mean that all legal and Constitutional protections be removed. After such heinous breaches of trust we owe them nothing.
@Thomas Paine: the Catholic church also preaches abstinence until marriage.
If the number selected to be permissible at mass is random, how can it also be the result of a mathematical formula?
Is there anything to be said for another mass?
The Catholic Church recently confirmed their stance that same sex relationships are sinful. They only condone one form of same sex relationship apparently. Time to remove references to the church from the constitution.
@Joe Sargent: Brilliant
The sooner the special position of the Church/religion is removed from our constitution the better…we need to recognise despite some of is strengths, our constitution was written in an era when women were degraded and the Church felt it deserved an exalted position…
@Shane:
Women are been horribly degraded on violent pornography sites every day of the week at present and it is been recognised-more and more that this contributes to violence and murder of women .Maybe you should worry about that.. instead of harping back to events 50 years ago.
Whatever commercial business that may be. Its your flock that has to go out and work to mut money in your coffers. Don’t forget bishop.
Bless you all
Is there ANYTHING to be said for another mass?
Has no one told him that shopping is the new religion?
He has a case but surly not a important a getting porter out first
Idi0t
Any chance of opening up the bishops palace so we can walk our dogs again
What a dope
Any chance of opening up the bishops palace so we can walk our dogs again
It’s all about the money….
Prayers won’t pay my rent ffs. Get a grip and sort out your pedos
I’d like to reply to the Archbishop in the words of the church to all Irish women until about 1980……”Go f#+k yourself! “…..
The responsible and mature approach is to follow public health device whether we like it or not. It is being fairly, consistently and robustly challenged at various experts levels. Invoking art. 44 of the Constitution is clutching at straws and seeks to undermine public health policy.
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