MOST HOLY FATHER, YOUR CONSTERNATION ABOUT VIRTUAL MASSES AND CHURCH IS SOLVED BY ANOTHER POPE! MONSIGNOR CHARLES POPE OF WASHINGTON, DC

Monsignor Pope writing for the National Catholic Register, the one that deserves the name Catholic in it, has 8 great suggestions for gradually opening our churches. And it appears that Washington, DC who has an archbishop who is my former metropolitan allows it. If they can do it, why can't we????

Apart from that, does facing the people make any sense whatsover in the photos below??????? Ad orientem would symbolize better that the greatest prayer of the Church is directed to God, not the people, especially when the people aren't there!!!!!!!! Sheeeeesh.........

8 Ways to Start Rolling Back Church Coronavirus Restrictions Now

It is time to hear the pleas of God’s good people. It is time to work courageously, creatively, prudently and pastorally to restore the sacraments to greater and greater numbers.

Msgr. Charles Pope

We are more than four weeks into a disaster unprecedented in our lifetimes.
Of first concern are those who are gravely ill and those who have died. But we cannot forget many others who have lost their jobs or seen their businesses and livelihoods vanish. Particularly hard-hit are restaurants, theaters, the airline industry, sports and other aspects of the service and entertainment industry.

But now that some time has passed, it is my hope that our bishops will work with their priests and be more open to creative ways of offering the sacraments (including Holy Communion) within the reasonable guidelines offered by public authorities and health officials.

At this time the general consensus among dioceses is that no public Masses are to be celebrated under any circumstances. In other matters there is less consensus. It is reported that a few bishops have also forbidden confessions being heard due to stay at home orders, while in other dioceses confessions are being heard. And some dioceses have ordered all churches to be locked, while in other locations churches are open for prayer. Some dioceses have canceled weddings and funerals; others have not.

Permit me a few observations and proposals of creative ways to restore greater access to the sacraments and the parish church to God’s faithful.

1. Is it really necessary to lock the church doors? While there may be local ordinances some bishops are dealing with (e.g., “stay at home” orders), it still seems that these severer measures by some bishops stand in contrast to the fact the just about everywhere food stores, liquor stores, drug stores — even bike shops, dry cleaners and garden centers — are open. If obtaining food and liquor, fixing your bike and washing your clothes are seen as essential, why should a house of prayer be locked? Is it not important to pray and make visits to the Blessed Sacrament?

Thankfully in the Washington, D.C., area the mayor and governors have included “visiting a house of worship for private prayer” as a permitted outing. Where this does not exist in other jurisdictions, bishops should vigorously insist that if people can go to liquor stores, others should certainly be able to stop by their parish church to pray. My own parish church is open every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Many do stop by, but there are never more than 10 at a time. Our cleaning crew washes the pews daily and hand sanitizers are at the door. Please, let’s insist on the right to keep our church doors open. Even if every church in a diocese cannot be open, surely some in each region should welcome the faithful to pray before the Lord in the tabernacle.

2. In most parts of the country gatherings of 10 or fewer are permitted with required social distancing. So why can’t a priest celebrate a Mass for 10 or fewer people? Clearly there would have to be a kind of sign-up process and an ability to limit the participants to stay within the norms. But if there is no ordinance being violated, why not permit priests to invite nine of the faithful to join him for these special Masses?

3. As for giving Communion to the faithful, there seems to be a rather extreme fear of contagion that we do not apply to other things. For example, I go to the local store and pick up a tomato and squeeze it to see if it’s over-ripe. Perhaps I put it down and others come behind me and do the same. In the pasta aisle I pull a box down, discover it is the wrong kind of pasta and return it to the shelf. Someone comes behind me and does the same. I then interact with a store cashier, who, among other things hands me a receipt and likely requires me to sign or punch codes on a credit card machine.

In other words, things are touched by people in a store hundreds of times, rubber gloves or not. We accept this as a necessary aspect of shopping and a risk worth taking. But suddenly, with Holy Communion, if a priest gets anywhere near someone to give them the Host, there is grave danger. I think we can be a little less fearful of distributing Communion than many currently are and I ask our bishops, working within proper civil norms, to consider gradually reintroducing public Masses. More about how to distribute Communion below.

4. Another way of celebrating public Masses is the parking lot Mass. People stay in their cars and park in every other space. The Mass is celebrated, and people can tune to a low-power radio station to hear, and then the priest distributes Communion according to local norms. Bishop Baldacchino of Las Cruces, New Mexico, has done just this. Perhaps other bishops can work with civil officials to permit this as well.

5. As for how to distribute Holy Communion to the faithful, some jurisdictions permit the clergy to do just as is done in stores now, with a face mask and rubber gloves. While I think the faithful have a general right to receive on the tongue, in this scenario it might require Communion in the hand. But unusual times call for unusual measures.

6. Communion for a small number could also be distributed using a chin paten. A host is placed on the chin paten, extended to the communicant who is approximately 6 feet away who takes the host off the paten and receives it. In ordinary times such a process is forbidden and we must work to restore proper disciplines when this plague passes. But these are not ordinary times.

7. Funerals should not be forbidden. We still do them here. But only nine members of the family can attend.

8. Confessions can be heard following prudent norms. I hear them here nearly every day and we follow the norms established by the diocese in consultation with public health officials. The confessional area is frequently wiped down and hand sanitizer is amply available. The faithful can also wear masks. There is no need to forbid confession since proper procedures can be easily observed.

I therefore appeal to my brother priests and also to our bishops that we work creatively, prudently and pastorally to restore the sacraments to greater and greater numbers. I would be willing to celebrate Mass several times a day to accommodate small groups if that’s what it takes to work with the norms and offer Communion even to some.

Please, my brothers and superiors — many of the faithful have written to me and told me they feel abandoned by the Church. It may be true that we were caught off guard by the sudden storm and felt required to take strong actions. But now there is time for pastoral reflection. It is time to hear the pleas of God’s good people. These pleas come from the ranks of the ordinary faithful and also from widely respected lay leaders.

It is time for a creative restoration of the sacraments, even if on a limited basis at first. It is time to implement a pastoral plan that reflects that “field hospital” once mentioned by the Pope. Field hospitals can’t always follow the exacting norms of a state-of-the-art trauma center, and so a few temporary liberties regarding liturgical practices may be required. But in the end, people need Jesus. Respectful of legitimate precautions, let’s creatively and ingeniously work to reunite the faithful with the Mass and the regular reception of Holy Communion and Confession.