As the state of California is now lifting most coronavirus restrictions, thanks to the decreasing rate of infections, it is now time for us to do the same with our safety protocols for Mass. As public health officials remind us, however, the pandemic is not yet completely over. We must continue to be vigilant and responsible in ensuring maximum health and safety of our parish communities. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, I am issuing the following modifications to the safety protocols currently in effect.
The following modifications are outlined according to what is to be retained, what is to be dropped, what may be restored, and what is to be modified. Most significantly, it is now time to bring our people back to Mass. Therefore, the dispensation for the Sunday obligation will be rescinded on June 24, 2021. That is, the dispensation for attending Sunday Mass will be dropped, and the Sunday Mass obligation restored. I ask that you take this weekend to announce this to your people and prepare for their return to Mass. All of the other modifications listed below are effective immediately.
To be Retained
- Doors and windows are to stay open to ensure maximum ventilation.
- Congregants are to wear masks during Mass indoors (unless they have a physical or personal difficulty with it).
- Churches should continue to maintain visible signage encouraging social distancing and washing of hands and maintaining hygienic protocols.
- Hand sanitizers are to be readily available.
- Missal to be placed on a stand at the presider’s chair.
- No procession with the offerings to the altar.
- Location of vessels on the altar according to the current protocols.
- Sign of Peace to be exchanged by the people reverently bowing to those near them.
- The current procedure for the distribution of Communion is to continue (don mask, sanitize hands, sanitize again if make contact).
- Distribution of Communion under the species of bread only.
To be Dropped
- *Dispensation from Sunday obligation (NB: this does not apply to those persons restricted from coming to Mass for health reasons, as indicated above).
- Contact information lists and consent forms, as well as taking of temperatures.
- Sanitizing pews and other-high touch areas before services.
- Wearing of masks for outdoor services.
- Washing of purified vessels with hot water and soap after Mass.
To be Restored (NB: all but the first are at the discretion of the pastor)
- Obligation to attend Sunday Mass. It is important to remind your people that anyone who feels sick is dispensed from attending Mass by canon law itself; indeed, they are exercising responsibility toward their fellow parishioners by staying at home, so as not to risk contagion that can cause others to become ill. Likewise, those who fear they may be seriously adversely affected by infection are also dispensed by canon law itself.
The following … [lists] the modifications to the safety protocols now in effect for our Archdiocese.
- Use of missalettes, hymnals, cards, worship aids.
- Holy water in stoups at entrances to the church. These should be regularly cleaned and maintained.
- The resumption of pre-Covid 19 Mass schedule in parishes.
- Collections may be taken up by ushers using baskets with handles or passing baskets person-to-person in the pews.
- Use of credence table at side of the sanctuary, with offerings being brought to the altar by the altar servers and the priest washing his hands in the usual way.
To be Modified:
- Social distancing reduced to three feet between households.
- Small choirs allowed with members wearing masks and keeping a minimum of twelve feet apart from each other.
- Congregational singing (presuming that, when indoors, the people are wearing masks).
- Liturgical ministers do not wear masks while carrying out their liturgical ministry (including cantor at the ambo, provided the closest person is at least twenty feet away).
- Concelebrating priests do not wear masks unless they cannot remain a minimum of six feet apart from each other.
Note:
- PEOPLE WISHING TO RECEIVE COMMUNION ON THE TONGUE MUST BE ALLOWED TO DO SO.
- PEOPLE ARE NOT TO BE ASKED IF THEY HAVE BEEN VACCINATED (IN ORDER TO BE ALLOWED INDOORS FOR MASS).
*Effective June 24, 2021
Full story at Archdiocese of San Francisco.
You should wear a mask everywhere in SF just because it’s so filthy.
I am vaccinated. I can go into Safeway, into Peet’s or Starbucks, into my gym, into a restaurant, into my doctor’s office (yes), and into a surgical center in San Francisco without a mask but I can’t go inside a church without wearing one of the obnoxious garments. Who in the chancery is putting out this stuff? While the archbishop’s away the children play “me big bureaucrat?”
I dunno a single location except bars that have dropped the mask requirements. I was at kaiser hospital yesterday they still Restrict who can enter, everyone’s temps are taken and everyone must wear a mask and sanitize on the way in. We are in a much better situation than just a few weeks ago but this virus isn’t done with us yet.
Pray tell, what kind of San Francisco bars do you frequent?
The kind where great friends catch up with each other and drink good beer. An outdoor patio and a big screen TV with the Giants game on it is nice too
Now that the risk of covid is reduced, mostly because of vaccinations, the rule makers are in a quandary about what makes sense and what doesn’t in the design of regulations. I was a very strong proponent of the need to wear a mask when we were witnessing thousands of deaths a day and did not have a vaccine. Masks are a standard public health technique for reducing the spread of a killer virus. But now …
Most stores in our area still require masks. It looks like most people over 65 are still wearing masks when they are indoors in a store, voluntarily. Among people that they know are vaccinated, they don’t wear it. The current rule is supposed to be simple: if you are fully vaccinated you don’t need to wear a mask. If you are not vaccinated, wear a mask around other people in case you are asymptomatic. There is no need for vaccinated people to wear a mask at church anymore.
Bob One:
This may be legal CYA: to forestall any theoretical lawsuit by some theoretical victim who insists he caught COVID inside a church. I personally think the LA Archdiocese has a more sensible rule: “wear a mask if unvaccinated, but we’re not checking”. They probably got different legal advice.
Tom: “Now that the risk of covid is reduced, mostly because of vaccinations . . .”
Yet in May we learned that the most vaccinated country — Seychelles — reported the highest COVID count.
Read here: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/worlds-most-vaccinated-country-reports-highest-global-covid-19-case-count-re-imposes-lockdown-measures
These injections are killing and injuring people, and numerous experts now predict hastened deaths for all inoculated. The bishops have serious blood on their hands; doctors and the media have serious blood on their hands.
God help us. Mary lead us.
Juan the vaccinations have skilled almost no one. No expert with listening to has said that the vaccinated will die premature deaths.
As to the Seychelles, even as early as they vaccinated, the unvaxxed are still at risk. If you are unvaxxed, but 60 or 70% of you neighbors are vaxxed, and you encounter the virus, you can still get sick and you might die.
We all will die, the question is whether you want to go out standing on your feet or on lying on your arse.
Until now, Catholics did not have a history of cowardice, time to man up Real Catholics.
Dr. Peter McCullough himself — professor of Medicine and Vice Chief of Internal Medicine at Baylor University, practicing internal medicine and cardiology, and editor of the peer-reviewed journals Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine and American Journal of Cardiology, as well as editor of the textbook “Cardiorenal Medicine,” and president of the professional organization Cardiorenal Society — has recently estimated that the fake COVID vaccines have already killed up to 50,000 Americans. And that’s based on but a portion of data.
Time will tell, of course. Within three years, will those who’ve taken a COVID shot still be with us?
I hope so, but I’m not planning on it.
BTW: you seem to have missed this, YFK — “The country’s health ministry announced that more than a third of those who tested positive for the virus, around 37%, had already been ‘fully vaccinated.'”
Juan, I don’t think I saw that quote but I’m not surprised by it. For two reasons. One, all vaccines are not created equally. The mRNA vaccines seem to be more effective than the others. Seychelles, if memory serves, uses a mix of different vaccines. Secondly, vaccines don’t prevent infection. In an excellent study in a senior care facility in Kentucky, vaccinated people were only 3-4 times less likely to test positive than unvaccinated. The infected but unvaccinated got sick at the usual rate. I think only one (I would have to double check to be sure of the exact number) of the infected but vaccinated showed symptoms. We don’t yet know for sure whether vaccinated but infected people can transmit the virus to others. For all these reasons and in light of variants, it is still a smart thing to mask while indoors. I do. Or at least I do when I’m sure whether other people are vaccinated.
I have a ‘personal problem’ with the useless face covering and luckily have never had to wear one at my parish. No one has been sick there either. And I am sorry for anyone who has taken the experimental injections and to give them to the young people is a crime. Do not forget some things: ALL these injections are predicated upon the murder of unborn children, the proponents of these injections are there for money and for depopulation. No one says it stops the ‘virus’ for the individual or its spread. Viruses run their course and are low in the summer.
No vaccine, no mask, no guilt. The mask is a symbol of compliance to govt bureaucrats. Stand up for yourself, just say no.
Once the vaccine health issues become clear and widespread, it will be too late for those of you who got that experimental jab. God help you.
We took the vaccine out of obedience to the Church and to the lawful civil authorities (President Trump, remember?). God will help us.
You have allowed yourself to be duped. Blind obedience to church or state is required of no one. Hope you will not suffer vaccine consequences.
Thank you.
Unfortunately, you’re right, Carlos. Sooner or later, it appears the facts will be undeniable:
Stop believing dumb stuff on the Internet. And he was not Chief Scientist at Pfizer. He hasn’t worked there in a decade. He is a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer.
Wacko theology, wacko conspiracies, absence of logic and schism all are usually found together. Clear case here.
Any other drug that caused so many deaths and serious side effects would have been pulled long ago.
There have been people who got a lot of blood clots right after taking the first or second vaccine. All vaccines have their risks, and these vaccines have not been out long enough to even have FDA approval from what I have read. I imagine the results depend on each person. The fact is people are being used as guinea pigs. I don’t want to be a guinea pig. I am allergic to too much already, and zinc and vitamins with a good diet have kept me without serious colds or the flu. I have never had a flu shot in my life — and have rarely ever had the flu — just mildly. many, many years ago.
Ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
600,000 Americans are dead. Millions worldwide. Their families are now broken apart and would be appalled that you would would claim that this deadly virus doesn’t need fixing.
Everyone I know who died with Covid had comorbidities and had one foot in the grave anyway.
Anonymous, everyone you know who died with COVID were unvaccinated.
Our experience is that perfectly healthy individuals died from Covid. And within a week or less. We know others who recovered. Praise Jesus.
Eternal rest grant to all of them, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.
Turn off CNN, your head is exploding.
Those are your figures. How many have died or been harmed from injections? People fool with statistics on both sides. Years ago they stopped a flu shot they were using because it was causing more harm than help.
By the way, I was referring to my own body, not someone else’s. My body, my choice!
What I said about my not taking the vaccination is true, I am allergic to at least one of them, but the most important reason I am not taking any of them is that they have either used aborted fetal tissue or been tested using such. I stand with the bishop, whom I will not name, who have told us not to take it.
God bless him, and the other bishops, too, who are not taking it for that reason. Remember we have access to bishops all over the world.
Correction to ending of third line: “who has told us not to take it.”
33 year old Jewish man, unmarried, only spending time with male disciples. strange…
at least the aborted fetus is being put to good use. do you believe the world is flat too?
Nope! the Miraculous Medal has a globe (the earth) on it, and a faithful Catholic priest saved my life around 1990 by telling me not to take the contraceptive pills that my “Catholic” doctor gave me. At that time I unknowingly had a type of cancer which the estrogen in those pills would have cause to grow much faster.
Don’t care the lest what you think. I am alive because of the Church’s teachings 31 years later, when many much younger women died because they did not listen to Humanae Vitae.
Better than living in a “Hump’em and Dump’em Society with the Pill.