Following the prime minister's announcement Mass - restricted to 100 people - is able to resume from this Friday at noon.

On Monday night Steve Lowe, Bishop of Hamilton and New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference Secretary, said the bishops will issue a Pastoral Letter on Tuesday.

He said each parish will decide what is manageable and safe for their community including whether any particular weekday or Sunday Mass resumes.

The guidelines for the reception of Holy Communion and health practices during a pandemic remain in place.

Lowe said not all parishioners will be able to attend Mass because of the restrictions of numbers.

Others will not attend due to health reasons, concerns or fears. For these reasons, the dispensation of attendance at Sunday Mass continues.

Live-streamed Masses will continue to be offered for these people.

Last week the New Zealand Catholic Bishops wrote to the Prime Minister urging the Cabinet to raise the limit on numbers allowed at religious services to at least 100.

Their strongly-worded letter followed the New Zealand Police issuing guidelines saying religious services are allowed under COVID-19 Alert Level 2 as long as people sit in multiple groups of ten.

The limit has now been raised but the other guidelines for gatherings at Alert Level 2 remain in force.

Uncertainty remains about what these guidelines are.

Official COVID-19 website, which has not been updated since Monday's press conference, states that all public venues:

• Must keep high hygiene standards
• Must keep records to enable contact tracing and manage their numbers to ensure that:
• Every individual or group of 10 is kept 1 metre apart
• No group has more than 10 people.

According to the most recent police guidelines issued on 22 May:

If everyone kept 2m apart at any religious service it would not be a gathering.

If that is not the case:

• People must keep 2m apart but family or whanau who reside together in their household may remain within 2 metres of each other.
• If the venue size allows, multiple groups of 10 can be present so long as each group remained two metres apart. This rule does not apply to funerals and tangihanga.
• Appropriate contact tracing needs to be kept except for gatherings of friends and whanau
• People must comply at all times with the distancing restrictions and cannot, for example, mingle more widely at the end of a service.

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Since then it has become an all-purpose phrase questioning the substance of an idea, event or product.

Some are asking where's the beef in the contention that religious events are riskier than other social occasions?

There is no clear answer. The decision-makers in New Zealand have taken the view "when in doubt sit it out."

The archbishop of Wellington Cardinal John Dew told Checkpoint he is hearing from are saying people are happy.

"There's a few people who are not, and who are emailing and saying, 'we want the churches open to get back to mass as soon as possible'.

But it's a small minority. We're listening to them, and I've responded to lots of people just trying to explain," he said.

Dew welcomed the news that Cabinet is reviewing the rules on religious gatherings, and told Checkpoint he is hopeful change will come soon.

The case for continued Lockdown

Religious gatherings are believed to have amplified the spread of the virus in some overseas cases.

Here are some of the instances cited:

• Orthodox Jewish communities in The United States
• A Sikh guru who did not self-quarantine after a trip to virus-plagued Italy and Germany,
• A religious sect in South Korea
• An evangelical church in France
• In the USA, two churches reclosed after faith leaders and congregants got COVID-19

There have also been some suggestions that singing - a common part of some religious services - could disperse an infected person's viral particles farther than normal talking.

But not all scientists agree with the idea that singing poses a health risk.

The Case for re-opening churches

A panel of Catholic doctors from some of the United States top research hospitals and universities say churches should be able to reopen.

They say that religious activity is no riskier than other "essential services,"

They have published a document on their website A Roadmap to Reopening Our Churches.

It provides guidance on how to reopen churches including how to hear confessions and resume public celebrations of the Eucharist.

"I believe that churches can be just as safe, if not at times safer than so-called ‘essential businesses,' provided they take the precautions that are recommended in this document," said Dr Anushree Shirali, a nephrologist at the Yale University School of Medicine.

So then this is the question: Are religious activities essential services?

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The bishops believe that each parish will need its own approach to ensure continued the safety of both the priests and the parishioners.

What CONVID-19 Alert Level Two will allow

• Churches may be open, and Mass may be celebrated, but with no more than 100 people present.
• Those attending will generally need to be seated a metre apart (families from the same "bubble" will likely be an exception).
• Records will be needed of each person attending, for possible future contact tracing.
• Strict hygiene measures will be needed.
• Weddings and funerals will be allowed in churches, again with a limit of 100 people present.
• Priests will be able to visit parishioners in their homes to administer the Sacraments and for such other spiritual purposes as sought.

The bishops and the National Liturgy Office are giving urgent consideration as to how Holy Communion should be distributed.

For now, the provisions of their 13 March advice also remain in place: they included:

• No holy water in fonts;
• No physical contact during the sign of peace; and
• Communion under one kind and only on the hand.

The Bishops are looking at these and other issues urgently and with diligence, and intend to provide substantial further guidance early next week.

In their letter, the bishops quote Pope Francis saying that "the time is ripe for "new imagination" allowing the "breath of the Spirit" to open new horizons.

"We know you will apply your wonderful dedication and creativity to how we operate under Alert Level Two, as you have during this crisis to date and do in all matters of your parish."

• Read the Bishops' letter in full
• Read the Ministry of Health's Alert Level Two rules relevant to churches
• Read the Ministry of Health document published on 7 May 2020 in full

Source

• Supplied: David McLoughlin
  Communications Adviser, NZ Catholic Bishops
  Te Huinga o nga Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa
• Image: rnz.co.nz