Covid restrictions breech

Would you have been brave enough to say no? In any case, it is not clear if hundreds attended the Mass, from the IT:

The funeral Mass was celebrated on Thursday by Fr Frank Garvey PP with reduced numbers attending in St Mary’s Church.

There is also an argument, from informed academic sources, that saying/attending public Mass is not actually breaking the law.

Introduction

There have been further media reports of the gardaí threatening prosecution of those who organise or attend religious services. This is one of the principal rule of law issues identified in the recent report by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which I co-authored with Conor Casey, David Kenny and Donna Lyons. In this blog post, I review the two grounds on which it could be argued that a criminal offence is committed in this context, rejecting each. I shall contrast the current law to the position that applied during the first lockdown, in which religious services were unlawful. I shall then review several official statements on this issue before concluding with some observations about the rule of law.

https://tcdlaw.blogspot.com/2021/03/religious-services-and-rule-of-law.html

The government has messed it up spectacularly, and are messing up the vaccine rollout, to the surprise of no one. The caliber of politician is the absolute pits - they are cowardly. Clear as day to an informed observer that with the vaccines the decision to solely stick with EU supply was to give the government a shield (it hasn't worked) to avoid criticism for any issues. Didn't even investigate other additional options - this is an old trick, remember when Kenny wouldn't even ask for a write-down and tried to make this into a "being a good EU boy" virtue? This govt had to be shamed into contacting the manufacturers to give out!

People's human rights, not least their right to practice their religion, have been disregarded for an intolerably long time - due to to govt incompetence. It is good to see serious academic attention being paid to this, it seems many were shell-shocked for a while, or took the reasonable position that temporary restrictions were warranted - 12 months plus, with no end in sight, is not temporary. Restrictions are justified for a short amount of time, when they are coupled with a valid, clear, achievable plan. There is no plan. Remember the 5 levels plan? Didn't even last 24hours. Government just seemed to think the virus was gone and reopened, and seemed shocked at the predicted result - more lockdowns. Did they bother using the time they bought with the first lockdown productively, to boost hospital capacity, improve track and trace, to arrange for travel quarantine? Did they ****. They betrayed the people, who so willingly adopted the "in this together" wartime mentality, the people did their bit, the government quoted films in ego massaging speeches and did nothing else. Even at this stage it is not too late to come out with something practical and detailed, but the plan is literally "we will see in a few weeks" with little hints from Leo the Great that we might get a treat at some stage, followed by Martin having to shoot this down, an obvious political ploy from Leo to maintain "good guy" popularity. No other FF leader would have been so consistently undermined and outmaneuvered. Haughey was an out and out crook, but he would eat these guys for breakfast and would have some sort of plan (lining his pockets would have formed some part of it I'm sure - that said longstanding procurement rules were wholesale abandoned during Covid so watch this space) this is how bad the current crop are.

The attack on religion in Ireland, where the government have relegated it in their reckoning to being an optional luxury (contrary to freedom/practice of one's religion being a human right, an entirely different kettle of fish to having a haircut, something the Irish govt deem more important), is obscene. People, who would normally pridefully portray themselves as being defenders of human rights, have shamefully abandoned this facade, demonstrating their latent Stalinist authoritarian tendencies (ironically this is most prominent from the trotskyists!) with some delighting, in particular, at the restrictions on religious worship - fueled no doubt by their sad and misguided disdain for the Divine.

Ireland is an outlier in her approach to religious worship, it is one of only two countries in the EU where Mass is outright banned*, everywhere else having rightly decided that an outright ban is not a proportional imposition on an important human right, rather restrictions on numbers attending are deemed as being sufficient.

Even reasonable accommodations attempted at one parish, where communion was left for a two hour window after an online Mass, for parishioners to collect, was shut down with the priest threatened. Yet, there is no issue with going into the same church during the same two hour window to light a candle or the like. It makes no sense. There is also no issue with coffee shops doing a roaring trade, no issue with people congregating in the vicinity of these establishments, but they are not praying so it's grand.

It will be two Easters now where worship at the most important time of the year is banned - even the sub par "drive in" masses that were previously allowed are banned. Too dangerous it seems, for the Eucharist to be handed, by someone in full PPE, to someone in a car. (Perfectly safe to go into a coffee shop and be handed a coffee by someone with their nose sticking out over a mask though, or to go get a take away pint).

Mod: Restored text below

In the north worship will be allowed. How ironic! In the six counties, the orange state, founded on a basis of bigotry, the loather of "priest-craft" with the Pope being the DUP's "anti-christ", where the powers that be would not have a Catholic "about the place", where Catholics were denied the vote, housing, jobs, literally "the enemy within", beaten and even murdered by agents of the state because of their religious beliefs - it is this state, one hundred years or so since its foundation that respects and upholds the right to practice ones religion, and it is the 'free state' which seeks to make it illegal, outlawing the Mass and other sacraments to a degree not seen since the penal days.

Something has to give soon, people have had enough - because they cannot see the proportionality, many of the restrictions make no sense and because of this people are stopping paying attention to them wholesale - if restrictions were logical people would obey them. It is hard to argue for them in the face of such incompetence, illogicality, dis-proportionality - you can fly in from a Covid hotspot no questions asked, but you can't go 6km to the beach.

There is not much hope, it is clear as day that the return to school (look at Germany) will increase cases - look at the genius decision to send some pupils back and then two weeks (the timeframe after which the effect of the first cohort returning would begin to be seen) later send more in! How does this make sense? Just as it starts to be evident if it increases the cases, fire more in straight away? A stupid political decision. Restrictions will continue for an indeterminate amount of time because of the vaccine mess up, by the time people are vaccinated boosters to address variants will be needed, rinse and repeat as restrictions roll on. It is bizarre that even nursing home residents, all vaccinated, cannot attend Mass.

Even the Bishops, typically loath to rock the boat, are running very low on patience, their recent statement being the angriest I can recall.

Personally, I am waiting, with every expectation of being let down yet again, for the government to come out with something at the start of April. If they do not present a workable plan (they won't) I will not be following restrictions, simply because they are law, any further. I will instead act as I see fit - with a degree of precaution as my circumstances dictate (i.e. wearing masks, mostly staying at home, not meeting in large groups and such). I will attend Mass, even if I need to go north, although I am sure priests will not be found wanting - many will be willing to follow in the footsteps of their penal day predecessors and celebrate the Mass, be it illegal or not.

What I worry about is that I think many people will just abandon restrictions entirely - as the people did in the incident the OP referred to (thank you for reading all the above to see how my missive relates to the OP!) - and take no precautions at all, and just pretend everything is normal. The government will be to blame, as they had 12 plus months to get it right and failed every time.

*That said, the opinion of the TCD law professor linked previously that it is not actually illegal is quite persuasive.

looksee wrote: »

This does not make any sense as a statement?


Well of course they are, up to a point, theoretical, unproven and have no provenance. We have not had a Covid pandemic before to practise on. It is worth pointing out though that historically the only way of dealing with epidemics was by confining people to their houses. And there is evidence from the 1918 flu epidemic that closing down society worked very well https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus

No-one is claiming every government got everything right about this pandemic - though New Zealand did pretty well and they were very quick to do the containment that you are criticising. However it is difficult to see how churches could be allowed open while closing cinemas and theatres. The physical environment is very similar - though in cinemas and theatres people are not talking and singing, and are far less likely to gather and gossip afterwards than when leaving a church.

While the necessity for the spiritual and community aspects of attending church are undeniable, in respect of the Catholic church for many centuries all that was considered necessary for the laity to fulfil their obligations was to witness the Elevation of the Host, and actually take Communion once a year. Participating in the Mass remotely would accomplish the first, and there have been sufficient opportunities in the last 12 months to attend Mass in person to achieve the second.

This is incorrect, theologically speaking. Watching it on the TV is not participating in the sacrifice of the Mass, you need to physically be in attendance. Also, people do not and should not go to Mass merely to satisfy some sort of obligation, so what you say is not particularly helpful, or even true. I have to say I am somewhat sick of people with no religious belief purporting to tell the faithful what their beliefs are, or how they should, or need to (theologically speaking) worship.

For a country that supposedly still forces Catholic education on people it is illuminating how few people actually understand what happens at Mass.

The denial of the sacraments, particularly confession, but also receiving communion, is a serious issue which can have eternal consequences for those of us who are not living lives free of sin (i.e. everyone).

This is particularly aggravating when it has not been demonstrated that attendance at Mass, in limited numbers, wearing masks etc. is so risky that it should be banned, especially when the majority of the world have not banned religious worship, rather they have imposed restrictions.

Saying that Mass is the same as going to the cinema is nonsense, you don't have a specific fundamental human right to go watch a film. I know you are an atheist, but you should recognise that religious worship is different from going to the cinema. Even if you don't think this, you must acknowledge that millions of people do not share such a blindfolded perspective. Saying that similar restrictions should apply because the buildings and circumstances of attendance are similar is just a way of dressing this up: they aren't for a start, Churches tend to be far larger, with far more doors, no lobby areas, more spaced out, and Mass can be done in 20 mins or so with no singing. The law, as it stands, says that 30/40/50/60+ people can go sit in a church with no issue, but if a Priest stands on the altar and says Mass it becomes a crime, explain the logic there. Amazingly, the "problem" of people congregating outside shops in queues, even for non essentials like coffee or take away pints does not seem to be a major issue, add some prayer in though and reduce the frequency of that possibility (I'm not convinced mitigation can't be put in place to stop people congregating, nor has it been demonstrated that this was happening and contributing to spread in the first case) for an individual to once a week and it will be a massacre!

This is the attack on religion, and the faithful, I referred to earlier. Whether you explicitly mean it this way or not(I don't think you do), it is an insidious attack aimed at reducing the practice of religion to a mere hobby, or luxury (like going to the cinema). You may view it like this, but you, or anyone else, have no right to force others to act like this is the case. Millions of people, billions around the world, view religious worship as an essential part of their being, not something to be put aside or diminished, lightly. This is why it is a fundamental human right and nearly every country in the world has not taken the draconian step of banning worship.

breezy1985 wrote: »

As far as this virus is concerned mass and cinema are the same thing.The virus cares not one bit for theory that you need to go to a building every week for your soul it will infect and kill the same as if you are in a cinema.

Saying other countries allow worship is pointless unless you can prove they are combating the virus better than us. Maybe we are doing it right and them wrong.

If you think government have shut down society and tanked the economy just to stop people going to mass then I would say the conspiracy theory forum would be the only place you would find agreement

Of course it is not all about religion, just a nice bonus for some, whether intentional or not.

The concept some people have of human rights on this forum is quite scary, the default being that they are to be tossed out the window and only "allowed" if it can be demonstrated that it is "safe".

This is madness. The approach must be that if a human right is to be infringed, it can only be done if it is demonstrated, with overwhelming evidence, that it is absolutely necessary. Any other approach is monstrous and undermines the entire concept of human rights, who knows where this can lead? Please read The Gulag Archipelago.