"The guidelines for the reception of Holy Communion and health practices during a pandemic remain in place. 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"- Bishop Stephen Lowe, for the NZCBC.
Questions will spontaneously and naturally arise from this statement today from Bishop Lowe of the NZ Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Like, first: "What 'pandemic'?"
Like, first: "What 'pandemic'?"
For the first time, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%.
Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% - almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged it a month ago.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/cdc-confirms-remarkably-low-death-rate-media-chooses-ignore-covid-19-realities
In New Zealand we've had just over a thousand cases of Covid (they reckon!) and 21 deaths. Flu kills 500 Kiwis each year.
Covid. Is. Not. A. Pandemic.
In New Zealand we've had just over a thousand cases of Covid (they reckon!) and 21 deaths. Flu kills 500 Kiwis each year.
Covid. Is. Not. A. Pandemic.
As I said to a hairdresser today, "You're more likely to get run over by a bus than die of Covid".
"Oh, everyone has their own opinion, we hear them all the time," said she.
"So how do you think the Prime Minister has handled Covid?" I asked.
"Oh, she's done a pretty good job," she said.
Which is what you'd expect a hairdresser to say. But we expect more from a bishop. We expect balance and common sense. Not to mention wisdom, courage and faith.
"So how do you think the Prime Minister has handled Covid?" I asked.
"Oh, she's done a pretty good job," she said.
Which is what you'd expect a hairdresser to say. But we expect more from a bishop. We expect balance and common sense. Not to mention wisdom, courage and faith.
Next question: why no Communion on the tongue?
"Communion in the hand is no more hygienic than Communion in the mouth. Indeed, it can be dangerous for contagion. The hand carries a huge amount of bacteria.
"In my experience of nearly three decades of distributing Communion on the hand and on the tongue, to whole congregations on the hand nearly exclusively with a few exceptions, and also to whole congregations on the tongue nearly exclusively with few exceptions during the Novus Ordo and no exceptions at the TLM, is that rarely — rarely — do my fingers come into contact with tongues but very often, nearly always, there is contact with my fingers and hands.
"When both ways are done properly, whereas there is still often contact by Communion on the hand, there is virtually never contact with the tongue" - Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
"In my experience of nearly three decades of distributing Communion on the hand and on the tongue, to whole congregations on the hand nearly exclusively with a few exceptions, and also to whole congregations on the tongue nearly exclusively with few exceptions during the Novus Ordo and no exceptions at the TLM, is that rarely — rarely — do my fingers come into contact with tongues but very often, nearly always, there is contact with my fingers and hands.
"When both ways are done properly, whereas there is still often contact by Communion on the hand, there is virtually never contact with the tongue" - Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
From the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, published in Notitiae (April 1999): "This Dicastery observes that the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (25 March 2004) clearly stipulates that “each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue” (n. 92), nor is it licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ’s faithful who are not impeded by law from receiving the Holy Eucharist (cf. n. 91).https://onepeterfive.com/bishops-communion-hand-tongue/
What part of the information above is not clear to our bishops? Or do we conclude that they are a law unto themselves? And it the information is clear to our bishops, and they are not a law unto themselves, then what good reason can they possibly have for refusing to give Communion on the tongue?
Sorry, bishops, but you haven't got a leg to stand on.
Sorry, bishops, but you haven't got a leg to stand on.
Third question: since when have 'concerns' or 'fears' been valid reasons for dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday?
Is there a sub-clause to the Third Commandment of which we have previously been unaware? Like "Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day unless you are: a) concerned or b) frightened"?
Is there a sub-clause to the Third Commandment of which we have previously been unaware? Like "Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day unless you are: a) concerned or b) frightened"?
One of the chief tasks of the bishops is to teach, especially in these days of mass hysteria induced by an atheistic, socialist regime. To teach the facts about Covid rather than regurgitate the narrative provided by this country's inept, biased and just plain stupid journalists.
Bishops are appointed by Christ through his Vicar on Earth (who by the way has repudiated this title) to teach the faithful how to love God perfectly by doing His will with all their might; not to teach us by word and example how to live in fear, but to learn the perfect love which casts out fear.
Bishops are appointed by Christ through his Vicar on Earth (who by the way has repudiated this title) to teach the faithful how to love God perfectly by doing His will with all their might; not to teach us by word and example how to live in fear, but to learn the perfect love which casts out fear.
Look, bishops: if you continue like this you may as well pack up and go home to your palaces and stay there while your congregations cuddle up on their sofas in their sitting rooms with the remote and your live-streamed Masses - which if nothing else have shown up the anthropocentrism and banalities of the Novus Ordo Mass celebrated versus populum and so have driven your wretched abandoned people to discover the peerless beauty of the Immemorial (Latin) Mass. 'Every cloud has a silver lining' ...
"Each parish" says Bishop Lowe, "will decide what is manageable and safe for their community including whether any particular weekday or Sunday Mass resumes."
Pardon me? You mean, bishop, that it's down to the local PP and/or parish council (depending on how autocratic the PP is) to decide whether to celebrate Mass, even when PM Jacinda Ardern in all her Mormonistic, Freemasonic, socialist wisdom has decreed, in her deeply hypocritical 'kindness', that the Immortal Sacrifice of Calvary may resume?
Surely what you mean to say is that the normal Sunday Mass timetable might no resume, depending on availability of priests and the size of the church etc.
Deep night hath come down on this rough- spoken world,
And the banners of darkness are boldly unfurled;
And the tempest-tossed Church, all her eyes are on thee;
They look to thy shining, sweet Star of the Sea!
