From Fr Greg's Desk

 

 Hi everyone!

Br. Dan's Deaconate happens this Sunday!

As you know, this Sunday Br. Dan will become a Deacon, the last stage of his journey towards becoming a Catholic Priest. We are all really excited about it, and I know Br. Dan is too! I apologise that, due to COVID 19 restrictions, we were not able to invite more people to the festivities... Deacon Dan will, however, be preaching at the Youth Mass this Sunday night  6 pm. You can catch both on our live streaming Youtube channel at youtube.rgcp.org.au. 

 

RGCP Volunteers’ Thank You Masses

NEXT WEEKEND!

If you are a volunteer at the Parish make sure you book in for one of the Masses next weekend, as we will be thanking all our volunteers at those masses for all their hard work during very complicated year of 2020!

 

Clarification of current COVID 19 restrictions from the Archdiocese

The Archdiocese has clarified the new specific COVID 19 restrictions in force for our parishes, and I wanted to share them with you verbatim, so that you are aware of what is expected of us. Here is the text of the Vicar General's instructions:

The NSW government has made changes to the Covid -19 safety restrictions which will give us more scope to celebrate mass with larger groups, especially at Christmas.

The one person per 4m2 rule still applies to indoor gatherings. However, for outdoor gatherings with seats spaced appropriately one person per 2m2 is permitted up to a maximum of 500 people.

It is essential to measure your outdoor area to determine how many seats you can provide (per 2m2). Archbishop Anthony strongly encourages us to try to provide some outdoor masses at Christmas in order to allow more people
to participate.

You may be able to use school playgrounds or undercrofts, or you may need to hire marquees in case of wet weather. I realise both the available options and the constraints will vary from parish to parish, but do be as creative as possible so we can make this Christmas a ‘welcome back’ to our wider Catholic community.

With properly arranged seating, it may be possible in some parishes to celebrate mass in the church (following the 4m2 rule) and to have additional people in the foyer and courtyard provided they are seated (following the 2m2 rule with the overall number of people less than 500).

In relation to large school gatherings and masses, follow the distancing rules being used by the schools as for assemblies etc.

For weddings and funerals, the numbers currently remain at 150 and 100 respectively. These will increase to 300 from 1 December onwards."

However, we are seeking further clarification as to whether or not we can have a further 200 people seated outside for weddings and funerals, or if this is only in the case of churches that have this capacity inside.

 

Hope that helps! Oh, and 'Happy New Liturgical Year' to you all (the Church begins its' new year on the first day of Advent). 

 

Your brother in Christ's service,

 

Fr. Greg