From Fr Greg's Desk: Sunday 11th July
Updated COVID restrictions. As you may know by now, the lockdown orders for Sydney have been extended for a further week up until Friday July 16th. As such, there will be no face-to-face Masses this coming week.
You are still very welcome to join us for our livestreamed Masses at 9am on Saturday and 10am on Sunday! However please note, due to the limited clergy available at the moment and the need to reduce contact between our community as much as possible, the 6pm Vigil on Saturday will not be livestreamed.
Our weekday and Sunday Masses will be operating on a ‘bare bones’ crew, with just immediate clergy, staff and certain ministers operating within a bubble to bring services to our wider community. While we understand many of you are disappointed to not be able to attend Mass in person at this time, please know we are taking these measures to ensure we can still serve you and keep our staff and clergy safe. Thank you for your understanding on this, and we really do hope to able to celebrate Masses together again shortly.
Reduced capacity for funerals. On Friday 9th July, restrictions for Sydney were also tightened, and capacity at all funerals is now limited to a maximum of 10 people. This affects both SCB and OLQP churches, as it is not based on square metre size of the church or venue, but please be assured we are doing all we can to work safely around these restrictions. Livestreaming continues to be available for all funerals hosted at SCB, so you can most certainly watch from home if you are unable to attend a funeral in person. If you wish to watch the livestream of a funeral at our Parish, please see the bulletin or contact the Parish Office for the livestream details.
WWCC and Child Safeguarding Clarification. The Safeguarding Office of the Archdiocese has recently informed us that they've re-examined some compliance issues regarding Working With Children Checks (WWCC) and related requirements for volunteers, who work in activities either:
We thank the Safeguarding Office for this clarification, as many of you have queried this in specific volunteer roles and with sporadic event volunteering (ie. at Easter and Christmas Masses only)
As of last week, we can now confirm that the requirement for virtually all of our volunteers to maintain a current Working With Children’s Check (WWCC), to fill in the Code of Conduct for Working With Children, and to complete the 'SALT' training no longer applies to those who serve in volunteer ministries at our Parish falling within these criteria. The Safeguarding Office is currently developing new protocols in keeping with this and we will publish these as soon as they are available.
For now, the list of ministries that would require a valid and current WWCC, a signed Code of Conduct for Working With Children, and certified SALT training, are as follows (the list is not exhaustive):
This means, for example, that people who volunteer in the Catholic Women’s League, who take up collections at Masses, who only read occasionally at Masses (less than 5 times a year), who look after parking at Church events, who clean or do maintenance work around the Church and its grounds, would not be required to comply with these requirements, as long as they remain within the boundaries of the current legislation.
Again, this list is not exhaustive. I would welcome anyone who is in doubt about this to contact Judy Raumer or myself for further clarification.
We apologise for any angst or inconvenience caused by these previous demands of the Safeguarding Office of the Archdiocese, with whose directives we are obliged to comply. They assure us that they were acting in the interests of protection and safeguarding of children, in the wake of the Royal Commission's findings and the serious consequences of non-compliance with recently enacted legislation. We thank them for their devoted service to the cause.
If you are a volunteer in our Parish, we do need you to sign the Volunteer registration Form, which is a must for all volunteers within the Archdiocese, copies of which are on the RGCP website. Naturally, all those volunteers who do work in the children's related ministries described above must do the SALT training and complete the required forms.
Happy 60th Anniversary Fr. John Alt
Our own dear Fr. John Alt is celebrating 60 years of priestly service on the 15th of July. As we are all in lockdown, there is not much we can do to celebrate it, but we do offer him our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for the years ahead. You can send your anniversary greetings to him at johnalt@bigpond.com, and you can read the article on page _ about his extended priestly service in the Archdiocese. Good on ya, Fr. John!
And that's about all for now.
Fr Greg
Reduced capacity for funerals. On Friday 9th July, restrictions for Sydney were also tightened, and capacity at all funerals is now limited to a maximum of 10 people. This affects both SCB and OLQP churches, as it is not based on square metre size of the church or venue, but please be assured we are doing all we can to work safely around these restrictions. Livestreaming continues to be available for all funerals hosted at SCB, so you can most certainly watch from home if you are unable to attend a funeral in person. If you wish to watch the livestream of a funeral at our Parish, please see the bulletin or contact the Parish Office for the livestream details.
WWCC and Child Safeguarding Clarification. The Safeguarding Office of the Archdiocese has recently informed us that they've re-examined some compliance issues regarding Working With Children Checks (WWCC) and related requirements for volunteers, who work in activities either:
- unrelated to children’s ministries, or
- which would be unlikely to involve contact with children or,
- with some contact with children on less than five specific occasions in a year.
We thank the Safeguarding Office for this clarification, as many of you have queried this in specific volunteer roles and with sporadic event volunteering (ie. at Easter and Christmas Masses only)
As of last week, we can now confirm that the requirement for virtually all of our volunteers to maintain a current Working With Children’s Check (WWCC), to fill in the Code of Conduct for Working With Children, and to complete the 'SALT' training no longer applies to those who serve in volunteer ministries at our Parish falling within these criteria. The Safeguarding Office is currently developing new protocols in keeping with this and we will publish these as soon as they are available.
For now, the list of ministries that would require a valid and current WWCC, a signed Code of Conduct for Working With Children, and certified SALT training, are as follows (the list is not exhaustive):
- all priests/deacons/seminarians in parishes
- parish secretaries, office staff
- youth ministers, workers or leaders
- Sacramental Coordinators and Group Leaders (e.g. for baptisms)
- Catechists, Children's Liturgy Coordinators and presenters
- Children's Choir Ministry Leaders
- Acolytes/Ministers of the Altar, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Senior Altar servers (over 18 years old), Ministers of the Word/ and regular Readers
- Church Wardens (but not those merely 'passing the plate' at Masses)
- COVID Marshals
- Ministers to the Housebound/Visitations
This means, for example, that people who volunteer in the Catholic Women’s League, who take up collections at Masses, who only read occasionally at Masses (less than 5 times a year), who look after parking at Church events, who clean or do maintenance work around the Church and its grounds, would not be required to comply with these requirements, as long as they remain within the boundaries of the current legislation.
Again, this list is not exhaustive. I would welcome anyone who is in doubt about this to contact Judy Raumer or myself for further clarification.
We apologise for any angst or inconvenience caused by these previous demands of the Safeguarding Office of the Archdiocese, with whose directives we are obliged to comply. They assure us that they were acting in the interests of protection and safeguarding of children, in the wake of the Royal Commission's findings and the serious consequences of non-compliance with recently enacted legislation. We thank them for their devoted service to the cause.
If you are a volunteer in our Parish, we do need you to sign the Volunteer registration Form, which is a must for all volunteers within the Archdiocese, copies of which are on the RGCP website. Naturally, all those volunteers who do work in the children's related ministries described above must do the SALT training and complete the required forms.
Happy 60th Anniversary Fr. John Alt
Our own dear Fr. John Alt is celebrating 60 years of priestly service on the 15th of July. As we are all in lockdown, there is not much we can do to celebrate it, but we do offer him our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for the years ahead. You can send your anniversary greetings to him at johnalt@bigpond.com, and you can read the article on page _ about his extended priestly service in the Archdiocese. Good on ya, Fr. John!
And that's about all for now.
Fr Greg
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