Ordinariate Parish Reopening Reports

My regular correspondent has gathered news on various reopening efforts in the North American ordinariate. For the first one below, recall that their former priest, Fr Simington, was reassigned to the Irvine, CA Newman group.

Fr Davis celebrated his first mass for St Alban, Rochester July 5. Because of NY State travel rules, he is self-isolating until July 15 after his arrival from Texas, so last Sunday’s mass had no attendants or servers, nor will next Sunday’s.

The self-isolation is due to typical arbitrary New York State rules requiring visitors from Texas and Florida to self-quarantine for two weeks after arrival in New York. As though the problem were not in New York itself.

Meanwhile, Fr Simington celebrates his first mass for St John Henry Newman, Irvine this Sunday. The Queen of Life Chapel website announces that social distancing restrictions are in place and capacity is reduced. As we know, the chapel has only four rows of pews, of which the first is not normally used by the SJHN community as it has no kneelers and is quite close to the altar party in an ad orientem celebration. I have seen pictures where worshippers are seated there, but presumably at least part of it could not be used if social distancing is to be maintained. So the capacity of the chapel, 65 under normal circumstances, will be sharply limited.

The Queen of Life website shows only one mass at 11 am next Sunday but perhaps this is inaccurate. The BJHN, Irvine website and FB page seem have been barely maintained since the lockdown so I am not sure where potential attendees would look for reliable information.

The California limitation on mass attendance is 25% of capacity or 100, whichever is fewer. So the maximum at the Newman group will be 16. The 16 includes celebrant, cantor, usher(s), lector(s), and server(s) as well. However, to maintain six foot social distance, alternate rows of pews must be roped off, and people not in family units must also be separated by six feet in the pews. Thus it may not be possible to accommodate anything like 16 in pews.

UPDATE: I'm now told the Newman group will celebrate mass in the parking lot this coming Sunday, an inevitable result of the restrictions.

Regarding Holy Martyrs Murrieta,

Sunday mass at Holy Martyrs, Murrieta is now inside the chapel. “Fr William,” who celebrates a daily mass at his home chapel which is live-streamed on the SoCal Ordinariate Facebook pages, was the celebrant last Sunday. I thought he might be a Norbertine but I see no one by that name on the St Michael’s Abbey website. Elderly.

In addition, my regular correspondent is trying to determine why Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston has stopped publishing Sunday attendance figures in the bulletin for the first time in about ten years.

Reopening is complicated by efforts in the media, "blue" jurisdictions, and the public health establishment to reimpose a lockdown. I don't know how churches will respond, but my impression is that churches and bussinesses have been extremely conscientious in following public health protocols regarding masks, social distancing, and capacity.

These public protocols have been based on the "droplet" theory of COVID transmission. If churches and businesses have been following these protocols, the disease should not be spreading, right? Gov Newom and Mayor Garcetti attribute the spread to "too many pool parties" and in effect blame the putative resurgence on the plebs. We're not aware of pool parties in our neighborhood, anyhow. I think it's more likely that the infection spreads via means other than droplets; it's more contagious but less severe than we've been told.

It's hard not to conclude that the current state of the virus is as follows:

• Expanding numbers of "cases", but the reports do not distinguish between current infections and past infections that indicate recovery and immunity
• Asymptomatic or very mild cases around 80%
• "Hospitalizations" that reflect only testing of people admitted to hospitals for any reason who happen to test "positive", though this again does not distinguish between current and past infections/recovery
• A declining mortality rate, resulting from increased testing with declining absolute numbers of deaths.

The tea leaves I'm reading in our diocesan parish are that it is moving toward reopening, with increased mass times (preserving public health protocols) and retraining of parish volunteers for more functions. I can't imagine this is being done without the knowledge and approval of the bishops. This gives me some level of confidence that even with a renewed set of lockdowns, the bishops and other denominational representatives will be able to get some accommodation.

However, my view is that as more information comes to light, the March-June lockdowns were an overreaction to a manufactured crisis.