With the easing of COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the government, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) issued on Friday, Oct. 15, a circular urging the faithful to attend eucharistic mass.
In Circular No. 22-36 addressed to all bishops and diocesan administrators, CBCP President and Kaloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David encouraged all faithful to return to mass in churches every Sunday.
”With gratitude to God, the pandemic has weakened, and our official health experts have placed the country into a more relaxed health protocol. This has made our people move freely and return to their normal life and business with ease, but still following some basic health protocols,” David said.
”These circumstances permit and obliged us to return to the normality of Christian life, which has the Church building as its home of the celebration of the liturgy, especially the Eucharist,” he added.
The CBCP said while online masses have performed a ”great service” at a time when there was no ”possibility of community celebrations”, no broadcast could replace or be compared to personal participation.
He noted that virtual masses alone have a risk for it could ”distance people from a personal and intimate encounter with God who gave himself to us not in a virtual way.”
David reminded all parish churches and venues for masses to still implement the basic health protocols to ensure that the faithful are convinced that they are safe inside the premises.
He also underscored that there must be a constant catechesis on the necessity to return to churches on the Sunday Mass in homilies and catechesis.
In March 2020, the CBCP issued a circular that allowed the live streaming of liturgical celebrations through radio, television, and online amid the lockdown and community quarantine.
It also directed local ordinaries to exercise their prerogative to dispense the faithful from Holy days of obligations and Sunday mass.
