WHY WE ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE BISHOP.

 I have recently discovered why we are not following the bishop.   Apparently when he issued his guidelines, and he was following the guidelines of the Bishop's Conference, 'that local conditions must be taken account of when putting into practice safety measures against Covid', the Bishop welcomed everyone back to Mass, for conditions in the diocese were favourable and people were returning to normal activities in society.   They were returning to pubs, clubs, restaurants, Churches in normal numbers, large numbers were attending festivals and music events, and there were large crowds attending football matches.   Social Distancing was abandoned in every day life, and because of the success of the Vaccine, we were as we should have, getting back to as normal life as possible.

It seems however that certain priests in the diocese were unhappy with the Bishop following the rest of society.   They decided on a plan of 'virtue signalling'.    Our first priority was not getting people in the parishes back to Mass, it was to look after the 'old and the vulnerable'.    Now it is not a majority of the old who are now catching and dying of Covid, it is a much younger age.    I am 84, but I do not see myself as old and vulnerable, but there is a point here.   There are a few people who come to Church who are old and vulnerable because they have a clinical condition which in itself make them more likely to catch Covid.    Yes, they should be looked after, and the placing of them in Church should be looked at, but when priests do not care about getting people back to Mass, do they care at all, do they even care for the old and clinically vulnerable.    In my own parish it was not the priest who made the decision to ignore what was going on in the big world, but a group of unelected people imposing their ideas on the rest of the parish.