In the light of the current Tier 4 restrictions in Wales, please read this carefully.
The advice of Welsh Government is to stay at home.
The legislation states:
“When Alert Level 4 restrictions apply to an area:
– There is an overarching requirement to stay at home if you live in the area and not to travel to the area if you live outside;
– most premises ordinarily open to the public are required to be closed.”
(The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations 2020. Explanatory Note).
The regulations are more relaxed for Christmas Day.
It is possible to have public Masses for Christmas. However, attendance at these should be assessed as to whether you think it is absolutely necessary for you to attend: the threat of Coronvirus will still be there, and there is no obligation to attend a Mass.
In order to facilitate those who wish to stay at home, a Christmas Vigil Mass will be broadcast on our parish YouTube page at 6pm on 24th December. All other Christmas Eve Masses are now cancelled. The link to watch the on-line Mass is here: http://m.youtube.com/user/LIFBB
At Narberth: the 6pm Vigil Mass is now cancelled. All those who have pre-booked a seat at 6pm, have automatically been given a new seat at the 11:00am Christmas Day Mass. No further seating is available.
At Haverfordwest: the 5pm and 9pm Vigil Masses are now cancelled. Anyone who was previously booked for these times, and who still wishes to attend a Mass, may re-book a seat for Christmas Day. There are still spaces available at the Midnight Mass, 9:00am Mass and 11:00am Mass. To re-book a new seat please call Ann Barnes on the number given below. If you are already booked for a Christmas Day Mass, your booking will continue unaffected. If you have already booked a seat, but have decided it is too risky to attend, then please cancel your booking.
Calls to Ann Barnes must be made on Tuesday 22nd December between 3:00pm and 5:00pm. Her number is 01437 765365. Please do not call outside of these hours.
The Welsh Government have raised the lockdown to Tier 4, the highest level. Advice to churches has been limited and is as follows: “Places of worship are allowed to be open to the public. However, wherever possible we still advise that people avoid congregating with people they do not live with. For example faith leaders may still choose to broadcast (without a congregation) an act of worship whether over the internet or as part of a radio or television broadcast. Weddings and funerals may also be broadcast from places of worship. Ceremonies for weddings, funerals and other life events such as bar mitzvahs and baptisms are permitted in places of worship. People are able to attend at the invitation of the organiser”.
Our church can open, and will open, at times which will soon be advertised. One interpretation of this guidance is that prayer is possible, albeit with people avoiding forming a congregation (i.e. private prayer). Additionally, broadcasts of the Mass (public worship) may take place, but with no congregation.
As such, our church will close for public worship with Mass being broadcast on our YouTube page. Times for private prayer will be made public soon. If and when more guidance is issued which gives greater clarity, so then we will update our position accordingly. In the meantime, it is right to err on the side of caution. Fr Liam
(This article was first published on 10th May 2020, and is reproduced here by popular demand).
A moral question – if a vaccine is developed for COVID-19 which will save thousands of lives, but which uses material from an aborted foetus in its manufacture, can Catholics use the vaccine or should they boycott it?
Answer:
There are no formal guidelines from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church on this subject; it is a matter for the personal conscience of an individual when he or she has weighed up their personal circumstances against the actions required to make the vaccine.
However, while there is no definitive answer from our bishops, the Church is not silent on complex issues and she can (and does) have principles to evaluate such predicaments thereby giving some guidance.
Presently there are vaccines for illnesses, other than COVID-19, which are given routinely and which use material from aborted foetal cells. These include the vaccines for, Chickenpox, Rubella, Polio and Hepatitis A.
The material used in production for these vaccines was taken from two abortions which took place in the mid 1960s and early 1970s. Material taken from these abortions has continued to be cultivated in a laboratory since that time, and material from these cells is still being used in the manufacture of these vaccines today.
The Church teaches that it is always wrong to abort the life of a child. Anyone who cooperates directly in this action is guilty of a grave sin. Anyone who doesn’t act directly in procuring the abortion, but still intends this action to be carried out (for themselves or others), is also in a state of grave sin. This intention to want to support a sin, or to actually commit a sin (when you know the act is sinful) is called “formal cooperation”. Formal cooperation with sin is always wrong.
There maybe circumstances whereby a person doesn’t intend to share in the evil intention of a sin, but nevertheless does have some role to play in that sinful act. This is called “material cooperation”.
Material cooperation is wrong, but it must be noted there are additional factors to consider, which colour just how sinful material cooperation may be, and thus culpability may be lessened to a minimum.
One of these factors is our proximity to the sinful act. Another factor is whether or not there are any alternative behaviours which are more morally wholesome.
In the case of vaccines made from an abortion in the 1960s, our closeness to that act is very remote. Most of us had no say in what was happening back then and had no chance of influencing a decision made years ago, in another country, with a different legal jurisdiction.
We don’t condone the sin of abortion. Nevertheless, given that it has happened (and given that one doesn’t condone it) then a person is not formally cooperating with abortion when vaccines made with aborted human tissue are used. We may still be materially cooperating in that sin by using such vaccines, but it would be way of a passive material cooperation. This is not good, but there maybe mitigating factors which reduce our level of culpability to the extent that we can employ these vaccines if no alternative exists.
It must be stated that, if a vaccine can be used which has no ethical problems, then it should always be used as a preference. Our goal should always to develop medicines which have no need to contain aborted foetal tissue.
However, if such a vaccine doesn’t exist, then it is permissible, on a temporary basis, to use that vaccine for the good of saving lives. This is because it is a moral principle that there is no absolute duty to avoid passive material cooperation in sin, if there is a grave inconvenience to a current good.
If there is a good, proportional, reason to use such vaccines, in the face of dangerous illnesses, then vaccines made from aborted foetuses can be used. Where these vaccines are used, there is also an obligation to continue to look for better medicines which have no connection to abortions. i.e. we should also be seeking to end their temporary use by the employment of a better vaccine. Thus using vaccines made from abortions comes with a moral duty for us to put pressure on pharmaceutical companies and governments to want to make better drugs, with no evil connection.
At this time (as at all times) we should, as faithful Catholics, be making our objections to abortion known. We should also be putting pressure on government and healthcare providers to be looking for solutions which avoid the use of cells procured from abortions.
If a vaccine is produced from the current foetal cells, which can prevent us from the potentially fatal effects of COVID-19 then, so long as we continue to strive for better, the vaccine may be used by Catholics.
Whether to take the vaccine or not is a matter for each person to reflect upon, with his or her own conscience, as informed by the principles of the Church’s teaching.
The Pontifical Academy for Life is the part of the Church administration that deals with such issues. A letter from them, available on-line, might be helpful and gives more detail to what I’ve said. You can find the text here: https://www.immunize.org/talking-about-vaccines/vaticandocument.htm
More recently the Catholic Bioethics centre in the UK, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre at Oxford, has produced a document specifically relating to COVID-19. You can read it here: http://www.bioethics.org.uk/images/user/covidbriefing2.pdf
Public Worship and Private Prayer is once again possible in our churches. As such, our opening hours have now returned back to what they were beore the most recent lockdown. Mass and prayer times can be found here.
Many faith leaders have written to the Prime Minster, Rt Hon. Boris Johnson, asking to see the evidence which would support the closure of churches, when church communities have been working so hard to maintain social distancing and be Covid-secure. A copy of their letter can be found here.
This was updated to reflect the changes needed because of Covid-19 to facilitate the re-opening of our parish. Please note that Masses are no longer broadcast on-line.
These times will be reviewed as Government advice changes.
St David and St Patrick Catholic Church 
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