“The manner of communication in this case was “grossly disrespectful”.
There is “deep disappointment” and “anger” over the government’s postponement of religious ceremonies, Archbishop Eamon Martin has said.
He made the comments following the government confirming on its website that baptisms, first holy communions and confirmations should not take place at this time, due to fears regarding the Delta variant.
The advice comes following two days of confusion as to whether religious ceremonies were permitted to take place under the current Covid-19 restrictions.
While there was no information during this time about the postponement on the government’s website, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar did say at a press conference on Tuesday that religious ceremonies were “off” when asked about the matter.
Speaking to RTÉ News at One, the Archbishop said: “There is indeed a lot of confusion here and a lot of frustration and deep disappointment and indeed anger.
“We’ve been deluged with calls from parishes and I know that priests and others have been extremely disappointed by this reversal of the position that was written to us from the Taoiseach’s office at the very beginning of June, which said that in line with the gradual reopening [of] society from 5 July, these ceremonies could take place.
“There’s been a huge amount of preparation with the children and their schools, with their families, to hold very safely these sacraments.”
He said there had been planning in place to perform these ceremonies “extremely carefully” with small numbers and by “keeping alert to all of the public health advice on gatherings afterwards”.
The Archbishop also stated that the manner of communication for the postponement was “very disrespectful”.
“The Tánaiste dismissively saying ‘oh they’re off’. That was how we were told about the change in direction,” Archbishop Martin said.
“The manner of communication in this case was grossly disrespectful and we’re extremely disappointed by this”.
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