Confirmations in July and Communion dates to be set

Confirmation ceremonies which were put on hold after the arrival of the coronavirus are being rescheduled for dates between now and the end of the summer – although Rochfortbridge will have to wait until October.

However most of the First Communion candidates will now not receive the sacrament until the autumn.

The Bishop of Meath, Dr Tom Deenihan, said that because of the social distancing requirements, there will have to be both extra ceremonies, and a cap on numbers.

Stating that the task of rearranging the dates was close to completion, Bishop Deenihan said that the Confirmations will take place outside the celebration of Mass.

“We will have the readings, the Gospel, the homily, the Rite of Confirmation, the prayers of the faithful and then we go to the Our Father and the final blessing.”

He said there were two reasons that the decision was made to conduct the ceremony in this fashion, the first being to reduce the amount of time people spend in the church, and the second being down to the fact that in some places the church is going to have to have “a multiplicity of ceremonies”.

“Because we can’t fit everybody into the church, in some places we’re going to have four, or in some cases five, ceremonies during the day – so in Navan and Mullingar it is literally going to be five ceremonies at two-hour intervals to keep the amount of time the people are in the church to below the hour.”

Numbers attending have to be limited, Bishop Deenihan continued: “We are restricting it to the parents, the sponsors and the children because of the social distancing and capacity issues,” Bishop Deenihan said.

The aim is to ensure all the children have their Confirmation made before they start in post-primary school.

Communions

The rearranging of the First Communion ceremonies is being left to the parishes themselves to arrange.

“The diocesan office would always arrange Confirmations because of the fact that the bishop is involved, but parishes would have made their own arrangements for first Holy Communion,” says Bishop Deenihan.

In most parishes – including Mullingar – the rearranged Communions are likely to take place when the children are back at school.

Fr Derek Darby, ADM, Mullingar parish said that because of the threat of the feared “second wave”, Mullingar parish is deferring the naming of dates: “The only commitment we can give at the moment is that we’re hoping to have them in the first term,” he said.