ALBANO LAZIALE, Italy (LifeSiteNews) — An Italian diocese has announced that a COVID-19 Green Pass will be required to attend an Episcopal Ordination Mass.
This stricture is in defiance of Italian Episcopal Conference instructions.
The Diocese of Albano cited Italian law in highlighting the need for the Green Pass to “access the celebration area” for the episcopal ordination. The diocese website displays a graphic explaining that the pass, which is issued by the Italian government, can be obtained either with an “Anti Covid-19” vaccination, a negative molecular/antigen test, or a COVID-19 “certificate of recovery.”
Andrea Zambrano, writing for the Italian paper The Daily Compass, noted that while the announcement page does not mention a Mass, episcopal ordinations always involve a solemn Mass.
The diocese shared that the Mass, to be held on September 8, will also commemorate the priestly Jubilee of Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, who leads the suburbicarian (i.e. near the City of Rome) diocese of Albano as a member of the highest order of cardinals. The first conconsecrants will be Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and Monsignor Fernando Tarcisio Filograna, bishop of the diocese of Nardo-Gallipoli.
While the diocese has cited Italian law n.105 in deeming the Green Pass “necessary” to enter the Albano cathedral for Mass, according to the law’s provisions, churches are not among the places in which the pass is required.
The Green Pass mandate also contravenes a document on the “Green Pass and Liturgical Celebrations,” issued by the Italian bishops conference, which states that “Certification is not required to participate in celebrations.”
Zambrano noted that “the Mass of Albano will be the first Mass” denied to those who do not have a “Green Pass,” and expected it to create a precedent for other Italian dioceses in drawing a “line of demarcation” among the faithful.
The planned September Papal Mass in Slovakia goes a step further in its requirement that attendees be vaccinated.
Describing the diocesan prohibition as being “faithful to a lesser god,” Zambrano warned that after the episcopal ordination, “we could be tempted again by the reasoning that, since the Mass is everything, then we must be willing to any sacrifice, humiliation, imposition, in order to take part in it.”
“The key point to understand is that, if we find ourselves – and it could be very soon – in the tragic situation of having to choose between Mass with a vaccine (yes, because who goes to swab every 48 hours?) Or no Mass, by reason of faith we will have to choose the second (in the meantime looking for clandestine Masses),” Zambrano continued.
The plan to exclude Catholic faithful from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass violates the Catholic Code of Canon Law according to Canon 912, which states that “every baptized person, who is not prohibited by law, can and must be admitted to sacred communion,” and to Canon 843, which states that “Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.”
Zambrano further noted that to require a “health certificate” to attend Mass or even receive the sacraments, “would mean to consider the Green Pass or any other devilry a precondition of the same importance as Baptism and the profession of right faith.”
“It would be a real heresy, propagated in practice (with the excuse of the pandemic), which would lead us to contradict nothing less than the first Council, that of Jerusalem, and the basic principle, then affirmed, that there can be no other conditions other than right faith to determine access to sacramental grace,” he continued.
Increasing numbers of clergy around the world are demanding vaccination as a precondition for engaging in public ministries, including priestly ministry.
Bishop Sebastiano Sanguinetti of the Diocese of Tempio-Ampurias recently wrote in a letter to his diocese that “all those in the Church who perform community services (Priests, deacons, catechists, formators, group leaders, various ministries) have the obligation to be vaccinated.”
Canadian Bishop Douglas Crosby warned in late July that priests who don’t receive a COVID-19 jab might “not be permitted entrance to health care facilities (hospitals and nursing homes) and schools.”
Earlier this month, it was reported that the rector of San Paolo parish in Casale Monferrato, Monsignor Pier Paolo Busto, who is also the director of two diocesan newspapers, hung a sign on the church which read, “Anyone who is not vaccinated is a serious danger. He is not welcome in this church.” Almost 200 people reported it to the mayor, after which the sign was removed in order to comply with the Italian Episcopal Conference.
According to Italy’s National Health Institute (ISS), the Delta variant of the coronavirus is now the prevalent strain in Italy. People who have taken the experimental COVID-19 jab can test positive for the Delta variant and spread it to others.
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