Amid coronavirus, Miami archbishop to conduct Palm Sunday services on Facebook
As the coronavirus spreads across South Florida, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski is turning to social media to get his message out at the start of Holy Week, the holiest week of the year in the Christian calendar.
On Sunday, Wenski will stream the Mass for Palm Sunday on Facebook Live at 10 a.m. from St. Mary Cathedral, 7525 NW Second Ave. in Miami. No parishioners will be permitted to attend the service in person due to the coronavirus pandemic. The service will be streamed from the church’s Facebook page at Archdiocese of Miami.
On Wednesday, Wenski wrote a letter to the priests in the diocese, the largest in the state with 1.3 million parishioners, saying over the next two weeks there would be no drive-by confessions, no pickups of palm fronds at the churches on Palm Sunday, and no in-person Masses, including on Easter Sunday on April 12.
“Because of the need for everyone to observe extreme social distance, and to follow civil authorities’ instructions to remain at home as much as possible to mitigate the risks of spreading the virus, it is not prudent for parishes to plan any activity that would encourage people to leave their homes,” Wenski said in the letter. “Therefore, parishes are not to offer ‘drive-through’ palms, confessions or Holy Communion or any similar type of activity.”
Palm Sunday, also known as Sunday of the Passion, is the Sunday before Easter and marks the beginning of Holy Week for Christians.
Wenski suggested parishioners place a palm frond on their door as “most yards in South Florida have some type of palm in them.”
Also on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he would sign an executive order limiting activity in the state to essential services for the next 30 days to try to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus in Florida, which has over 10,000 cases and is growing by about 1,000 new confirmed cases a day. About half of the cases are in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The order went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday and ends on April 30.
The order lists a few examples of essential activities residents will be allowed to do outside their homes, including “attending religious services conducted in churches, synagogues and houses of worship.”
On Thursday, DeSantis explained why he exempted houses of worship from his stay-at-home order.
“Coming up in the Easter season, I think people are going to want to have access...There’s no reason why you can’t do a church service with people 6 feet apart.”
Health experts have urged U.S. residents to stay at home, as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has grown to more than 250,000 in the United States and more than 6,600 deaths — the highest number of cases in the world.
The Rev. Canon John Tidy of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida said the Right Rev. Peter Eaton, the bishop of the diocese, has said churches will remain closed to in-person services until May 15.
Funerals are being put on hold and services are being live-streamed, including for Easter Sunday. The diocese includes 76 congregations from Key West in Monroe County to Jensen Beach in Martin County.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 5:01 PM.
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