Memorandum

From Bishop Clark
OLA Pastoral Region/Archdiocese of Los Angeles RE: Opening of Churches
May 22, 2020

The Archbishop has suspended the obligation for each Catholic to receive Communion during the Easter Season. In place of the Easter Duty, Catholics of the Archdiocese are asked to receive Communion as soon as Mass is available to them before the end of the calendar year.

The bishops of the California Catholic Conference have engaged the Governor’s staff in regular communication about the plan of the twelve dioceses of California to do a phase-in reopening of churches. We have reiterated that our cooperation with the State’s reopening plans has been a voluntary decision of the Church leaders reserving to ourselves the first amendment freedom of worship rights. Our cooperation is based on our concern and responsibility for the welfare of our people. We have established detailed plans for reopening our churches at our discretion and are requesting the State to honor those plans. We are expecting a response from the Governor this coming week.

In the meantime, each parish and school is asked to prepare a phased-in reopening and to
(1) develop now a specific plan for your facilities, including maintaining social distance and virus containment practices, a method for welcoming parishioners back to Mass and the sacraments on a limited basis, training volunteers for keeping proper order and monitoring virus containment practices, regularly cleaning the church facilities, communicating regulations and procedures to your parishioners; and
(2) gathering the materials you will need for continuous sanitizing of the facilities.

St. Lawrence of Brindisi will be continuing to update you through our live streaming of Masses, website and facebook pages.