By LESLIE ANN AQUINO
After nearly three months, the public celebration of masses finally resumed yesterday at the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene or the Quiapo Church in Manila.
The number of people allowed to attend the mass was limited in keeping with the rules of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
“Every time there is a mass, we allow 10 people only,” Fr. Douglas Badong, parochial vicar of Quiapo Church, said.
If there is no mass, he said, they allow people who want to pray to go inside the church but by batches. “Those who want to pray, we allow them to go inside but batch by batch,” said Badong.
The IATF-EID had earlier allowed religious gatherings but it limited the attendees to a maximum of five people in modified enhanced community quarantine areas, and 10 in the general community quarantine areas.
A number of dioceses suspended the public celebration of masses after the government imposed the enhanced community quarantine to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic last March. Priests celebrated mass in private and it was made available to the faithful via livestreaming or television and radio.
Aside from limiting the number people in the mass, Quiapo Church also followed the different guidelines laid out by the Archdiocese of Manila to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus such as the wearing of face masks, temperature check, and placing of footbath containers and hand sanitizers, among others.
Badong said the faithful cooperated with the new protocols. “The devotees were cooperative. They lined up and didn’t complain about the procedures,” he said.
Quiapo Church houses the image of the Black Nazarene, a life-sized, dark-colored, wooden sculpture of Jesus Christ that was brought to Manila by Augustinian priests in 1607.
Known to be miraculous by its Filipino devotees, its annual procession every January is being attended by millions, making it as one of the country’s biggest annual religious procession.
