On April 22 Gov. John Bel Edwards presented new guidance concerning our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and these guidelines allow us the opportunity to begin opening our churches to full capacity again.  In considering these new guidelines, I want us to be aware that COVID is still spreading, even if at low and stable levels, and this should be a part of our consideration.  To pretend that the danger is completely over could sabotage all the efforts and progress we have made up to this point. Yet with this caution acknowledged, I want to offer for the first time since this pandemic began a more proactive process to bring us all back together in our churches again.

We need the power of Christ’s resurrection to lift us out of our sadness and grief.  This hope is not a panacea that will protect us from the hard work before us to heal, restore and inspire our broken world.  But it is a hope that will sustain our mission in difficult times because our hope is in Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead who is greater than any difficulties we may face.  

Weddings will now be allowed to be celebrated on Saturday evenings in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, effective upon the decree’s publication in The Catholic Commentator.