At Mass this weekend it was announced that we would be done with masks on June 12. I promptly took off my mask and was followed by my family. We got a few stares but no one said anything. One other parishioner went maskless during the Mass. I wish I had done it long ago. Let me know in the comboxes what is happening where you are.
In the Gulag of Michigan, my wife and I have been searching around to find Pastors with guts. They have been hard to find but we found two parishes that would tolerate us “non-maskers”. If bothered by a parishioner, I would make Baaaaa sounds at them. I can be a real jerk. The past year has been enlightening as to how few shepherds are actually doing their anointed jobs. I long for a Fr Altman to enter our diocese but alas I doubt our wimpy bishop would allow such a thing. I have been enjoying this blog for the past couple of years and the intelligent bantering that goes back and forth. Thanks to all for helping me and my family keep the Faith in these stupid times.
I literally cannot mask, not if I am to be responsible for others.
If anything goes wrong, I become a liability.
So we did EWTN’s Mass, and the week …dang it, can’t remember the Father’s name, the spit-fire Asian guy, who seemed to have three or five folks up front who were relatives or friends… all unmasked.
Then the next week, most of the folks weren’t masked, other than that old Sister in the back right, and the ladies in the prayer veils, and some of the singers weren’t masked.
And then most of the singers weren’t masked….
So we only went back to Mass a week after Iowa passed the “no local masking ordinance” law- which didn’t ban the Bishop from having a masking requirement, but I found out Monday after that he removed the requirement on that Friday or Saturday.
Went in to a packed Mass, early enough to get seats in the main area with our horde, on Graduation Sunday. (K not really the thing, but totally the thing.)
Got lots of welcome back, and this Sunday we got even more welcome-backs because some folks missed us in the crowd. We’re over sized for the current batch of families, but only by one or two years– the families with 6 or 8 kids got theirs into college a year or two before we got here.
This Sunday, there were a couple of ladies I recognize as nursing home workers who wore masks, and the like 90 year old lady who did Eucharistic Minister wore a mask for the 10 minutes she was up front. The oh-gosh-is-he-30-yet?-priest didn’t.
The EM hugged our kids when we came in to Mass, too. It was totally an act of charity for her to wear the mask. 😀
We’re open in Massachusetts.
No masks needed in stores or any public place, except health care including eyeglass stores.
In Church technically “the vaccinated no longer need wear a mask”.
I’d say overall about 25% are not wearing a mask. The look of horror you get from some who are masked and see you without is pitiful.
Surprisingly Minnesota has opened up nearly completely. Less than 1/4 of people at mass are wearing masks. Probably varies from parish to parish, and I wonder what the percentage is at my old parish (I left because of the high restrictions compared to other parishes, to the point where masses were not held for weeks longer than surrounding parishes, and the church was locked at all times when mass was not being held even after masses resumed there.)
Outside of church mass usage is similar, though maybe 1/3 use them in stores. For the first week or so after the mask mandate was dropped many stores still required them, but practically all don’t now (though some have “if you haven’t been vaccinated you should still wear a mask; we won’t check but if you wear a mask without a COVID vaccination you are a bad person” signs).
For stores– I’ve never masked in our grocery store.
I mistakenly thought they were requiring masks after we got our “mask unless you have good reason not to, and no people can’t check” order, went to pickup for a few weeks, but now even half the workers aren’t masked and the only folks wearing masks are generally with someone who has obviously brow-beaten them into it.
Notably, the workers have all been pulling their masks down until someone approaches for service the whole time, and none of them have gotten either the kung flu or (much scarier– my mom has “permission” from the mad dictator of Washington State to not wear a mask, because of her case several years ago) bacterial pneumonia.
One thing our small parish has done well at: masks. If you want, wear one. If not, don’t. And no one is complaining about anyone’s choices.
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I haven’t worn a mask at my parish since we were allowed to return in person last summer.
Here in Daly City (just south of Frisco) I still mask at work (a Catholic school) and in stores, but no longer on the street. No one looks – not even in the suburban parts of SF, where i walked yesterday. Our church still requires masks, but we are back up to 50% capacity and full. At school, we unmask inside when just adults are around and no longer fuss with the (masked) kids so much about social distancing.
Our governor “Hair Newsom” wants all mask rules gone by June 15, but some want him to keep them in the workplace until the end of July.
If bothered by a parishioner, I would make Baaaaa sounds at them. I can be a real jerk.
I always hated the expression sheeple until the past year taught me how sadly apt it is for too many of my fellow citizens.
Depending on the diocese in LA we have been maskless for several weeks (though Lafayette was originally only mask recommended and then went mandatory in the fall.). I have not worn a mask since shortly after the mask mandate anywhere. Have not been fired though have been castigated repeatedly by co-workers. I tell them I’m protecting them, but they don’t understand. Can’t live a lie.
In my part of Maryland, we had our first Sunday with masks optional. We had hymns, holy water, and no more every-other-row of pews. 5-10% more attendees than usual, but I don’t know how to factor in the nearly-post-covid holiday weekend.
Just a comment on the original post.. Since I think it was referring to Sunday Mass, it should have stated, “at Mass this Sunday.” There is no such thing as “weekend Mass.”
In rural VA the visiting priest from seminary in Philly on 23rd did not wear a mask. Most attendees did but many with mask below the nostrils.. On the 30th the only one wearing a mask was a 94 year old. He attends most Sundays excepting when he had pneumonia in the winter. The cane was new.. Communion was still through a hole cut in the wall. Reception was either standing or kneeling with choice of on the tongue or hand. More chairs, more attendees. Hymns sung but no Holy water. Groceries and dollar stores still masked. Post Office is federal so still masked. Eateries no masks for customers but servers still wearing them.
Mentioned to a 76 yo friend that I was relieved not to wear a mask at Mass. She said she wished the masks were still required. First winter that she didn’t get sick.
The Mass in question took place on Saturday, for the Sunday obligation.
Diocese of Dallas: Bishop refused to unmask us when Gov. Abbott withdrew his mandate in early March; waited until the CDC finally came around to say “no mask required if fully vaxed”, but no Diocesan requirement of checking people’s papers. Our pastor has kept signs in accordance with the Bishop’s orders but no one has said anything if folks did not mask once the Governor pulled down his order. Still 95% were masked. Wife and I stopped wearing them in the pew in March, now we are both vaxed and no longer wear them anywhere but doctors offices, where mandates are still in place. We don’t go to stores that still require them.
Rockford, IL, our summer haunt: Bishop says follow CDC, and prohibits parishes from requiring proof of vaxxing. Haven’t been to Mass at our summer parish yet.
She said she wished the masks were still required. First winter that she didn’t get sick.
FWIW, not from masks– it’s from not being forced to send the kids to school when they’re sick, and it not being a point of pride to go in while sick. (Yay, distance working!)
I really hope this makes people realize that you’re not SUPPOSED to go to Mass when you’ll make folks sick.
I’m wearing my two masks forever.
I don’t want anybody to think I voted for the Orange Man.
T. Shaw, Very true especially here in Massachusetts.
OT but
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394018.php
Dale Price and his family have to live under the misrule of this cretinette.
In the ‘virtual disease free’ archipeligo at the bottom of the South Pacific – the fringes of civilisation – I have never worn a mask at Mass or anywhere (except during lockdown in March April last year, where I had to go into rest homes to bless rooms of deceased). Our lockdown of course, with our gutless bishops, closed all churches for about 6 weeks.
The SSPX – whose Mass I & 4 friends attend each fortnight in Hamilton – 1-/12 hrs drive away – before lockdown was over, got permission from the police in Auckland to have ‘Drive-in Masses’ with an altar erected outside. So I & 2 friends did the 3hr. drive to Avondale, Auckland for 3 weeks in a row to attend the Masses.
There are only 4 SSPX priests in NZ located in Wanganui, but they manage to cover most of the country, plus run a primary school, plus a boys college & a girls college. They also have about 20 traditional Dominican nuns, with their own Traditional Dominican priest chaplain. They are 3 American, 1 Frenchman & 1 Swiss.
Masks are a depersonalising indicator that you have succumbed to totalitarianism & the Great Reset & the One World Govt.
NOT THIS KIWI.
Masks are a depersonalising indicator that you have succumbed to totalitarianism & the Great Reset & the One World Govt.
You need to get a grip
NOT THIS KIWI.
Bravo Don! Well said!
@Art Deco.
So you are a compliant useful & willing participant.
We are isolated from the rest of the world – over the past 15 months, we have had about 300 cases in a population of 5million. From that, there have been 26 deaths in the usual category – 70’s & 80’s with co-morbities. Our cities are not densely populated as in the Northern hemisphere, and many of our people are in country towns, or work the land. Masks are virtually useless anyway, as much research has shown, so who needs to get a grip???
I stand by my comment.
“Masks are a depersonalising indicator that you have succumbed to totalitarianism & the Great Reset & the One World Govt.”
Or could they also be an indicator that you are a faithful pro-life Catholic who refuses to accept an abortion-tainted vaccine, but still takes seriously their moral obligation to prevent transmitting the virus as much as possible and is willing to make that sacrifice in order to avoid cooperation in serious moral evil? I seem to remember some opponents of the vaccines saying exactly that. (However, that begs the question of whether masking actually does anything to compensate for not getting vaccinated.) Guess you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t….
As for what’s happening in my neck of the woods (central IL), mask use among the general public seems to be dropping by the day. I now see many more customers going into convienience/grocery stores, restaurants, etc. without masks. Still at least a slight majority of employees wearing them, most likely because their employers are insisting that they do so if not fully vaccinated. The parish in Springfield IL where I went to Mass this Sunday just stopped blocking off every other pew for social distancing; they also have a sign up saying you don’t have to mask if you’re fully vaccinated, but “don’t lie to Jesus”. At least half the people there were still masking.
but still takes seriously their moral obligation to prevent transmitting the virus as much as possible
Assumes that masks do any such thing. As anybody who looked at the actual studies that claimed to show they were effective noticed, there was both bad study design and equivocation (adding studies with N95 masks in to bump up the results) involved in the support, while over a century of studies that showed the cloth reusables did not work and might be more dangerous than the disease had to be attacked on grounds other than science.
Even their supporters, when faced by the overwhelming lack of evidence for masking orders and forced masking having a positive result, have to fall back on masks being “symbolic” and a way to show how we are “all in this together.” (You may still be able to find this commentary when Fauci was caught on cameras he wasn’t expecting, failing to socially distance or wear his mask.)
In other words, even the supporters of forced masking will say it should be done to display “support” of public morale; that is, literally, that it depersonalizes you for a propaganda point. Even th mantra “my mask protects you, your mask protects me” was taken from a PR campaign in another country, and produced entirely to make a show of ‘doing something’ rather than taking useful steps.