KUCHING: Catholic parishes in the red zone of Kuching district will suspend all daily, Sunday masses and services temporarily effective today (July 31) in view of the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the city here.
“This affects parish communities in Kuching, Kota Sentosa, Kota Samarahan and Kota Padawan,” said Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuching Archdiocese Most Reverend Simon Poh in a statement on Thursday night (July 30).
He said parish churches in the yellow and green zones would remain open for Sunday masses and services.
All parish offices would also remain open, he added.
Kuching district was declared Sarawak’s only red zone by the Ministry of Healrh on July 25 after 53 Covid-19 cases were detected within the past two weeks.
“I exhort everyone to strictly adhere to the safety standard operating procedures (SOPs) that are currently practised in all our churches and offices. This will ensure that our churches remain safe for public worship.
“We are all frontliners in our society. I thus appeal to all Catholics and people of goodwill to carry out our Christian and social responsibilities,” said Poh.
He urged the public to wear masks in public as a sign of mutual respect and to protect one another, maintain the one-metre social distancing rule at all times and wash their hands properly or use hand sanitiser.
“Let us do our part to contain Covid-19 and be out of red zone so that our churches can resume masses even earlier, especially before the Feast of Assumption on Aug 15,” he said.
The Roman Catholic churches resumed their services on July 4 after nearly four months of temporary closure due to the nationwide movement control order (MCO) which took effect on Mar 18 to contain the spread of Covid-19.
