Matthew Abraham: It’s sad to see beautiful and colourful celebrations sanitised to a whiter shade of pale

Tens of thousands will be let into Adelaide Oval on Good Friday but virus rules will make Easter a more humble affair in SA’s churches, writes Matthew Abraham.

It’s half time in the match between God and the AFL and it looks like footy is kicking with the wind.

When the mighty Adelaide Crows square up against the Gold Coast Suns in front of 40,000 “socially distanced” fans at Adelaide Oval on Good Friday, it should be great fun.

That’s if you pretend 40,000 unvaccinated people can be safely socially distanced inside a stadium.

But for those of us more interested in religious observance than observing sport at Easter, it’s a double sin. The game’s being played on the most sacred day in the Christian calendar and at a time when the traditional holy Easter celebrations will be throttled by COVID nitpickers.

It’s a demonstration of the awesome lobbying and financial clout that elite sport brings to the negotiating table. When it comes to getting governments to bend over backwards to suit their agenda, particularly during a killer pandemic, the people who run the AFL and its clubs are very, very good.

While the AFL embarks on the 2021 season with a jaunty “coronavirus, what coronavirus?” mindset, many humbler groups in our community remain on the reserve bench, trying to get a few kicks.

And so we come to religion, unfashionable and annoying to government, not even on the reserve bench but locked outside the ground, looking at the action through not-so-Pearly Gates.

We are in Round 5 of the 2021 holy season of Lent in the Christian calendar and approaching the second Easter in the unholy season of COVID-19.

The restrictions on worship at this special time for Christians are a reminder that, for many in our community, the so-called new normal remains a hindered and alien space.

On March 10, Archbishop Patrick O’Regan, new leader of the Adelaide Catholic Archdiocese, issued a memo to all parishes headed “Celebrating the Holy Week in time of Pandemic”.

“Grace and peace, I hope that this note finds you well,” he said. “At the time of writing the State Government has not changed its existing restrictions for the protocols for places of Worship. We are continually petitioning the Government to relax the current restrictions, so far to no avail.”

What followed is a joyless four-page catalogue of restrictions on traditional Easter worship that may either turn people away at the church doors, or turn them off completely.

Parishes will only be allowed to hold one Easter Vigil Mass, the major celebration held on the evening before Easter Sunday, even when many larger parishes have two or more churches. This will restrict the numbers who can attend this important Mass and concentrate them in fewer places.

It’s not known if this is a formal COVID restriction, or just a super-cautious step by the Catholic bureaucrats, but it seems a strange way of protecting the faithful.

The memo drills down into the fine detail of the Easter ceremonies, leaving few untouched. The traditional washing of the feet ceremony on Holy Thursday sees a priest, bishop or even the Pope, wash and dry the feet of 12 people, symbolising Jesus washing the dusty feet of his apostles.

St. Francis Xavier's Catholic Cathedral on Waymouth Street. Picture: Morgan Sette

Archbishop O’Regan’s memo, section 5.1, gives parishes three COVID-safe options: a) the priest pours water on the person’s foot, then hands the person their individual towel and “they dry their own feet”; b) just the members of a single family have their feet washed or c) forget the whole foot washing business as it’s optional anyway, apparently.

Rather than kissing the crucifix during celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday, section 6.2 sub section 2 stipulates worshippers bow or genuflect before the Cross and “may come forward (suitably spaced) and make their individual act of veneration”.

Singing is banned. So is taking wine from the chalice. I’m guessing dancing while holding a drink is out of the question, then.

If you’re a nonbeliever, agnostic, atheist or simply unchurched, the Catholic ceremonies mentioned here must seem pretty bizarre. This is fair enough. But for a cradle-to-the-grave, flawed Catholic, the rituals at Easter are part of my being. It’s sad to see beautiful and colourful celebrations sanitised to a whiter shade of pale.

None of this is intended as a moral argument about the Crows playing at Adelaide Oval on Good Friday. That’s purely a matter between the club and God but I have a feeling She is not impressed.