MAYNOOTH - 12 March 2008 - 400 words
Irish
Bishops say: 'keep Sundays sacred'
The Irish Bishops have appealed for families and communities to
make a special effort to keep Sundays sacred.
On the second day of the March General
Meeting of the Irish Bishops' Conference in Maynooth, the bishops
published the following statement:
Ever since the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Sunday has
held a special place in the weekly lives of His followers.
Irish Christians named the day itself after Him: An Domhnach,
the Lord's Day. It is a day different in character to the
other six days of the week, a day when we set aside all non-essential
work so as to be free to devote time to family, to religious practices,
visiting the sick and the elderly and to leisure and recreational
pastimes. Until recent times we maintained a good balance
between these elements of Sunday life.
One of the essential ways by which this balance was maintained
was the tradition whereby sporting and leisure activities for
young people on Sundays did not begin until early afternoon.
This enabled families to attend Mass and other religious services
together and to regularly share the Sunday meal as a family unit.
Now, however, there seems to be an ever-increasing frequency in
the scheduling of under-age training sessions and competitive
games for Sunday mornings.
We wish to draw the attention of all parents and guardians to
the conflict of interests this scheduling can cause for children
and teenagers. We wish also to bring this conflict of interests
to the attention of officials and coaches, whom we recognise as
persons of generosity and goodwill. Dedicated young sports
people can be afraid to miss a training session or a game for
fear they will lose their place on the team. When practice
sessions or competitions occur repeatedly on Sunday mornings then
a young participant can lose the habit of going to Sunday Mass.
This conflict of interests becomes all the more acute for a multi-talented
youngster since he or she may wind up with a non-stop round of
Sunday morning engagements.
Catholic parents and guardians too can lose sight of their responsibility
of attending Sunday Mass because they may need to travel with
young people to events or attend to support them. It is
sometimes claimed that a young player or a family can go to the
Saturday Vigil Mass in advance of a Sunday morning engagement.
However, for any number of practical reasons, this may not always
be possible on any given weekend. It would be unreasonable
for organisers or coaches to presume on this as a solution.
In recent times, healthcare experts have raised concerns about
the increasing numbers of children who do not engage in any physical
activities or pastimes. It is a concern that we share.
We wish to compliment the very many adults who voluntarily give
of their own free time to promote sporting and other creative
pastimes among the children and young people in our parishes and
local communities. In addition to making a valuable contribution
to the wellbeing of the youngest generation they also build a
sense of belonging, identity and community spirit among families
and all age groups.
We are conscious also of the difficulties experienced by some
young people who take on part-time weekend jobs. Sometimes
they find themselves required to work on both Saturday evenings
and Sunday mornings without being given time off to attend either
a Vigil or a morning Mass. We appeal to employers to ensure
that their young part time employees are afforded time to go to
church at weekends.
We appeal, therefore, to all people of goodwill, to respect the
spiritual needs of children and adolescents, particularly as these
relate to family life and religious practice on Sundays, and to
refrain from organising events that clash with Sunday morning
religious services.
Source: Irish Catholic Media Office
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