JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

Re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions will now be al­lowed to open the doors of their wor­ship cen­tres for Cor­pus Christi on Thurs­day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day an­nounced Gov­ern­ment was mov­ing up the pre­vi­ous­ly-an­nounced open­ing date by one day.

Ini­tial plans were to re­lax re­stric­tions on re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions from this com­ing Fri­day but a state­ment by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day stat­ed that the change was to ac­com­mo­date church­es cel­e­brat­ing the Chris­t­ian feast of Cor­pus Christi.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al re­li­gious lead­ers told Guardian Me­dia that it’s un­like­ly they will be con­duct­ing ser­vices be­fore Sun­day.

“I don’t think any places will be ready that soon be­cause we will have to do the nec­es­sary sani­tis­ing, and get the nec­es­sary equip­ment, and places are in the process of do­ing that,” said Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju, Vic­ar Gen­er­al of the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain.

Fa­ther Sir­ju said the Prime Min­is­ter’s ini­tial an­nounce­ment came as a bit of a sur­prise, as they were plan­ning for a po­ten­tial June 22 open­ing date.

He has ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of an ear­li­er open­ing.

Head of the Coun­cil of Shouter Bap­tists El­ders of Trinidad and To­ba­go Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Gray-Burke al­so said it was un­like­ly their cen­tres would be open be­fore the week­end.

“We can’t open up on Fri­day. We have to pre­pare the place. We have to sani­tise it prop­er­ly. We have to do that for Sun­day, but not this Fri­day,” she said.

Say­ing like­wise were Vi­jay Ma­haraj of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, and Imam Ab­dul Haseeb Az­iz of the Bam­boo Masjid.

Nonethe­less, all ex­pressed con­fi­dence in hav­ing an ad­e­quate plan to en­sure that the phys­i­cal health, in ad­di­tion to the spir­i­tu­al health, of wor­ship­pers were in safe hands com­ing open­ing day.

Giv­en that re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions will have to adopt new mea­sures, some unique plans are be­ing put in place.

Mem­bers of the Catholic church will be meet­ing on to­day and to­mor­row to fi­nalise lo­gis­tics, ac­cord­ing to Fa­ther Sir­ju.

“Peo­ple will be asked to wear masks. Peo­ple will have to sani­tise be­fore com­mu­nion and the priests will have to wear masks in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of com­mu­nion. Be­sides, the con­gre­ga­tion will leave row-by-row,” he said.

Priests will no longer be of­fer­ing com­mu­nion straight to the mouths of the faith­ful. In­stead, the wafers will be placed in the hands of the mem­bers.

Sir­ju ex­pressed con­fi­dence that mass could be con­clud­ed with­in an hour, as sug­gest­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter.

“If one was to lim­it the homi­ly, let’s say to ten min­utes or less, sev­en or eight min­utes...we should be fin­ished ” he added.

De­pend­ing on the size of the first set of turnouts, con­gre­ga­tions may have to be split.

Head of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Vi­jay Ma­haraj said a lo­gis­ti­cal meet­ing will take place with­in the next 24 hours.

Con­fi­dent of be­ing ready by the end of the week­end, he ex­pressed con­cern about how the tem­ples were go­ing to ac­com­mo­date re­turn­ing devo­tees, with­out leav­ing any­one be­hind.

“A lot of our tem­ples have 200 to 300 at­ten­dees per func­tion. How are we go­ing to al­low and how are we go­ing to pick per­sons to at­tend the devo­tees? That is the one sce­nario we are hav­ing,” he said.

“Do we have two one-hour ser­vices or do we say you this week, or you next week? We can’t do that at this point, it’s too ear­ly,” Ma­haraj added.

By Sun­day, he said, more re­fined guid­ance should be of­fered to in­di­vid­ual tem­ples about mov­ing for­ward.

But, hand sani­tis­ing sta­tions and hand dry­ers will like­ly be in­stalled at some lo­ca­tions.

Masks which can muf­fle one’s voice could al­so pose a po­ten­tial prob­lem for prayer and song recitals, he claimed.

“But the im­por­tant thing is the devo­tee or the church­go­er, as the case may be, is feel­ing part and par­cel of the con­gre­ga­tion. That is the most im­por­tant thing to us,” he added.

Imam Ab­dul Haseeb Haz­iz said while, as usu­al, the doors of the Bam­boo masjid are open to all, no one will be al­lowed in with­out masks.

How­ev­er, they will be of­fered masks, should they need one.

“We are al­so ask­ing them to come with their prayer mat. If they don’t have one, we will pro­vide one. We are hop­ing we don’t have to turn any­one away,” said the Imam.

Who will be turned back, how­ev­er, are per­sons dis­play­ing any pos­si­ble COVID-19 symp­toms such as sneez­ing or cough­ing.

Un­like oth­er re­li­gions, at­ten­dees at Is­lam­ic ser­vices don’t sit on pews or bench­es, but rather on the floor.

To en­sure so­cial dis­tanc­ing, peo­ple will be asked to keep six feet apart on their prayer mats.

“We will not be en­cour­ag­ing, em­brac­ing or shak­ing hands. We are not do­ing that. If you want to do that, go out­side. We are not tol­er­at­ing that,” he added.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es, Rev­erend Desmond Austin said it’s like­ly they will be ready by Thurs­day.

“I think we will be more than ready. There’s a sense of anx­i­ety that is part of this pre­pared­ness as well. It’s been a long while we’ve been wait­ing, so we are more than ready,” he said.