The Catholic Arch­dio­cese has can­celled, with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, all mass­es across the coun­try.

A state­ment by Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don says:

“As we know our med­ical chal­lenge with COVID 19 is chang­ing rapid­ly. Fur­ther to yes­ter­day’s press re­lease re­gard­ing COVID-19, we have an­oth­er con­firmed case.

With the es­ca­la­tion we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, the Church needs to es­ca­late her re­sponse as well based on cur­rent ad­vice. Re­mem­ber we are called to pru­dence, re­straint and sac­ri­fice.

With this in mind, all Mass­es are sus­pend­ed. This is in ef­fect from to­day, Sat­ur­day, March 14, 2020.

Our first pri­or­i­ty is the pro­tec­tion of life and the safe­ty of God’s peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the vul­ner­a­ble who make up a large and im­por­tant part of our Church com­mu­ni­ty.

Be­cause of the spe­cial na­ture of these times, all Catholics are strong­ly urged to ful­fil their Sun­day oblig­a­tion by par­tic­i­pat­ing in Mass on Trin­i­ty TV or on Pow­er 102 FM at 8 a.m. Sun­day, March 15, 2020. The dai­ly sched­ule will be re­leased by Tues­day, March 17, 2020.”

The state­ment goes on to ask Catholics to pray dai­ly as a fam­i­ly us­ing scrip­ture and the fam­i­ly rosary.