The Catholic Church has approved new directives of worship in order to prevent coronavirus spreading in Lagos. This follows the confirmation of cases in Lagos and Ogun.

The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Alfred Martins, who issued the new worship directives pointed out that the measures, which would affect the church doctrines, became necessary, in order to prevent church members from contracting and spreading the deadly COVID-19 disease in Lagos, putting its metropolitan status into consideration.

A part of the measures he spelt out was that handshaking during Mass as a sign of peace would no longer be permitted for the time being.

During this season of Lent, in order to reduce the number of gatherings in Church to the barest necessary, we encourage people to do Stations of the Cross privately on Wednesdays while public celebrations will take place only Fridays especially as it is often followed by Mass,

he added.

According to the archbishop, receiving the holy Communion in the mouth would no longer be accepted, but each member would be given in their palms.

The catholic church also encouraged its members to make sure they promptly use sanitizers. Furthermore, the Catholic Archbishop directed that clergies in their respective churches should suspend using Holy Water fonts in churches until further notice.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.