Government In Charge Presented as "Voluntary Commitment"

Woelki learned in mid-March that the state ordered church closures. His Vicar General informed him that Church services in Cologne were no longer allowed, starting with that very evening.

Woelki has said before "with clarity" that Masses would "definitely" continue to be celebrated respecting sanitary distancing, but then "it was said" that Cologne and other municipalities "had already issued very strict rules".

After that, "the churches" agreed with the state government on a "voluntary commitment" to ban public masses.

Commenting on his Plexiglas distribution of communion during his first after-loockdown-Mass, Woelki found it difficult to "establish a relationship with the community" - as if that were the goal of Mass.

Emotion and Ego

Woelki confesses that he was enriched by the deserted Cologne Cathedral during cancelled Holy Week: "The empty cathedral created a very special impact".

"For me, Sunday with the first public service was much more difficult, by the atmosphere, than before."

For Woelki, the empty Good Friday was "moving and touching": "This emptiness, the expression of Gethsemane, was very existentially tangible for me at that hour, and it touched me very much." However, Jesus' Way of the Cross led through narrow alleys overcrowded with onlookers.

Woelki experienced the solitary Good Friday liturgy as an absolute reduction to "the essential". He was thrown back "on himself".

Corona Liturgy May Last for Years

The Cardinal reckons that it will "still take some time" before services can again be held in large communities.

He will not "rush" to hold services, because "the health" of the worshippers is of the highest priority.

Woelki is hoping for a vaccine or medicine "that we can return to these old forms".