Finally, the tradition of Easter processions returns, after the period of suspension.
After two years of hiatus due to the pandemic, the hooded processions that characterize Holy Week can once again travel the streets of the Sorrento Peninsula.
The Bishops’ Conference of Campania sanctioned the possibility of resuming external celebrations.
In the note of the Campania bishops we read the desire to resume these ancient traditions:
On March 31, 2022, as already announced by the civil authorities, the state of emergency imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic will end.
We have all felt the lack of ordinary pastoral relations linked to liturgical life and also to expressions of popular piety.
Even if with caution, let us now set out on the interrupted paths, with renewed enthusiasm and with some recommendations.
In resuming, after March 31, the usual expressions of popular piety, the required obligation of the necessary public security and health protection authorizations by the civil authorities remains.
In order not to nullify the time of trial we have gone through, it is appropriate to live the expressions of popular piety, in compliance with the indications offered by the bishops of Campania in recent years.
The time we live with new poverties and humanitarian emergencies calls us to rediscover the value of sobriety and requires concrete signs of solidarity.
The communiqué of the bishops of Campania allows the resumption of expressions of popular piety, and therefore also the possibility of experiencing the traditional processions on the occasion of Holy Week.
We are relieved to have overcome the most difficult and painful time of the pandemic, but still aware that it is not completely over; therefore, as archdiocese, we also wish to live this revival with prudence and foresight, indeed wanting to draw on popular piety which is rightly considered “the true treasure of the people of God, but maintaining attentions that guarantee the safety of all its manifestations.
The prescribed guidelines of prudence are intended to be an instrument for protecting the health of individuals and of the community as a whole, and, at the same time, an exercise in communion, so that even our “going on the road”, typical of Holy Week, is characterized by that style of “walking together” to which the Synod brings us back with passion.