The Vatican allows priests to say up to four masses on Christmas day

The Vatican liturgical congregation will allow priests to say up to four masses on Christmas day, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on January 1, and the Epiphany to welcome more faithful in the midst of the pandemic.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, signed a decree announcing the permission on December 16.

The decree provided that the diocesan bishops could allow the priests of their diocese to say up to four masses on the three solemnities "given the situation determined by the worldwide spread of the pandemic, by virtue of the faculties granted to this Congregation by the Holy Father Francis, and for the persistence of the general contagion of the so-called COVID-19 virus ".

According to the Code of Canon Law, a priest can ordinarily celebrate Mass only once a day.

Canon 905 says that priests can be authorized by their local bishop to offer up to two masses a day "if there is a shortage of priests", or up to three masses a day on Sundays and compulsory holidays "if pastoral necessity requires it. "

Restrictions in place in some parts of the world, aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus, limit the number of people attending liturgies, and some parishes have offered extra masses on Sundays and during the week to allow more people to attend.

Christmas Day and January 1st are solemnities and therefore mandatory days for Catholics to attend mass. In the United States, the solemnity of Epiphany has been moved to Sunday.

During the pandemic, some bishops exempted the Catholics of their diocese from the obligation to attend mass on Sundays and compulsory holidays if their presence put them at risk of contracting the virus.