{"id":249235,"date":"2022-02-06T09:13:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-06T09:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=249235"},"modified":"2022-02-07T08:29:21","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T08:29:21","slug":"perth-police-stop-church-service-to-check-masks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=249235","title":{"rendered":"Perth police stop church service to check masks\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ailish Delaney \u2013 7News.com.au Feb 2, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Churchgoers have been left stunned after a police officer<\/a> stopped a Catholic mass<\/a> on Thursday to check parishioners were wearing masks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Police halted the service at St Bernadette\u2019s Glendalough church midway through the priest addressing the congregation following a tip off that people were not wearing masks.<\/p>\n

Masks are currently required to be worn at all public indoor setting across Perth and the Peel, South West, Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions.<\/p>\n

Five people were found to not be wearing masks<\/a>, one of which had an exemption while the four others were made to put them on.<\/p>\n

The incident was shared to Facebook by a parishioner, who wrote \u201ca policeman allowed himself in, strutting up the aisle demanding correct mask behaviour and checking exemptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have we seen this behaviour before in history?<\/p>\n

Police said in a statement they responded to a report from a member of the public of people not wearing masks inside a church in Mount Hawthorn.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpon attendance, 5 people were spoken to by police and complied in wearing a mask,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne person provided proof of an exemption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catholic Archdiocese of Perth<\/a> archbishop Tim Costelloe said it is \u201chighly regrettable\u201d that police felt obliged to intervene during the service to enforce the mask rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my hope that other ways can be found to deal with this delicate issue in future and my office stands ready to cooperate with the police in this matter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the formal and very public policy of the Archdiocese of Perth to do everything it can to facilitate compliance with all the government\u2019s requirements in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a matter of regret to me that the police were placed in a position which led them to take the action they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The church has since shared a message to its Facebook page reminding all parishioners that they cannot enter the place of worship without a mask.<\/p>\n

The interruption left churchgoers stunned, with one audience member saying it was \u201cconfronting\u201d to see an officer in the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was pretty stunned, it was confronting,\u201d parishioner Matthew told 6PR Radio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s troubling to see the liturgy you love stopped by police.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said parishioners were \u201cleft a bit shaken\u201d by the incident.<\/p>\n

Police have copped strong backlash online for the interruption, with some labelling it \u201cappalling\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are currently 203 active COVID cases in Western Australia, while 92.8 per cent of the population aged 12 and over have received at least two doses of a COVID vaccine.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The incident was shared to Facebook by a parishioner, who wrote \u201ca policeman allowed himself in, strutting up the aisle demanding correct mask behaviour and checking exemptions\u2026 Where have we seen this behaviour before in history?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":249237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249236,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249235\/revisions\/249236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/249237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}