A friend told me a story this morning that reminded me of the penal days in Ireland when the Protestant tirant Cromwell forbid the Catholic Mass of Trent under the threat of death for any who would perform or attend one. Thus was founded the Mass Rocks, hidden places where the faithful could go in secret. Stories of faithful walking many miles for hours to get to one.
My friend knows a man who is so old he has to walk slowly with a stick. He lives nearly a mile from the church so it takes him a long time, over a half-hour to get there. Talking to him this morning, he told my friend he went to his usual Mass (NO) but when he got there the doors were locked with a notice on them saying 'only 50 allowed, church full.' Accordingly he had to walk back again to his house without Sunday Mass. My how the priesthood has changed, from risking their lives by execution in the penal days, to the cowards they are today who would lock an elderly man out of his local church he had attended all his 80 years of life.