To serve Sunday Catholic Mass in Baranavichy, the bishop himself had to travel. There was no one else
Andrei Znoska, the General Vicar of the Pinsk Diocese, once again reminded about the problem of the acute shortage of Catholic priests in Belarus. The reason was that the parish priest in one of the parishes in Baranavichy could not celebrate Sunday Masses, and priests from other parishes were unable to replace him, writes Katolik.life.
Therefore, the bishop himself had to travel to Baranavichy to serve, as he wrote on his Instagram page:
«It's a pity that we have such a situation with the number of priests that the bishop has to replace a priest. On a weekday, it's fine, a priest from a neighboring parish will come, but on Sunday or a solemn feast — no».
The bishop explained that on feast days, every priest has services in his own church, «or even in two or three, though it sometimes happens that it's possible to rearrange the times of Holy Masses to help a neighbor»:
«But then there's also the distance, unfavorable weather, and simply fatigue…»
At the same time, the bishop, who himself was recently just an ordinary parish priest, noted a positive moment for himself personally:
«For me, it's a joy — to once again, as if, immerse myself in parish life, to recall this rhythm I lived for so many years as a parish priest: worship, confession, Mass, conversations with people, then confession again, another Mass, another service…»
In some parishes in the Pinsk Diocese, after the authorities did not extend the permits for priests from Poland to serve in Belarus, there are no parish priests at all. For example, in Ruzhany. There, Holy Mass is almost never celebrated on weekdays, and a priest from another city has to come.
A similar situation also exists in the Mogilev and Gomel regions, where several priests have to serve multiple parishes that are distant from each other.