Mass at Moeller in 2021

Moeller’s Dean of Students, Mr. Mike Shaffer, says that without all students being vaccinated or wearing masks, mass at Moeller may not be possible in this 2021-2022 school year.

Dean of Students, Mr. Mike Shaffer

Aside from a virtual Ash Wednesday mass on February 26, 2020, COVID has prevented us from having mass at Moeller at all. For a Catholic Marianist school like Moeller, mass is a crucial piece of the school year. Due to COVID restrictions, the school is not allowed to have a large amount of people packed together in a mass setting. The only way this would be possible is if everyone attending mass was either fully vaccinated or wearing a mask.

As Moeller's COVID rules currently stand, students do not have to be vaccinated at all or even wear a mask during school. However, if they aren't vaccinated or wearing a mask they will be quarantined if they come in close contact with a positive COVID case. This rule is a huge reason for why mass may not be possible this year. Because there is no assigned seating at mass and everyone is packed together, we would have no way of contact tracing any students who have been in close contact with a COVID positive student.

If this contact tracing rule gets lifted, then mass would be much more possible. Unfortunately, lifting this rule is not up to Moeller. It's going to depend on the government and Ohio's COVID restriction rules.

Therefore, Mr. Shaffer said that he has no idea what the probability of us having mass this year is, and there really is no back up plan. It would be possible for us to stream the mass on zoom and have everyone watch in their mentor groups. Mr. Shaffer however does not like this idea because we can't receive Communion that way and it would be hard for students to stay focused while watching mass on a big screen.

Updated 10/1: Due to changing restrictions, Moeller was able to have its first all -school mass on September 29th, shortly after this article was published.