(Bloomberg) --
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, under fire from coalition allies and business leaders for his caution in easing a nationwide lockdown, made peace with the Catholic church after agreeing to allow Mass and other celebrations to resume.
Religious celebrations will begin again on May 18 under an accord signed Thursday by Conte and Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, the head of the Italian bishops’ conference, Conte’s office said in an emailed statement.
New protection measures will “ensure that the restart of liturgical celebrations will happen in the safest way for public health and for safeguarding the faithful.” Bassetti praised the “deep collaboration and synergy” between bishops, the government and medical and scientific advisers.
The bishops, in a rare public attack last month, slammed a government decree upholding a ban on religious celebrations that was part of Italy’s stringent coronavirus containment effort, saying they “could not accept to see the exercise of freedom of the faith compromised.”
Pope Francis, however, distanced himself from the bishops, calling for “prudence and obedience to regulations so that the pandemic does not return.”
Politicians from Conte’s coalition and in the opposition, including ex-Premiers Matteo Renzi -- who’s a junior government partner -- and Silvio Berlusconi of the center-right Forza Italia party, had taken up the bishops’ cause.
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