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06 April 2020 The bishop of Frascati, a citizen of the Castelli Romani, and another 40 or so people who took part in a Mass for Palm Sunday are risking heavy sanctions. Despite the government and Church bans of Rome aimed at containing the coronavirus, the faithful and the priest met in the Cathedral of San Pietro di Frascati for the pre-Easter Sunday service. Law enforcement officers intervened towards the end of the celebration. The local police from Frascati are proceeding on the incident.
The bishop of Frascati had invited the faithful over and over again to stay strictly at home for the coronavirus emergency. An appeal which, as explained by the Adnkronos Msgr. Raffaello Martinelli after the news that at the end of the mass in the cathedral the police arrived for the celebration in the presence of the faithful, he reiterated on social media and with the media.

Among other things, to discourage the 'disobedience' of the faithful, he explains that he anticipated the celebration early in the morning. In the church, the bishop contests, there were not fifty people. In any case, Martinelli says that for the future he will do better and will be inflexible: "not being able to close the doors for security reasons, I commit myself to ensuring an adequate service of people at the entrance of the Cathedral to contingent-block the entrance to any people in passing (as food stores do a little in order to comply even more scrupulously with the right existing regulations to safeguard everyone.