Bishop Nickless has announced that at each pastors’ discretion, Sunday Masses may resume on Saturday June 27, beginning after 4:00 p.m.
 
In the case of our two [2] parishes:

1. The obligation to attend Sunday Mass will continue to be dispensed for all Catholics until at least the end of this year.
2. The RE-OPENING DIRECTIVES FOR THE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF CHEROKEE AND HOLSTEIN: PHASE 1 – LIMITED ATTENDANCE: SUNDAY MASS will be placed into effect.  All attendees are expected to abide by these directives.  Please read these carefully found under PARISH DOCUMENTS on the home page of the parish website.
3. The regular Saturday/Sunday Mass schedule will resume June 27/28 IF
   1. we have at least three [3] ushers for each Mass
   2. we have a sufficient supply of disinfectant materials for Cherokee after the Saturday Mass
4. Seating capacity will be limited to about 1/3 or less of normal capacity.  There will be an online registration form available on the parish website to reserve a seat by 3:00 p.m. each Saturday.  However, this will not guarantee a seat.
5. All attendees will be
   1. required to wear face masks
   2. attending at their own risk as we will be endangering our members and our priests with a renewal of the spread of this virus.  Thus, we need to be very careful as we do not want to be making headlines that we were the cause of an outbreak as some churches  and businesses have done as they reopened too soon
   3. encouraged to attend their parish of registration or residence and not migrate to a neighboring parish
6. The 5:00 p.m. Saturday Mass will be live-streamed on the parish website.  There will be no Saturday morning Mass.  The Tuesday-Friday Masses will remain private and will be live-streamed.
7. Stay tuned to the parish website and Facebook page for any last minute changes.
8. The Sacrament of Reconciliation will not be offered except by appointment only.

 
Thus, the schedule will be:
 
                SATURDAYS, 5:00 p.m. @ Immaculate Conception and LIVE STREAMED.
                SUNDAYS, 8:30 a.m. @ Our Lady of Good Counsel
                SUNDAYS, 10:30 a.m. @ Immaculate Conception
 
For photos of what the church buildings look like with social distancing markings on the floor and pews ‘roped’ off, please visit the 2020 photo albums for each parish found at:
 
                Cherokee: https://cherokeecountycatholics.org/photoalbums/2020-immaculate-conception-parish-cherokee
               
                  Holstein: https://cherokeecountycatholics.org/photoalbums/2020-our-lady-of-good-counsel-holstein
 
 At each pastors’ discretion, two public daily Masses may resume after July 6.  More information about this will be provided later.
 
At each pastors’ discretion, the normal public daily Mass schedule may resume after July 20.  More information about this will be provided later.
 
We will continue to monitor daily the health status of our communities and follow the directives issued by Bishop Nickless on May 14:
 
"With regard to resuming public Masses in our parishes, the Diocese of Sioux City has based and will continue to base decisions on scientific data and reliable projections.  There is a number of criteria the Diocese is waiting to be met before it is deemed safe and responsible to open up churches again. This includes the downward trajectory of new COVID-19 cases reported within a 14-day period, the downward trajectory of hospital bed, intensive care, and ventilator usage, and the downward trajectory of daily death reports. In addition to these things, it is necessary to have adequate contact-tracing and a robust testing program. Achieving these conditions will indicate that it is reasonably safe to resume, with precautions, the public celebration of the Mass."