The traditional pilgrimage on Lough Derg will not go ahead this summer.
The centre announced that the phased relaxation of restrictions do not go far enough at this time to enable Station Island to reopen for the safe return of pilgrims.
The traditional three-day pilgrimage is attended by up to 5,000 pilgrims each year. It was cancelled last year for the first time since 1828.
This year again the Prior, Fr La Flynn, moves out to the Island to begin his commitment to offer a daily Station Prayer of the Pilgrimage over the next ten weeks.
On 1 June, the normal start of the season, Fr La Flynn travelled to Lough Derg to stay there alone until 15 August.
He said: “I see myself simply as a kind of humble ‘place-marker’ for the continuity of the pilgrimage experience until the pilgrims themselves can return to take up what is really their own tradition and – in many cases – the tradition of their families back through the generations.”
