Seo Jeong-hyeop Acting Mayor Meets Cardinal Yeom Su-jeong for New Year's Greetings... Also Requests Cooperation in COVID-19 Prevention Measures

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seo Jeong-cheop, Acting Mayor of Seoul, will meet with Cardinal Yeom Su-jeong, Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, at the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul Office (Myeong-dong, Jung-gu) on the afternoon of the 26th to exchange New Year's greetings.

Also present at the meeting are Father Heo Young-yeop, spokesperson for the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, and Father Jeong Young-jin, head of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul Secretariat.

Acting Mayor Seo plans to express his gratitude for the Catholic Church's active cooperation with health authorities by suspending Masses nationwide for the first time in the 236-year history of Korean Catholicism in February last year, when the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) was severe. Furthermore, he intends to request that the Catholic Church continue to cooperate with social distancing measures as a major pillar of quarantine efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 this year as well.

Since the easing of social distancing to level 2.5 on the 18th, religious facilities in the metropolitan area are allowed to conduct regular religious activities at up to 10% of seating capacity, or within 10% of the maximum occupancy based on area for non-seating spaces. Quarantine guidelines such as maintaining a distance of at least 2 meters between users must be observed.

Previously, Acting Mayor Seo met consecutively with representatives of the Buddhist and Christian communities to exchange New Year's greetings and request their cooperation in quarantine efforts.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.