Vatican City, Mar 17, 2020 / 03:21 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed Tuesday for the elderly, who are suffering from isolation, loneliness, and fear during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Santiago, Chile, Mar 16, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- The Standing Committee of the Chilean bishops’ conference has expressed its concern over the time that has gone by since the outbreak of protests in the country without lawmakers making decisions to address the demands made by the public.
Anti-government demonstrations began in mid-October in Santiago over a now-suspended increase in subway fares. Other regions joined in the protests, expanding their grievances to inequality and the cost of healthcare.
A number of churches across Chile have been attacked and looted amid the demonstrations.
Protest marches in Chile often start our peacefully, but end up with clashes between the police and masked protesters, who often turn to attacking churches as well as public and private property.
Police and demonstrators have clashed and the police have used excessive force in an attempt to restore order, resulting in hundreds of eye injuries due to the use of rubber bullets. At the end of December the death toll from the protests stood at least 27, according to the AP.
The committee said that “almost five months have gone by and Chile’s awakening has not been addressed with the speed and effectiveness expected in such grave matters as the unjust distribution of income, employment instability, minimum wages and pensions, the urgent need for access to healthcare, the just valuation of women in society and the protection of the most vulnerable groups, among other issues.”
“We see that the main demands of society … have been put off in the priorities of those who make the decisions in Chile,” the bishops pointed out.
The prelates said that they shared “people’s reasonable discontentment with regard to the role that the authorities, legislators, and political and social leaders are assuming in face of these dramas.”
“We don’t understand why the necessary corrections that are promised aren’t making progress with the desired speed. The level of the political debate is disappointing with partisan squabbling and infighting, special interests or those of certain sectors of society, that are holding back agreements and accomplishments that would help the common good. Chile demands a fruitful dialogue in a context of civic friendship,” they stated.
The committee pointed out that the episodes of violence “always harm the poorest people and violate people’s rights, are continuously reoccurring in various parts of the country and create a climate of fear and uncertainty which is doing grave harm.”
“We can’t let ourselves be overcome by this spiral of violence and terror. Democracy is a good that we must all care for,” they said.
The protests have put pressure on the administration of President Sebastián Piñera to introduce reforms, in addition to calling for the drafting of a constitution to replace that adopted in 1980 under Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.
This demand was accepted by the country’s politicians in November 2019 and an agreement was created to go forward. The first step will be a citizen plebiscite, to be held April 26.
Voters will have to decide whether they want a new constitution, and if so, what kind of body should work on it: a Mixed Constitutional Convention composed of an equal number of legislators and representatives of the citizens, or a “Constitutional Convention” comprised only of people chosen by the citizenry.
The Standing Committee asked people to “calmly and confidently prepare” for that vote and that “for our vote be informed, it’s necessary to know (the problems), to reflect and discern on a personal, family, and communitarian level.”
The bishops encouraged people to work in community on the resources posted on the their website which will help them “understand how worthwhile it is to be present and participate in all the country’s important decisions.”
The Standing Committee of the Chilean bishops’ conference encouraged people to “not be afraid and to renew our hope in Jesus in this time of Lent which looks to the Resurrection of the Lord.”
“We can’t let ourselves be carried away with despair and fatalism. Let us continue to pray to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for Chile, for peace and justice, which are the pillars of a society that puts at the center the life and dignity of the person and the promotion of the common good,” they concluded.
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Rome, Italy, Mar 16, 2020 / 03:20 pm (CNA).- At least ten priests have died in Italy after contracting COVID-19. More than half of them were from the Diocese of Bergamo, a town outside of Milan in Lombardy.
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Chicago, Ill., Mar 16, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- With public Masses suspended in many U.S. dioceses due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many bishops and pastors have suggested that Catholics can benefit from increased personal prayer, and watching a live broadcast of Mass while making a spiritual communion from home.
Fr. Dan Folwaczny, associate pastor at St. Norbert and Our Lady of the Brook Parish in Northbrook, IL, told CNA that watching Mass online or on tv is one way for Catholics to stay connected with the parish and the Church, even if they cannot gather together.
Folwaczny’s parish decided to begin livestreaming Mass after the Archdiocese of Chicago suspended public liturgies.
Celebrating Mass in a near empty room is “definitely kind of strange,” Folwaczny told CNA on Monday, March 16.
“Normally, when you are saying the prayers, it’s very easy to look out over the congregation and see who’s there and you know, what comes to mind,” he said, explaining that being able to see the assembly helps to remind him of the circumstances of individual parishioners and remember them in his prayers.
While churches are closed for the time being, Fr. Folwaczny echoed the encouragement of many priests and bishops for the faithful to tune into Mass if possible, and to make a spiritual communion.
A spiritual communion, he explained, “is a way for us to say, okay, whatever the reason is, I can’t receive communion at this moment.”
“But what happens at communion? We enter into this deep relationship, this presence of the grace of Jesus Christ and in the Eucharist in particular, His body and soul and divinity. And so as Catholics, we want that. We want that deep communion with our God. But again, it’s not always possible,” he said.
When making a spiritual communion, the person “asks God in prayer in those moments when He knows that this thing is not possible for us at this time, to still come into our hearts at least spiritually, to come into our lives, to continue to fill us with the grace that we need to be sustained, even though we can’t receive the Eucharist at this time,” Folwaczny explained.
For most of the Church’s history–until the early 20th century–Catholics did not habitually receive the Eucharist every Sunday. Folwaczny told CNA that he hopes this uncertain time of suspended Masses and decreased physical access to the sacraments will help Catholics “enter into a deeper solidarity with those around the world” who still lack access to regular Masses, either because of the remoteness of where they live, a shortage of priests, or the threat of violence.
Fr. Folwaczny said that Catholics should still remember to keep the Sabbath holy even though there may be no chance to physically attend a Mass.
“Set aside time on Sunday or Saturday evening to go through the readings for the day, to try and pray together as a family, or if they don’t have others living with them, to pray on their own,” he said.
“The hope is that with this access now to live streaming, that it’s a way too that people can hear from their own pastors and their own priests. And I think that’s something that still matters to your average parishioner, that they can still feel a sense of connection.”
If your parish is not live-streaming Mass, here are five places Mass can be streamed or watched, in a variety of time zones, languages, and rites:
EWTN
EWTN’s YouTube Channel contains videos of nearly all of the television channel’s programming, including daily and Sunday Masses. It can be found here.
LiveMass.net
LiveMass.net is an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), and the website streams the Tridentine Mass (also known as the extraordinary form) five times each weekday and eight times each Sunday. In addition to Masses, the website also occasionally streams compline, vespers, and a Holy Hour. An exact schedule can be found on the website.
Catholic Information Center
The Catholic Information Center, an apostolate of the Opus Dei located in Washington, D.C., will be streaming daily Mass, as well as a rosary and Eucharistic adoration, each weekday on their website, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, starting at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Click here for their YouTube channel.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the seat of the Archbishop of Los Angeles, streams Mass live in both English and Spanish on Sundays, and in English throughout the week. Past Masses are then uploaded to the cathedral’s YouTube channel.
Archdiocese of Chicago
Due to the threat of COVID-19, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that daily Mass from St. Joseph’s Chapel will be streamed each day starting March 17. Sunday Mass is streamed in English, Spanish, and Polish on the archdiocese’s website.
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Vatican City, Mar 16, 2020 / 01:06 pm (CNA).- Few were surprised when the Chinese Communist Party banned church services in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei province. But the Italian government decree suspending all public religious ceremonies — leading to the suspension of Masses in the pope’s own diocese — provided more of a jolt.
All four of the vastly different countries with the most documented cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus — China, Italy, Iran, and South Korea — have suspended religious services.
As more government leaders will soon face tough decisions in the face of a spreading pandemic, the president of the Religious Freedom Institute told CNA about important criteria to ensure the protection of a foundational freedom.
“There must be a presumption in favor of full religious freedom for all religious communities in every country, especially in democratic countries. Italy’s decision in this case does not change that presumption, but it does show that in very limited circumstances, temporary limits on the freedom to gather may licitly be applied,” the RFI’s Tom Farr told CNA.
“No right with public effects is absolute, including the precious right of religious freedom,” he added.
Farr was the first director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, and subsequently taught religion and foreign affairs at Georgetown University and the U.S. Foreign Service Institute.
He said that these “limited circumstances” include instances when the extent of deadly infection is exceptionally high.
“Given Italy’s current designation as Level 3 by the U.S. CDC, which indicates the presence of ‘Widespread Community Transmission,’ Italy’s decision seems reasonable, especially in light of the fact that, to use the CDC’s description, ‘There is limited access to adequate medical care in affected areas’ of Italy and this reality understandably contributes to this extraordinary move,” Farr said.
“Absent this level of community transmission, the justification for such extraordinary measures to restrict religious gatherings quickly becomes much more tenuous,” he added.
When Italian government decreed the suspension of all civil and religious ceremonies, including funerals, on March 8, there had been 7,375 documented cases of the coronavirus leading to the deaths of 366 people.
In the days since that decree and a national quarantine, the number of cases in Italy has soared to 27,980 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,470 deaths on March 16.
Along with religious ceremonies, the Italian government also decreed the closure of all schools, universities, museums, movie theaters, concerts, gyms, archaeological sites throughout the country. The following day, the Prime Minister announced a national quarantine.
The religious freedom advocate explained that any government exercising its authority in such an extraordinary fashion should abide by the following criteria to ensure religious freedom:
“Such decrees may not be employed arbitrarily, for example, to target a particular religion or religion in general. They must be public, clear, and transparent. They should be preceded by consultation with the religious communities involved.”
Decrees banning religious freedom also “must be grounded in overwhelming evidence, available to all, that public health would be severely endangered without such a decree. They must be time-limited, with a clear and public expression of when the ban will end,” Farr told CNA.
The Diocese of Rome announced the cancellation of all public Masses shortly after the Italian government decree went into effect. Since then, Church leaders in Rome have debated whether churches in Rome could remain open for private prayer during a national quarantine.
“It is of course the right and the duty of any religious community to challenge in lawful ways any act by government that it considers an illicit restriction of its religious freedom. In some cases a community might find itself in the position of needing to engage in principled, civil disobedience. As I understand it the Catholic Bishops of Italy and the Holy Father have agreed to this decree, from which I infer they believe it prudent and just,” Farr said.
“It would be difficult to imagine such a sweeping decree in the United States, where the Constitution provides to all Americans and all their religious communities the right of free exercise of religion. However, should there be clear and overwhelming evidence that, in particular locations, the public health required a ban on all gatherings, it is not inconceivable,” Farr said.
Numerous state governments have announced prohibitions on gatherings of more than 250 people in recent days.
The Archdiocese of Seattle was the first in the U.S. to cancel public Masses in response to a government directive, and dozens of dioceses have followed suit. Others have granted general dispensations from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass, and some bishops, like Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, have encouraged parishes with high Sunday Mass attendance to consider adding more Masses.
Farr said that such banning large gatherings, if not specifically targeting religion, is understood to be within the government’s prerogative at a time of crisis.
“An American bishop bringing suit against a ban, whatever its size, would very likely prevail if the ban were only on religious gatherings. However, he would have trouble prevailing if the ban is on all gatherings, religious or not, and the act is easily justified by a dire threat to public health and welfare,” Farr said.
“Speaking as a Catholic for whom the sacraments are not optional, and are necessary to health and welfare, however, I would hope that the Italian Church, or the Church in any jurisdiction would do everything it could reasonably do to make the sacraments available in ways that would be consistent with just authority,” he added.
Washington D.C., Mar 16, 2020 / 09:35 am (CNA).- Former vice president Joe Biden reaffirmed his support for taxpayer funded abortion during Sunday night’s Democratic presidential debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Midway through the […]
New York City, N.Y., Mar 16, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).-
As there are concerns over the ability of the healthcare system to manage the coronavirus pandemic, discussions are being had over what criteria should be used if healthcare must be rationed.
Globally, there are 153,517 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 5,735 deaths.
In Italy, where the virus has hit particularly hard, some doctors have said they have had to overlook older patients to focus on younger ones who are more likely to survive.
And in the UK some doctors have said they may have to prioritize care for those patients with better chances of surviving.
As these conversations are being had, CNA spoke via email with Charlie Camosy, an associate professor of theology at Fordham University, about what principles should be used as doctors might face such choices.
Among Camosy’s research interests are bioethics and distributive justice. Among his works are Too Expensive to Treat? Finitude, Tragedy and the Neonatal ICU and Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consisten Life Ethic Can Unite a Fractured People.
What principles should be used in deciding how to distribute limited treatment for coronavirus?
The first thing to say is that there are virtually no universally agreed-upon principles to do this–excepting, perhaps, the idea that health care providers, first-responders, law enforcement, and others primarily responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the polity should get priority.
Beyond that, there is tremendous disagreement – at least in the culture at large. What one believes about this largely come from their first principles related to what they believe in their hearts and souls about the good, true, and beautiful.
Catholics, of course, have these principles…and they differ especially from the utilitarian mindset that dominates so much of secular ethics and medicine today. We serve the most vulnerable first. Those people are Christ to us in a special way and we will be judged according to how we treat them. We don’t think about, say, how long they might stay on a ventilator vs. how long someone we might encounter next week might stay on a ventilator. We also don’t think about how long they might have to live if the treatment is successful vs. how long other someone we might encounter next week might live if their treatment is successful.
It makes sense, especially in a triage situation, to treat those first who are most likely to benefit from the treatment. And there many be a disproportionate number of younger people in the former category. But that is not the same as deciding that we ought to prefer to the young to the old because they have longer to live. Some of the ways very public figures have downplayed the threat by talking about it it mostly affecting the old have been disturbing. As soon as a Catholic hears that we should be outraged and leap to the defense of this already marginalized population which bears the faith of Christ in a special way.
You said in a recent Twitter thread that many providers are ‘uncritically utilitarian’ in rationing. How exactly? By using the Quality-Adjusted Life Year model?
Well, I think the QALY model reinforces something that was already there. Scientists and medics, in addition to being disproportionately secular, have absorbed a utilitarian mindset in which probably ultimately come down to solving an equation. While that might feel better than living in the uncertainty and messiness of Christian ethics, the decision about how to handle what is coming our way are too complex to think about this way.
Do you believe that “help those who can likely benefit from treatment first” is a good principle?
I do.
Could you address what Catholics should do in their daily lives amid coronavirus to practice the Church’s social teaching?
The Church has been at its finest in plagues and pandemics. We need to live our our principles now more than ever.
© Catholic World Report