Catholic Church

By Courtney Mares, Catholic News Agency - 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… Bergamo was the hometown of Pope John XXIII. The local government of Bergamo posted an update online on March 13 stating that the hospital mortuary had run out of space, so the town had opened the cemetery and church for the bodies awaiting burial… “We are experiencing something that goes well beyond the normal ups and downs of life,” Bishop Breschi said in his homily March 15…. More than 27,000 people in Italy have been infected with coronavirus, and 2,470 people have died in just over three weeks.

By Father Raymond J. de Souza, EWTN News - While public gathering for worship and prayer may be canceled, worship and prayer are not canceled. To the contrary, they should be intensified… That’s not just a scriptural reality: “Pray constantly”… “from the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised”… It’s also a civic reality in the United States. President Donald Trump declared Sunday, March 15, a national day of prayer, quoting the Scriptures: “Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you”… and “For with God nothing shall be impossible”…

By Msgr. Charles Pope, March 15, 2020 - Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:14-15)… in the face of this most recent global panic about a relatively strong virus, we need also to ponder the literal meaning of this text. Whether you are of the view that this is an extreme threat that requires dramatic measures or you think the matter is exaggerated and the measures are too severe, it is clear that the fear of death has seized large numbers throughout the world.