Fatima Bishop, Cdnl. Antonio dos Santos Marto, Mocks Pandemic-as-Punishment Notion

FATIMA, Portugal (ChurchMilitant.com) – The bishop of the diocese of Leiria-Fátima, who oversees the site of Our Lady’s 1917 apparitions, is scoffing at orthodox cardinals and those who speak of the pandemic as divine punishment as doing so “out of ignorance, sectarian fanaticism or insanity.”

Crowd at Fátima witnessing the Miracle of the Sun in 1917

Cardinal Antonio dos Santos Marto insists that the Wuhan virus is instead a wake-up call to “rethink the financial and economic system to achieve more justice and eliminate the flagrant inequality between the world’s rich minority and the majority of the poor.”

Marto, elevated to the cardinalate in 2018 by Pope Francis, echoes the pontiff’s views and claims that the pandemic is a summons to “care more for our common home through an integral ecology, more fraternity and solidarity among the individuals and peoples and a more responsible citizenship.”

In an interview with Religión Digital, Marto is asked “how is it possible that some clerics (including some high cardinals) continue to believe that the coronavirus is a ‘punishment from God?'”   ….

Read more here:  churchmilitant.com/news/article/bishop-of-fatima-mocks-pandemic-as-punishment