Dating back to March 8, when the bishops’ conference announced the suspension of all public Masses in keeping with government measures to combat the coronavirus, Italy’s ecclesiastical lockdown is the longest-running in the world, and to date support at the leadership level has been remarkably compact.
Catholic migrant ministries of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras have called for an end to deportations during the COVID-19 crisis, saying the practice exposes an already vulnerable group to health and security risks – especially those sent summarily to countries of which they are not citizens.
Pope Francis Easter Sunday prayed for those suffering due to either global conflict or the coronavirus, saying Christ’s resurrection brings both light and hope to the darkness of an oppressed and suffering world.
Pope Francis celebrates the Easter Vigil in a dark and nearly empty St. Peter’s Basilica.
On Good Friday, the Diocese of Brooklyn has released a video of the choir at St. Sebastian Roman Catholic Church, in Woodside, Queens, virtually singing “Via Dolorosa,” which translates from Latin to English as “Sorrowful Way.”
Addressing the world two weeks ago at the height of the global pandemic, Pope Francis paid tribute to the “forgotten people” – the grocery clerks, service industry workers, cleaners, and caregivers that are frequently overlooked yet are now keeping the world functioning.
It’s a Holy Week like no other. No in-person Masses, Holy Thursday processions to the altar of repose, communal veneration of the cross, or gathering with fellow parishioners outside, in the dark, faces lit by fire as the Easter Vigil begins.
No U.S. Catholic bishop has been associated more closely with religious liberty than Archbishop William Lori and he has a message for Catholics who think the current suspension of the sacraments due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a violation of religious liberty: It’s not – and to argue otherwise puts lives at risk.
The COVID-19 quarantines, lockdowns and stay-at-home orders are the perfect opportunity for conversion: for individuals, for the church and for governments, Pope Francis said in an interview.
When Father Jorge Ortiz died March 27, it wasn’t the first time that death visited the Diocese of Brooklyn during a pandemic. A perusal of the headlines from the 1918 editions of The Tablet reveals that the Spanish Flu of that year hit the church here in unexpected and dramatic ways.
