The Vatican is under pressure to let more employees work from home as its offices remain open two weeks after the Italian government ordered Italians home and shut down all non-essential businesses in an urgent attempt to contain the coronavirus. Vatican employees in three different offices expressed alarm March 24 that superiors had adopted different Read more
The Marist Rugby Club will now celebrate 101 years instead of its planned 100 year birthday bash. Those attached to the well supported Invercargill-based club had poured many hours into organising a centenary weekend to celebrate 100 years of the club at Queens Birthday weekend this year. Read more
As more cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus are being registered in Ukraine, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has said that he will lend ecclesial properties at hospitals if the need should arise. During a livestreamed March 22 Mass, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, referred to a Read more
Among the latest casualties of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in Italy are five sisters belonging to a convent in the country’s northern Piedmont region, prompting the immediate isolation and quarantine of the remaining nuns. Roughly 90 miles from Milan, Turin holds 10 of the more than 30 deaths in Piedmont, which neighbors Lombardy, the region Read more
A person who lives in the same Vatican residence as Pope Francis has tested positive for coronavirus and is being treated in an Italian hospital, the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero reported on Wednesday. The Vatican had no immediate comment on the report. Francis, who has cancelled public appearances and is conducting his general audiences via Read more
Desperate shoppers have been raiding supermarkets in nearby small towns, leaving locals without the bare necessities. Chaos has ensued at supermarkets across the country, with scenes of panicked shoppers hoarding trolleys of toilet paper commonplace in every major city. Read more
The Vatican daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, which Pope Francis has jokingly called “the party newspaper”, suspended printing for only the third time in nearly 160 years on Wednesday due to the coronavirus. The paper, which was founded in 1861, will continue publishing online and most of its staff of about 60, including 20 journalists, will Read more
Right now New Zealand is in an excellent position not to have many thousands of deaths and an overwhelmed healthcare service, which is what you’re seeing elsewhere. There will still be an increase in cases, but through testing, self-isolation and contact tracing further increases could be minimised. Read more
A Catholic priest in Kerala has been arrested for violating the Covid-19 advisory against conducting Holy Mass in which more than 100 people attended. Fr. Pauly Padayatti, vicar of Nithya Sahaya Matha (Mother of Perpetual Help) church at Koodapuzha near Chalakudy in Thrissur district has been arrested by the police. Despite the strict restrictions of Read more
A 95-year-old grandmother has become the oldest person in Italy to recover from the coronavirus. Alma Clara Corsini has been able to return home after beating the potentially fatal virus, which has so far claimed 5,500 lives and infected nearly 60,000 people in Italy. She was admitted to a hospital near Modena in the north Read more