A global ceasefire of all armed conflicts would help in the humanitarian battle against coronavirus (COVID-19), says Pope Francis. An additional humanitarian response needs to come from every government in the world, “to avoid tragedies” that could result from Covid-19 spreading in overcrowded prisons, Francis says. Francis issued these two passionate humanitarian appeals on Sunday. Read more
Industrial-scale deaths and funerals have fallen to Father Mario Carminati’s lot since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic took hold in Italy. Clusters of coffins arrive every day and are laid on the floor of St. Joseph’s Church in the northern Italian town of Seriate. “Authorities didn’t know where to put the coffins,” Carminati says. When enough Read more
Argentina’s president has asked priests to help the national government flatten the curve of coronavirus in slum areas. Aregentina has 4,500 shanty towns and illegal settlements. Seven priests – including Bishop Gustavo Carrara – who live and minister in the slums of Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, met with President Alberto Fernandez last week. The priests’ Read more
If it wasn’t for their internet where would we be during the big lockdown? Many Catholic churches big and small around New Zealand are streaming daily Mass online. Many faith groups are having zoom and skype meetings. And many virtual communities are forming to meet and pray online. On its website, The Diocese of Auckland Read more
At the heart of our faith is the fact that in Jesus, God comes to us. We do not have to leave home to find God. “In these days, in Jesus, God is coming to us, seeking to encounter us in the confines of our own homes,” said the Catholic Bishops of New Zealand in Read more
Wellington’s Compassion Soup Kitchen is responding to the increasing need, and is running seven days a week, rather than its normal six. It is considered an “essential service”. “We will provide kai for as long as we possibly can,” the Compassion Soup Kitchen management say in a statement. The Compassion Soup Kitchen has moved to Read more
The Vatican spokesman today confirmed that Pope Francis and his closest collaborators do not have Covid-19, but a sixth employee in the city-state has tested positive, following tests carried out “on more than 170 employees of the Holy See and residents at the Santa Marta guesthouse,” where Pope Francis lives. The news came in a Read more
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
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