The rental market in Wellington was so tough, they said, in this season. Did we have anywhere they could stay? Even if it just was a single room, it would be better than outside.

In another of our churches, a mother with two children is desperate. Her partner, hoping to enter through the refugee family reunification process, lodged his application last December.

Immigration New Zealand has halted the processing of cases until our borders open, and his case sits stagnant in a backlog of cases that has no end date in sight.

At our local port, chaplains working with seafarers are in despair at the epidemic of loneliness, exclusion and mental health issues overwhelming the sailors they interact with.

Many crews orbiting New Zealand ports have already been on their ships for more than a year, three or four months beyond their contracts, and have no repatriation in sight to their home countries.

Unlike airline crews, seafarers from foreign ships are required to have 28 continuous days onboard without symptoms before they will be granted shore leave.

With most ships having no wi-fi, their only contact with home is often through welfare centres such as the Mission to Seafarers. With 90 per cent of New Zealand's imports and exports​ arriving by ship, this group, who contribute significantly to our wellbeing, are forgotten and unloved.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have proved that we are a nation that is creative, kind, able to solve complex problems and work together for common good.

Yet since we eradicated community transmission, we have seen some disappointing responses emerge in our reaction to those who are seeking to enter our borders; not based on common good or kindness, but on fear.

Are we really going to turn our backs not even on those who orbit our borders, but on our own citizens, existing and new?

This fear is natural - we want to preserve the safe environment we worked hard for - but the drive for self-preservation is coming at a huge cost for so many vulnerable people.

The kindness we have exhibited as a nation over this year is only as good as our kindness to the most vulnerable.

As a response of gratitude to our team of 5 million, should we hunker down and become insular, or should we be generous with what we have? What is the appropriate response for gratitude?

Our Anglican family (often in partnership with many other national and local faith-based and secular organisations) is working both in front-line and advocacy spaces in this area.

One of the core tenets of our Christian faith, and of all major faiths, is strong teachings to love and embrace others, even those we don't know or love.

We ask that the Government and public institutions embody the principles of kindness and compassion for which Aotearoa became globally known this year. For example:

• Make a public re-commitment to our refugee quotas, within the limitations of current international logistics. The Red Cross has indicated that is well set up to receive people from refugee backgrounds in a quarantine situation in its Mangere centre.
• Take a proactive stance in processing the applications of family reunification cases, rather than waiting until the border reopens to do so. In this way, families can have some certainty and can look forward in hope.
• Make immediate funding available to enable the provision of the basic needs of forgotten seafarers.

Fear is not fair.

We are not asking our government or our citizens to take unnecessary risks.

But using our kindness, compassion and good systems and structures, we can make a huge difference to the lives of those marginalised both within our land, and standing at our gates.

We must not be afraid of countering the narrative that "we need to look after our own".

We might be at the bottom of the world, but we are part of a global community, and we are blessed with an environment and infrastructure that can care well for the deep needs of others when together we think of creative solutions.

The contribution that refugee, migrant and seafaring communities make to our social and economic tapestry is clear, and we must not allow fear and self-interest stand in the way of the values of kindness and compassion.

• Justin Duckworth is the Anglican Archbishop of Wellington. First published in Stuff. Republished with the permission of the author.

• Will the shock of the lockdown bring a transformative moment of social solidarity? Or tear us apart in tribal strife?
• Will there be a baby boom or baby bust? More marriages or more divorces?
• Capitalism is over, some say, while others promise the rich will only get richer.

The future of our national religious life is also the subject of growing speculation, with the sunny-side-up view arguing that we are primed for a new "Great Awakening" of the sort that have periodically transformed American culture.

This revival will be spurred, the thinking goes, by a flood of Americans who ache for a return to communal worship that has been denied them for months.

They will be joined by newcomers who, chastened by this national memento mori, discover or rediscover the balm of faith.

"Could a plague of biblical proportions be America's best hope for religious revival?" Robert Nicholson wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

"[T]here is reason to think so." Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution had the same question: "It could also go the other way," he tweeted, "but my instinct is to think that a great awakening is now *more* likely, at least in America, by 2050."

To many, the prospect of a resurgence in religious observance is an enticing vision, because faith communities can be anchors of social solidarity, which has been steadily eroding for decades.

The data and history tell a different story, however, and, much like the economic outlook, the forecast for religion looks more like recession than resurrection.

Historians of early Christianity note that Jesus' disciples jump-started the church's growth by remaining with the sick during various outbreaks that coursed through the Roman Empire, from the Antonine Plague in the second century to the Plague of Cyprian in the third.

"Indeed, the impact of Christian mercy was so evident that in the fourth century when the emperor Julian attempted to restore paganism, he exhorted the pagan priesthood to compete with the Christian charities," sociologist Rodney Stark wrote in The Triumph of Christianity.

The best case study for the Religious Comfort Hypothesis was the February 2011 earthquake that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand, by any measure a highly secularized country.

Yet the world is far different today.

The martyrs of Covid-19 are the doctors and nurses and essential workers who keep hospitals running, grocery shelves stocked, mass transit running, and sanitation crews and truck lines operating—the people Pope Francis calls "the saints next door."

This time, owing to the way the novel coronavirus spreads, pastors serve best by remaining isolated from the people they were ordained to serve while hospital chaplains and other ministries serve the sick and dying.

The most visible religious icons of this pandemic are the few but vocal self-styled divines who insist on holding in-person services to make a grandstand on religious liberty or to show the secular world how tough they are.

At best, they are preaching to the converted, the regular churchgoers, mainly white evangelicals and Catholics, who have already been trending conservative in recent decades.

But their unholy foolishness is not the kind of witness that will stir souls to greater observance, and surveys show their numbers are shrinking.

Such congregations have been more effective dispersal mechanisms for the virus than for the faith.

Another argument for a post-pandemic revival rests with what is known as "existential security theory," or the "Religious Comfort Hypothesis"—social scientists' way of saying there are no atheists in foxholes.

Existential security theory was popularized by political scientists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart in a 2004 study that sought to explain why the global population is getting more religious, not more secular, as conventional wisdom suggests.

Their explanation: The continuing experience of death and grief causes people to turn to religion as a balm.

Richer and more secure societies, the argument goes, have less "need" for religion because faith in progress and policies—and, in the United States, a belief in our protected status as blessed by the Almighty—stands in for the comforts of traditional religion.

But what happens when natural disasters and societal breakdowns happen in industrialized countries like the U.S.?

The best case study for the Religious Comfort Hypothesis was the February 2011 earthquake that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand, by any measure a highly secularized country.

It was the worst disaster in the country in 80 years. One-third of the city's buildings were destroyed and 185 people were killed in an urban region of fewer than 400,000.

Chris Sibley, a psychology professor at the University of Auckland, and Joseph Bulbulia, a religious studies professor there, were in the midst of a longitudinal study of the values of New Zealanders when the earthquake struck.

They had data from before the disaster to compare with behaviours immediately afterwards.

"Consistent with the Religious Comfort Hypothesis, religious faith increased among the earthquake-affected, despite an overall decline in religious faith elsewhere," they concluded.

At first blush, this seems to be true for the coronavirus response, as well.

A study just published by Danish economics professor Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, a leading researcher on the religious coping phenomenon, argues that based on rates of Google searches for prayer, "the demand for religion has risen dramatically since the onset of the pandemic."

"A pandemic this size potentially changes our societies for years to come, especially if it impacts our deep-rooted values and beliefs. I find that the COVID-19 crisis impacts one of the deepest rooted of human behaviours: religion," Bentzen tweeted. Continue reading

No one had seen churches locked before, few had ever thought of "streamed" liturgies and, across the world, there have been liturgical experiments that were unthinkable just weeks ago.

Now the churches are opening up - slowly - but the legacy of the virus experience may be much longer lived.

We will have an immediate sense of "getting back to normal", but we should not be fooled: things will not be the same.

More importantly, many slow social processes of change have been accelerated and this must prompt us to ask some basic - and awkward - questions.

Who is responsible for what and to whom?

In every situation of social responsibility - and the duty of presiding at the liturgy is one such - a key question to be asked is who is responsible for what and to whom.

While any answer is never clear-cut or wholly defined, in a successful group activity there is normally considerable agreement among all parties about the various regions and directions of responsibility. On the other hand, when this question cannot be answered, chaos follows.

While in those areas where there are major divergences between the various individuals or groups each with a stake in a situation, the result is stress, poor cohesion, and often strife between parties.

This sort of problem seems so much the stuff of industrial relations that it is not usually discussed in works on liturgy or in liturgy training. The result is that many priests are bewildered by what is demanded of them by their congregations.

Furthermore, many are aware that somehow the whole situation where questions of responsibility are raised seems "wrong". While from the congregation's side there are very often feelings of deep dissatisfaction with the performance of their priests.

Indeed, there seems to be a profound crisis in Catholic liturgy. We have well-documented statistics for steadily falling numbers at our celebrations - and this trend may be accelerated by the virus.

Such an obvious "sign" that things are not working is demoralizing.

And added to this are

1. the tensions of closing churches in the developed world;
2. the increased strains for the clergy of getting to more places over Saturday/Sunday; and
3. congregations ever more ready to criticize a priest's perceived poor performance.

This has been happening slowly for decades, but "streaming" has massively contributed to people seeing themselves as consumers of a liturgical product. The effect is that already tired and stressed men become more disheartened and disempowered by being unable to respond creatively.

However, this aspect of ministry receives almost no attention at meetings of clergy among themselves, at diocesan level meetings, or in the literature.

My purpose is to draw attention to the problem to stimulate discussion among clergy themselves, and then between them and their congregations when they meet to discuss parish matters.

A rough comparison

Let us try to see where we are now by noting where we have come from. While we are now 50 years since the arrival of the reformed Roman Rite and more than 50 years since local languages were introduced, many priests active today were formed in the mindset of the pre-conciliar liturgy.

The attitudes and culture of that liturgy did not disappear overnight on the First Sunday of Advent in 1969. Some are only now changing as generations have grown up, and have come with their children to Mass, for whom the pre-conciliar rite is "history".

So, while new attitudes are increasingly found among the key groups for handing on faith within a community, many priests are still having to change attitudes often formed before they entered a seminary.

The recent reversion to the justification of the "private Mas"' and the justifications used by many episcopal conferences, straight out of Tridentine-era manuals, are evidence of how the older culture survives beneath the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

Compare two groups in 1960: a Catholic parish and Congregationalist church.

The Catholics expected that the priest alone was responsible for liturgy above the factual needs.

He

1. provided public Mass at pre-announced times in sufficient number - in accord with his legal abilities to binate - for parishioners "to fulfill their duties" on Sundays;
2. provided an opportunity for any Catholic who might wish to receive Communion; and
3. preached on specified days.

Parish priests had the additional personal duty of offering the Missa pro populo.

While many priests may have seen themselves as having other obligations, those tasks were supererogatory. The minimum standard was clearly defined and known.

For their part the Catholic congregation had the duty - clearly spelled out - to "hear Mass" on Sundays and other appointed days, as well to fulfill the Easter Duty.

Hearing Mass was further defined as to duration and minimal presence. Everything above that minimum was voluntary, and unnecessary.

The priest's major responsibilities were not to the congregation as they were for virtually every Mass (i.e. Low Mass), an optional extra to the actual celebration, but to the law (on major issues), the rubrics (on performance issues) and to God (in terms of his own fitness to celebrate).

Should any of these fail, there was a fall back position of "valid, but illicit" celebration, which could still ensure that "the job was done" (opus operandum operatum), all clearly defined in the Missal.

This concern with the ritual was an individual responsibility to an abstraction - the whole corpus of ritual law. While this sometimes caused stress to priests suffering from scrupulosity, there were no ritual police ensuring ritual details were being observed.

Many priests learning that the rubrics would not permit this or that, simply put the law to the test by saying, "Watch me". When the heavens did not fall, they knew that every law - unless backed up by physical force - has only that binding force that people accord to it.

So, the priest had two wholly distinct sets of responsibilities. In terms of quantity, responsibility to people was minimal, while responsibility to the law was maximal. Both were clearly separate, and in each case, were well defined.

Moreover, everyone knew these boundaries. Hence, priests were interchangeable at a moment's notice, at least, in terms of saying Mass.

For example, an English parish might not have liked having an Irishman as their "PP", but that did not affect the actual celebration of Mass.

While a visiting French priest who wanted to "say Mass" was just slipped in to celebrate a public Mass without further ado if that allowed the local priest to avoid bination and to get his breakfast sooner!

The Congregationalist church situation could not be more dissimilar. The group would have seen itself as being there by choice and personal decision, not out of obligation to law. It was their assembly; they collectively were responsible for the service; and would have shunned the idea of being part of a ritual.

The minister was one of them, although acknowledging his/her skills due to training. There was no automatic right to preside due to a status independent of the congregation.

The congregation, indeed, was the minister's employer. They had interviewed him/her and checked to see if they liked the style.

The prospective minister would have been initially invited to come and preach - the process called "preaching with a view" - because preaching was seen as the minister's personal bit in any service, and preaching performance was a key indicator of suitability. The rest was a free form made up and changed to suit the congregation.

While this might often have been decided upon by the minister, it was clear that the congregation's wishes were paramount.

Moreover, there were mechanisms to hold a minister to account, and, if necessary, dismiss him/her. S/he was "minister to them", i.e. the servant of the congregation and only for so long as they wanted and on their terms.

Despite the differences with the Catholic parish, there was an equal, and probably more explicit, awareness of liturgical responsibility. The congregation was responsible collectively for their worship, "their" minister facilitated this.

There might be an awareness of maintaining patterns of worship with the larger denomination, but that was little more than an awareness that certain practices were "too Romish" to be considered. The minister was wholly responsible for his (and, by 1960, her) particular part in the liturgy to the group.

Personal responsibility before God was a wholly private affair, and the key tasks upon which the minister had to perform were to communicate through the sermon, to co-ordinate the various groups through negotiation and, to an extent, have a winning style that neither frightened the horses nor bored too many too often.

The parallel situation of the visiting French priest would have seen a pastor from Zürich simply sitting as a visiting member of the congregation.

There would be no need for any special consideration for him/her, and any idea of leading the service ratione personae would have been absurd.

Many priests today are stressed by being caught between these extremes: pulled in both directions with insufficient training, and often being unable to articulate this problem that has crept up upon them.

Obeying the rubrics!

There is still the tension with regard to obedience to the general law and the rubrics. The liturgy is not a free form; it must be in accord with the permitted limits of adaptation.

Rome has repeatedly pointed out the rights of people to have "the authentic liturgy". It has criticized "abuses", and has encouraged local ordinaries to police the celebrations in their charge.

In effect, any departure from the rubrics, no matter how worthily demanded by a situation, can be considered an abuse.

However, there are three other complexities, unknown when the rites were in Latin and when, the odd lay expert apart, they could not be followed by the congregation.

The first is the rising phenomenon of unpaid and self-appointed liturgical informants - sometimes jokingly referred to as "the temple police". The priest has broken the rubrics; therefore, he should be reported.

Every community seems to have one or two of these and they are functionally similar to biblical fundamentalists: the liturgy is given, frozen by text, it is approached by rejecting modern scholarship, and the one always approaches those who work with it on the suspicious assumption that they are "not sound".

Fundamentalism is a fact in all forms of modern Christianity and is especially virulent in the Anglophone world. It is often reduced to its most plentiful form (biblical fundamentalism) but it is, in fact, far more diffuse.

Among Catholics one of its forms is liturgical fundamentalism: "Father has been given a book, he should stick to it."

The simple answer is that the liturgy is worship, not a book; and that the books are only elaborate aids to the memory.

But because Catholicism has patrolled the liturgy since 1570 through insistence on printed uniformity, this reply excites the fundamentalists' worst fears that the "old time religion" is being sold out!

Second, often priests, when "following the book", find their actions are rejected by parts of their congregations as if he were acting on a personal whim.

Recently, a zealous bishop took the position that only men should "normally" be asked to be "special Eucharistic ministers". He saw this as reflecting the fact that the priest had to be male and imagined that a woman performing this role might contribute to "gender theory".

Leaving aside the factors that led to this dubious position, let us simply note that experience shows that this was not a good idea in regions where Catholic women assume their equality with men in the congregation.

A priest following the zealous bishop's instruction is then torn between his duty to his ordinary and pastoral common sense. Some priests just proclaim loudly: "Blame the bishop!" Others, unwilling to "pass the buck", are blamed personally for not being "willing to listen". Others are just bewildered that people are annoyed.

These tensions derive from an adherence to responsibility to the law whose boundaries within the groups it affects are unclear.

Third, the focus of most training is still competence to perform the liturgy as a given. It is not as a set of skills on how to preside at the liturgy, an activity that assumes there is more free form in the liturgy than is commonly seen.

So, every departure from the training creates a tension over loyalty, as well as uncertainty about what is best.

However, given the richness of our liturgy, seminaries must concentrate on technical mastery in training.

What the liturgy demands!

There is the tension that results for many priests through a sense of responsibility to "ideal ritual form".

The restored liturgy of Vatican II presented an ideal of Eucharistic liturgy more excellent than anything seen before. This was because of more than a century of scholarship and well-resourced piety going back to the time of Prosper Guéranger OSB (d. 1875).

The result has been that many priests have worked to renew the liturgy in their communities. Often there is incomprehension, disinterest and, at worse, open opposition - and this too is a factor in stress and low morale.

Here is a case of someone recognizing their basic responsibility as liturgical leader and teacher, but where there is often a rejection of responsibility by others in the community; primarily by those who perform functions in the liturgy such as sacristans and musicians, but this refusal to take responsibility as a genuine participant in a participation-based liturgy is a major failing among Catholic laity today.

The resulting dissonance of expectations between the liturgy's president and the other participants often makes a shamble of the whole liturgy.

Whose celebration is it anyway?

There are the stresses that result over unclear boundaries between the role of the priest and that of the congregation.

In the pre-1969 liturgy a priest had few matters on which he needed to consult anyone in the community about the Eucharistic liturgy. Now he is expected to be listening to the needs of the community and responding to their needs as a basic element of his functioning.

The priest in a vernacular liturgy must also be a skilled communicator. He stands judged by the congregation on this point against a benchmark of professional communicators. A priest who "bores me" or, even worse, "bores my children" is, in the eyes of many, fit only for the clerical scrapheap.

That the Eucharist cannot be celebrated without him is seen as secondary. Many think that if he cannot communicate and meet "my needs" then either he or I must go.

The key responsibility here is seen to be in meeting the needs of those who see themselves in a quasi-employer role. The priest is expected to be the listener.

With this goes the further stress of coordinating the various liturgical interest groups, and arbitrating between them. Often in these processes no one is clear to whom they have responsibility except to their own role.

That they might all have responsibility to the community - or the effective worship of the community or "the Church's liturgy" or the virtue of religion - is not part of their decision frame.

In such situations, because the priest is one individual and the focus of the listening and coordinating process, he is in a lose-lose situation.

It is little wonder, therefore, that many priests have given up on the agenda of the renewed liturgy; which, in turn, exacerbates the fundamental problem of people seeing the liturgy as irrelevant.

Finally, we must not see this new line of responsibility for "performance" to the congregation as a transient pathology.

Within a vernacular and participative liturgy, as Vatican II recognized the Eucharistic liturgy should be, this line of responsibility of the president to the assembly is at least as important as his, or the group's responsibility to the demands of the liturgy as expressed in our liturgical books.

Discussion

The effects of changes that began more than 50 years ago are only now being felt. Celebrating liturgy is now more demanding that ever.

It is informative to look back over the pre-1960s manuals on how to say Mass. They saw it as an individual's action needing technical skill and practice, but the tasks are clear and the lines of responsibility crisp.

Today the skill-set needed is far more diverse, but often under-acknowledged. That there are new attitudes towards, and new lines of responsibility within, liturgy is something we tend to ignore, but should be discussing openly and widely.Moreover, since presidency at the Eucharist is something that is very closely linked with the whole notion of the identity of the ordained priest, that discussion will have ramifications well beyond the liturgical sphere.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is
  Eating Together, Becoming One Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).

That's the question on the minds of parish leaders in the 17,000 American Catholic churches as the U.S. begins a return to a new normal post-pandemic life.

There are no guarantees, say Marti Jewell and Mark Mogilka, authors of "Open Wide the Doors to Christ: A Study of Catholic Social Innovation for Parish Vitality," just published by Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, or FADICA, an organization that promotes best practices for church managers.

The two interviewed and studied two dozen parishes across the country, selected because of their reputation of vitality, along with more than 65 ministry leaders. Each parish in the study remained anonymous in the interest of providing candid input.

Vitality, noted the authors, is a somewhat amorphous concept. But you know it when you see it, Mogilka told NCR in a June 9 Zoom interview, with Mogilka participating from his home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Jewell from Richmond, Virginia.

"You can feel it, it's tangible. There's an excitement. People are excited to meet you," said Mogilka.

Parishioners in vibrant parishes are likely to stay later on Sundays and greet newcomers.

The parish bulletin contains information about activities that go well beyond weekends, including social service outreach.

The result is often like that experienced at a superb restaurant: word gets out from enthusiastic patrons willing to tell their friends and neighbours about their spiritual and social ministry experiences.

The model of parishioners ensconced in a tight community, keeping the rest of the world away, is fading away.

Whether or not Catholics come back after the pandemic will depend much upon what their parishes were like before the pandemic struck.

What's clear, they said, is that change will be needed. "Pastors have to let go of 'they will go back and we'll do it as we did,' " Jewell told NCR.

Mogilka, a consultant for Meitler Inc., a church planning and consulting firm, is more definitive.

"In the short-term they will not actually come back. This is a marathon, not a sprint," he said.

Much of that has to do with wider cultural issues, and whether people will feel safe venturing outside into crowds.

He noted that a recent study of major league baseball fans indicated that only a small minority contemplate going to ballparks in the near future, with the rest content to watch the game on television.

The same is happening in church life, he said, as Catholics adjust to the new Zoom age.

That has some advantages.

At his parish, Resurrection in Green Bay, nearly 700 parishioners showed up for a virtual town hall.

Similar events included only about 50 done live before the pandemic.

"I feel we are called to redefine what we mean by community," said Mogilka, noting that, in another positive development, shut-ins and the disabled are feeling more of a part of the parish than ever before, able to access parish events via social media like everyone else.

There are drawbacks, however. Mogilka noted that about a third of all parishioners don't access social media, in part because older parishioners are often uncomfortable with the technology or rural residents have poor internet connections. Continue reading

At the same time there is the yearning to belong, a restlessness to make a satisfying relationship, to feel valued.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, loneliness had been identified as the next global health epidemic of the 21st century.

But, in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic generated forces that have intensified widespread loneliness beyond what was even imagined in the 2019 projection.

The tragic consequences of this loneliness will endure for decades, if not generations, as they did following the worldwide Great Depression of the later 1920s and 1930s. The economic crisis caused by the pandemic has hurled even developed countries back to visions of the sufferings of those times.

The pandemic has two branches: a contagious disease and an economic malaise. Hundreds of thousands have died from the disease. Medical services, already under pressure, are struggling to cope, often unsuccessfully; the pandemic calls for stark choices between life, death and the economy.

The scale of the health crisis is generating unparalleled challenges for the global economy. That, in turn, results in a massive increase in poverty, which is the major cultural cause of loneliness. Poverty excludes people from a sense of belonging, with often tragic physical and mental consequences.

Since the pandemic has reinforced the existing poverty of people and suddenly cast millions more into its appalling grips, this article seeks to describe the meaning of poverty. Globally, the least advantaged are suffering the most as a consequence of the pandemic.

How a problem is articulated and then elucidated strongly affects what is actually done about it. Inaccurate assessments of poverty, along with unsympathetic attitudes, unvaryingly result in bad policies and practices that intensify the alienation and loneliness of people.

Frequently poverty is measured only in quantifiable terms such as low income, inadequate housing, sickness and levels of educational achievement.

This gives an inadequate picture of the reality.

Qualitative analysis is also essential. Additional qualitative definitions of poverty need to be considered as well as how they are all interconnected and reinforce each other.

Poverty as quantifiable

The International Monetary Fund's global economic outlook catalogs a high-speed economic train crash that will see unemployment, debt and bankruptcies soar more precipitously than ever before.4 Even in the most optimistic scenario, the global economy will shrink 30 times more than it did during the global financial crisis of 2008. The consequences are that absolute and relative poverty rates are rising dramatically, leading to an intensification of loneliness.

Absolute poverty is defined by a set income measure below which people experience complete destitution such that they cannot meet even minimum needs for food and shelter. The United Nations Development Programme has set this measure as one U.S. dollar a day for people living in third and fourth world countries. Below that income threshold people experience severe malnutrition and perilous levels of ill health. Relative poverty, on the other hand, is more helpful in assessing how material and income levels impact people's lives. The term "relative poverty" refers to "the lack of resources needed to obtain the kinds of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities that are widely approved and generally obtained by most people in a particular society."

When resources are so below others in society, sufferers are effectively excluded from ordinary, socially essential, living arrangements and activities.

In the United States five years before the pandemic, it was estimated that 18.4 million people lived in absolute poverty according to the standard set by that country.

In 2016, it was estimated that there were over a half million people in the United States classed as homeless, 8% of whom are veterans. Homeless people have no place to self-isolate in an epidemic but the streets.

In 2015, there were 43.1 million people in relative poverty. Four out of ten adults would not have the resources available to cover an unplanned $400 expense.

An "expensive and inefficient medical system" reinforces the degree of poverty of Americans: those "in the bottom fourth of the income distribution die about 13 years younger on average than those in the top fourth."

Since the start of the pandemic, however, the two types of poverty have dramatically increased. The abrupt rise in unemployment is projected to rise at a rate "not seen since the Great Depression." By mid-April 2020, within a three week period, 22 million people in the United States had registered for unemployment benefits. Even middle-class Americans, once so comfortably secure, fear what the future may bring.

The impact of the disease has not fallen evenly; the cavernous divides in American society are widening. Those living on low incomes have incidences of illness and poor health at much higher rates than people on high incomes. Even before the pandemic hit, the U.S. was in the throes of a massive health crisis: "In 2015 life expectancy began falling for the first time since...1993. The causes - mainly suicides, alcohol-related deaths, and drug overdoses - claim roughly 190,000 lives each year."

Many people who were "already on the margins before the pandemic have now been pushed over the edge. It is appalling...that Blacks and Hispanics are becoming sick and dying at disproportionate rates. Decades of racism left many minority Americans with crowded housing, bad health and little savings, making it more difficult to survive the pandemic."

In April 2020 in New York City, data showed that Black and Hispanic residents were twice as likely to die of coronavirus as White city dwellers; they were less likely to have health insurance, and thus may have avoided seeking testing and treatment.

Poverty as opportunity deprivation

People can become so imprisoned by their low income that it is extremely difficult for many to break through its crushing circumstances. We speak of a cycle of poverty, simply because the factors referred to are interconnected and self-perpetuating.

Since this crippling cycle of poverty prevents or obstructs people from participating as full members of society, poverty can be defined as "deprivation of opportunities" or simply "capability deprivation." All have the right to work, to participate in society and to grow intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. All people have responsibility for each other's well-being; everyone should have opportunities to meet their responsibilities and to contribute to society.

But structures of society can render these rights and responsibilities impossible for groups in society to achieve. People trapped in the circle of poverty have a restricted range of choices available to them. To be poor is "to be denied the chance to enjoy the consumption of goods, or the ability to achieve and maintain good health, or participate in social activities or other aspects of community life."

Lack of equality of educational opportunity is a significant contributor to the rigidity of poverty. In the United States, "Virtually the entire increase in mortality has been among white adults without bachelor's degrees - some 70 percent of all whites."

Educational needs in socio-economically depressed areas require significant input of finance and specialized staff, but, in fact, they get less than the demand needed in terms of buildings, facilities, equipment and teachers, particularly those relating to special needs. Moreover, people with no housing, or inadequate housing, find it extremely difficult, or sometimes impossible, to obtain ordinary services such as a bank account, a credit card, or develop a regular relationship with local schools and doctors.

Poverty as stigmatizing and discriminating

Unless we look at poverty from the structural, cultural, entrapping perspective, we will tend to blame the victim for their poverty, social exclusion and loneliness. Statements like "the poor can themselves get out of poverty, if they truly want to" are dangerously simplistic and do nothing to clarify our understanding of the complexity of poverty and its ability to crush initiative and self-respect. In the United States, people who are poor, especially if they are single mothers, African-Americans or Hispanics, are frequently blamed for being poor by members of the dominant culture.

Cultures have a built-in tendency to create boundaries with powerful feelings dividing "us" from "them." The English poet Rudyard Kipling described the dynamic in this way: "All nice people like Us are We, and everyone else is They." The "They" are stigmatized, especially through extensive mass media publicity, as inferior, thus to be blamed and marginalized for their assumed deficiencies.19 When cultures are under pressure of change, such as the impact of the pandemic, the stigmatizing process intensifies. Vulnerable people, such as migrants, minority groups, people who are poor, are today in constant danger of being wrongfully blamed, stigmatized and further marginalized for causing the virus or the resultant unemployment.

The impact on victims of being blamed, stigmatized and marginalized is often horrific and long lasting. They feel shamed, worthless and blamed for their own poverty. A sense of chronic loneliness or fatalism can grip them, as their sense of self-worth and self-respect disintegrate. We need to become keenly aware of what happens to human dignity once hope becomes a forgotten word.

The psalmist describes the inner anguish of people who have been stigmatized and socially marginalized: "You have deprived me of my friends, made me repulsive to them, imprisoned, with no escape" (Ps 88:8).

You can sense the pain also in the cry to Jesus by Bartimaeus: "let me see again" (Mark 10:51). Human dignity cannot be subjected to endless indignities and remain intact.

Poverty as violence

Violence is not about damaging or destroying things. It is about abusing people. It is not confined to killing or physical violence, but the creation of cultural conditions that materially or psychologically destroy or diminish people's dignity, rightful happiness and capacity to fulfill basic material needs. Such degrading environments evoke chronic distressing loneliness. The warning of Pope Francis is right: "Until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples is reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence." The same is true for loneliness.

When faced with COVID-19, governments had a stark choice: either primarily to protect lives through shutdown and self-isolating policies or economic welfare claiming that neoliberal policies are more important for individuals than saving lives. Some governments favored the latter option. Neoliberalism is an economic philosophy that privileges and promotes the capitalist market system, assessing states of affairs in terms of economic productivity. Its ideological assumption is that profit is the sole measure of value and that competition, not collaboration, better serves the common good. It creates a culture of violence in which the poor and vulnerable in society are the first to suffer its impact; the rights of the individual, not the well-being of the community, have priority.

Pope Francis critiques this view of economics: "Everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless...Masses of people find themselves excluded...without work, without possibilities."

People in poverty must solve their own problems. They live in fear of sudden and expensive illnesses and feel devalued as persons because they are considered as beggars dependent on the good will and charity of hospitals. They are victims of structural violence, that is, political, economic and social institutions that coerce them into remaining poor.

Where neoliberalist policies prevail, few question the violence. It is taken for granted. Little Lisa, the saxophone daughter of Homer of The Simpsons television cartoon show, at one point becomes squeamish about watching television violence but her delinquent brother Bart replies: "If you don't watch the violence, you'll never get desensitized to it." What Lisa is complaining about is the "normalization of violence."

Poverty as grief overload

Following a loss, the process of grieving may include feelings of sadness, anger, numbness, loneliness, shame, guilt and more. As a consequence of the pandemic, global populations are suffering from accumulated and unarticulated grief over innumerable losses. People have lost their jobs, their social and economic identities have disintegrated, isolated grandparents can no longer hug their grandchildren, family members and friends have died, often alone; millions more have been cast into absolute poverty.

As people contemplate the uncertain future, their griefs multiply. Unless this amassed grief can openly be expressed in mourning, people will feel emotionally suffocated; as the ancient poet Ovid wrote: "Suppressed grief suffocates." Or, the Turkish proverb: "They that conceal their grief find no remedy for it."

Mourning involves formal or informal rituals and internal processes of transformation that a bereaved person undertakes to deal with grieving. Grieving is very much an automatic reaction to loss, but mourning requires a decision to relate to grief in constructive ways; it is a willingness to acknowledge publicly that grief has occurred, to let it go, and then to be open to the world ahead.

Walter Brueggemann writes: "The public sharing of pain is one way to let reality sink in and let death go." However, the self-isolation required to control the pandemic has forced the bereaved to hide their accumulated anguish; this grief overload and inability to mourn publicly can cause paralyzing personal and cultural trauma, emotionally crippling people for decades or longer.

Pastoral responses

When dramatic economic events happen, the repercussions tend to take years, even generations, to play out, and they often swirl in unpredictable directions. It is not clear to anyone how best to move forward to protect lives while struggling to overcome the massive spread of poverty and its devastating consequences. However, the Gospel emphasizes values that must guide all decisions and actions.

When Jesus heals Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52), a starving blind beggar, he confronts the above expressions of poverty and the values that must motivate us in relating to people trapped in its clutches. The authorities and wealthy people at the time of Bartimaeus would have been ignorant of these expressions of poverty, but the victims would not. Bartimaeus would have been merely a statistic for the authorities of his time, just another bothersome beggar, the cause of his own misery.

The grieving Bartimaeus is a symbol of social rejection. Because of a particular type of blindness, which caused him to be considered ritually unclean, Bartimaeus has been socially stigmatized. Excluded, he must sit by the roadside to avoid contact with people. For his family and former friends he no longer exists. He is utterly alone. As Jesus is passing by, Bartimaeus cries out for healing. The crowd does its best to silence him, but he only shouts more loudly.

The crowd has followed Jesus and listened to his words on compassion and justice, but they remain blinded by their prejudice against people like Bartimaeus. Jesus will have none of this violent nonsense. He calls Bartimaeus to his side and gently asks him what he desires: "Rabbi, let me see again!" (Mark 10:51). Jesus actually listens to a poor person, contrary to the culture of his time. The mourning cry of Bartimaeus is the cry of poor people today mired in poverty: let me become again a full member of society, one who can freely contribute to society with a hope-filled sense of pride and responsibility.

Jesus listens to Bartimaeus and by speaking directly to a socially marginalized person, Jesus helps the man break through the political, cultural and structural barriers that have entrapped him. By defying these stigmatizing and discriminating walls, Jesus allows Bartimaeus to rediscover his ability to be and act like a human person with dignity. Filled with hope, not only is Bartimaeus medically healed but he returns to society, symbolized by his ability to walk once more on the road: he follows Jesus "on the way" and his loneliness vanishes.

There are three relevant lessons in this incident. First, Jesus by his attitude and action reassures Bartimaeus that he is a person of dignity. He inspires hope. He empowers Bartimaeus not to accept any longer the cultural stigma that those who are poor must remain silent. Second, Jesus actually asks Bartimaeus what he would like: "What do you want me to do for you?" Thinking about justice begins by listening to those who know about injustice. Third, the way to heal poverty must be holistic - social, cultural, economic, spiritual. Charity without the pursuit of justice is not holistic healing.

• Fr Gerald A. Arbuckle SM PhD, a cultural anthropologist, is a director of the Refounding and Pastoral Development Unit in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of multiple books including Abuse and Cover-Up: Refounding the Catholic Church in Trauma.

NOTES

1. For a fuller explanation of loneliness and its implications, see Gerald A. Arbuckle, Loneliness: Insights for Healing in a Fragmented World (Maryknoll, NY, 2018), and Gerald A. Arbuckle, "Loneliness: A Global Pandemic," Health Progress 99, no. 4(July-August 2018), 15-19.
2. "Covid-19 Presents Stark Choices between Life, Death and the Economy," The Economist, April 2,
   2020, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/04/02/covid-19-presents-stark-choices-between-life-death-and-the-economy.
3. Contemporary multidisciplinary research concludes that loneliness is a serious risk factor for physical and mental illness and early death, "right alongside smoking, obesity and the lack of exercise." John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 108.
4. Alan Rappeport and Jeanna Smialek, "I.M.F. Predicts Worst Downturn Since the Great Depression," The New York Times,April 14, 2020.
5. John Pierson, Tackling Social Exclusion (London: Routledge, 2002), 9.
6. Hunger Notes website, www.worldhunger.org/hunger-in-america-2016-united-states-hunger-poverty-facts (Previously Accessed.)
7. www.socialsolutions.com/bog/2016-homelessness-statistics (Previously Accessed).
8. For more, see https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-256.html.
9. Patricia Cohen, "Broad Shutdown Pushes Americans to Economic Edge," The New York Times, TimesDigest, April 17, 2020, 1.
10. David Leonardt, "A Vulnerable Nation," The New York Times, TimesDigest, April 19, 2020, 8.
11. See "Unequal Protection: American Inequality Meets Covid-19," The Economist, April 18, 2020; Jamelle Bouie, "The Racial Character of Inequality," The New York Times, TimesDigest, April 19, 2020, 8.
12. From "Unequal Protection," The Economist: "Workers who are younger, poorer or lack a university education have disproportionately lost their source of income. For some, that has also meant losing their employer-sponsored health insurance in the middle of the epidemic."
13. Helen Epstein, "Left Behind," The New York Review of Books, vol.LXVII, no.5, 2020, 28. See Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).
14. Thomas Reese, "Bending the COID-19 Inequality Curve," National Catholic Reporter (April 14, 2020).
15. "Unequal Protection," The Economist.
16. See Mary Jo Bane, in Mary Jo Bane and Lawrence M. Mead (eds), Lifting Up the Poor: A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty and Welfare Reform (Washington: Brookings Institute, 2003), 22-23.
17. Peter Saunders, The Ends and Means of Welfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 143.
18. Epstein, "Left Behind," 28.
19. See Gerald A. Arbuckle, Fundamentalism at Home and Abroad: Analysis and Pastoral Responses (Collegeville, MN, 2017), 43- 47.
20. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 2013, par. 59.
21. See Robert Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), 275-96.
22. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, par. 53.
23. See Gerald A. Arbuckle, Healthcare Ministry: Refounding the Mission in Tumultuous Times (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 65-6.
24. Gerald A. Arbuckle, The Francis Factor and the People of God: New Life for the Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015), 61-62, and "The People of God: Healing through Mourning," Health Progress 101, no. 2, (March-April 2020), 47-50.
25. Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 111.
26. Arbuckle, The Francis Factor, 59-90.

The call comes in response to the Government's Income Relief Payment making full-time workers who lost their job because of the economic impact of COVID-19 eligible for tax-free weekly payments of almost $500 a week for a period of 12 weeks.

CPAG criticises the policy saying the divisive move comes at a time when the country is united in stopping the spread of COVID-19.

CPAG says the recovery is a team effort, one "not marked by unfair distinctions that only deem some to be deserving of help."

It is calling the move towards the needy as "punitive."

Susan St John, CPAG's economic spokesperson, says this new policy makes it light years better than the Jobseeker benefit for which many do not currently qualify because they have an earning partner.

"Modern relationships are complex and the current rules regarding benefits are based on archaic notions of the relationship and assumes what is expected from partners. But these assumptions are based on old ideas that do not apply today, if they ever did, and which have forced many into unacceptable poverty."

The Maori Party co-leader, Te Tai Hauauru, agrees and is similarly asking the Labour-led government to lift the incomes of all needy, not just those out of work from COVID-19.

Saying the Party is happy that those who recently lost their job will be guaranteed a liveable income for 12 weeks, but points out they are no more deserving than anyone else who is out of work.

"Our economy has been structured in such a way that many Maori were already locked out of employment before the pandemic - Maori unemployment has consistently been double the rate of Pakeha unemployment", the Maori Party says in a statement.

They say there is no justification for the recently redundant to receive double the income support of those made redundant before the pandemic.

"We are entering what is likely to be a major recession - all people needed guaranteed secure incomes, and not just for 12 weeks."

"It's likely many recently unemployed people won't be able to find new work within 12 weeks," the Party says.

Welcoming the income relief payments Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) say that all unemployed deserve liveable incomes.

AAAP says the government's move is a slap in the face of hundreds of thousands of people on a benefit who rely on food grants to survive and is accusing the government of creating a two-tier welfare system.

"People who have been in work have suffered a very sharp income drop, and that obviously that's very unexpected because of Covid-19 ... It's a recognition that we need to cushion the blow for people," Finance Minister Grant Robertson said.

Sources

• Stuff
• Newshub
• NZ Doctor
• The Maori Party

They say the new normal is means the Church's liturgy remains restricted to protect the vulnerable and elderly.

The statement, creatively designed for Pentecost, parallels society's lockdown with the image of the apostles and Mary emerging from their pre-Pentecost "closed room."

The bishops say they share the joy of Catholics all over New Zealand at being able to celebrate Eucharist together, however, warn that at least for a while, the new normal means not everyone will be able to be accommodated at Sunday Mass and that each parish will have to determine how to celebrate Mass and ensure the health guidelines are kept.

They also say that due to the regulations some churches are likely to not reopen immediately.

"We share your joy at being able to celebrate Eucharist together. However, we still have to live under the restrictions that are there for the good of our vulnerable and elderly. Each parish is going to have to determine how it will offer Masses while ensuring health guidelines are kept. This may mean some churches will not open immediately. It may mean that there are more people wanting to attend Mass than can be accommodated" a part of the bishops' statement reads.

In the absence of Mass for over two months, the bishops acknowledge the creativity of New Zealanders.

"We have been delighted by the creative initiatives that have arisen and the way the risen Lord has used these to bestow his graces", they wrote.

However, further acknowledging the new normal will be different, the bishops addressed congregations throughout the country, asking anyone who is vulnerable to the virus, those who are afraid and anyone who is not well to stay at home.

The bishops' pastoral statement, acknowledges those who risked themselves while the rest of the country was locked-down.

"As we emerge from our "closed room" and return to our churches and community engagement we take this opportunity to thank those who protected and supported our sick, vulnerable and, indeed, all of us throughout the lockdown. We thank all those in our faith communities who have worked tirelessly to connect with parishioners offering spiritual support."

The bishops say the dispensation from attendance at Sunday Mass continues.

Sources

• Catholic Media

Used car sales are outstripping demand for new vehicles and dealers remain concerned that the rebound is a "bubble" caused by short-term stimulus measures.

Anthony Altomonte of the Alto Group, with multiple brands from Audi to Toyota centred on Sydney's north shore, says younger buyers are looking for alternatives to buses and trains. Read more

If pajamas have become the new workplace attire and the sofa has been transformed into the new desktop, where does that leave a U.S. Catholic Church yearning to stay connected with its parishioners through Zoom liturgies and Facebook Live spiritual pep talks pumped into living rooms by social media?

For Scot Landry, the Boston-based Catholic evangelist whose vocation as co-leader of Dynamic Catholic requires him to think in broad strokes, the church has a unique opportunity to step up to the challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic.

"I think the Catholic Church and every parish is going to be different because of the virus and how we've responded," said Landry, qualifying his answer because of the unknowns about how long it will take to find a vaccine or a therapeutic medicine to combat the virus.

But, "the parishes that have invested in technology and robust communication with their parishioners have done much better throughout the last eight weeks."

One of the major advances, Landry said, will be in the number of parishes who move forward with plans to offer online giving so that people can more easily "support the mission."

"Some of the parishes who have immensely struggled over the last eight weeks are the ones that relied almost exclusively on the weekly Sunday offertory," Landry told the Clarion Herald, New Orleans' archdiocesan newspaper.

"Liturgically, it's a very important part of our Mass to bring up the gifts, but it's far from ‘best' if our parishes are going to have consistent support from their parishioners."

Livestreamed Masses are here "forever," Landry said.

Each parish needs to figure out how it can distribute Communion to the homebound or those who choose to stay home.

"Most growing parishes, down the road, will continue to broadcast a lot of their liturgies and a lot of their events," he said. "It's an open question on how much parishes invest in that. Does it become a central part of their outreach or does it become just a part of their outreach?"

The massive changes in remote learning in schools also have ushered in a technological movement, Landry said.

It's going to accelerate the idea of the ‘flipped classroom,' where a lot of instruction happens on video. Then, when people gather with the teacher, it's more to ask questions," Landry said.

"The flipped classroom could be a great model for handing on our Catholic faith to people because many parishes have been challenged with (having enough) catechists."

Landry works with 61 parishes across 12 U.S. dioceses. One of the biggest questions he has had to grapple with is how fearful Catholics will be to return to Mass.

"Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50% of our regular Mass attendees on Sunday will be cautious in returning or scared to come back," Landry said, including seniors and families with younger children.

"While there is a strong desire for the Eucharist, how will every faithful Catholic look at the idea of a crowded, packed church ever again? We used to look at the Christmas and Easter crowds, if we were able to get a seat, and say, ‘Isn't that wonderful how packed it is?'

"Think in terms of the multiple platforms — who is the best target audience for that platform and how the message could be shaped slightly differently to reach the people that read that platform?"

I do think people are going to look at a packed church now and say, ‘Do I really want to be in a packed church?'"

With most dioceses across the U.S. "dispensing" Catholics from their obligation to attend Sunday Mass, Landry said parishioners may begin choosing to attend weekday Masses, when the churches will be less crowded.

The most important thing a diocese — or a parish — can do right now for parishioners is to "over-communicate," Landry said.

"It's to speak from the heart about the care for everybody individually and the care for the community when it regathers and that we want to be safe," Landry said.

"Then each parish needs to figure out how it can distribute Communion to the homebound or those who choose to stay home during this time in much larger numbers than most parishes have ever been asked to do. That would allow people to still participate in Mass and satisfy that hunger for the Eucharist."

Communication is key, Landry said, because not all age or demographic groups are reached through the same methods of communication. Continue reading

Far be it from me to make the prediction, but I have a feeling that religion in Ireland is getting a boost from coronavirus.

There could be a massive upsurge in attendance at Masses in church when they reopen full-time after the Covid-19 shutdown.

I am aware people have been struggling to fill their days since the country went into lockdown in mid-March.

That could partly explain a rise in church viewing figures on TV.

But the more I hear about it the more I realise that Catholics in Ireland, who deserted their churches in droves in recent years, seem ready to return in some numbers.

The series of clerical sex scandals and the appalling cover-up by the hierarchy of outrageous abuses drove people away.

Now, according to TV viewing figures I spotted lately, the deadly hidden menace that has swept the world is bringing folks back.

I'm not just talking about people stuck at home because they are over 70, or the infirm, or the residents of nursing homes where daily masses will be screened even if it's just to give them something to view while they are waiting for Tipping Point or The Chase and the soaps.

There's also the one million or so out of work and hoping desperately their jobs will somehow be rescued. Some of them seem to be returning to prayer, and not just on Sundays but every day as well.

The other day I read a report that over 1.2 million people watched live streams from Knock shrine in Co. Mayo since the middle of March.

Now, it seems, plans are in place to facilitate virtual pilgrimages to the Marian Shrine.

Staff in Knock devised methods to enable the faithful to take part in the usual pilgrimages, from the comfort of their own homes.

Companies streaming parish services say there's been a tenfold increase in traffic over the last month or so, with over half a million people tuning in for Sunday masses, broadcast from churches in every corner of the country.

One of the providers, Church Services TV, says it is now broadcasting masses from over 150 churches in Ireland.

I haven't seen it myself, but I have been told that some priests who are cocooning have been transmitting daily services from their own homes. Continue reading

• Paddy Clancy has held high executive positions in Irish and British national papers and radio. During a 30 year celebrated career, he has covered many major stories at home and abroad.

"Based on the science that we are learning about this week, we are urging and I am personally urging extreme caution," said Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a Wednesday (May 13) interview.

"Singing together in congregations is a practice that we dearly love and are eager to promote, but loving our neighbour is job one here and so the time for fasting from this wonderful practice may be longer than any of us would like."

His unprecedented words of warning come as religious leaders have received jarring predictions from scientists well-versed in virology as well as vocal practices.

Webinars, videos and texts are circulating across the globe as scientists reveal their studies, and clergy must consider what to do with the results of those reports.

Some church leaders aren't yet sure what to do when they reopen, others are designing multiphase plans, and still others are moving ahead with their traditional practices of praise.

But, more than halfway across the country, Dr. Howard Leibrand, public health officer for Skagit County, Washington, appears to be in Witvliet's amen corner.

"I would recommend that until we get a vaccine, we don't do congregational singing," he said, adding that it is "the safest recommendation."

Leibrand was one of the investigators of the coronavirus outbreak that spread through a local chorale that had been meeting in a Presbyterian church. He is an author of a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that tracked the 61 people who attended the March 10 rehearsal with one symptomatic person.

The report found that 87% of the group was confirmed to have COVID-19. Three members were hospitalized, and two of them died.

The report noted that, in addition to sitting next to each other, snack sharing, and stacking chairs after the rehearsal, the singing by chorale members could have led to infection via the transmitting of droplets.

"The act of singing, itself, might have contributed to transmission through emission of aerosols, which is affected by loudness of vocalization," it says.

Leibrand, a congregational singer and a member of a nondenominational church that meets in homes, said that even though the chorale was not specifically a church choir, "I think it has some cross-utility for making predictions about what would happen in a church choir, too."

When the Rev. Leslie Callahan of Philadelphia's St. Paul's Church met via Zoom with her deacons on Tuesday, one of the top concerns they discussed was whether there would be singing when they reopen.

She had read articles, including about the infected chorale.

She had also viewed the much-shared webinar hosted by singing associations where an otolaryngologist posited that it could be 18 to 24 months before group singing makes scientific sense.

"It doesn't sound like singing is safe, especially not congregational singing, which is from my perspective a really important feature of worship," Callahan said.

"Singing together is a big deal. In fact, not having a handle on this may make me postpone when we start to worship together again."

Her historic, predominantly black church, which draws a congregation of 150 to 175 people — some of whom are at special risk — on a regular Sunday, is located in a part of Pennsylvania that remains in the red phase, under a shelter-in-place order through at least June 4.

Callahan, whose church is dually aligned with American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. and Progressive National Baptist Convention, said she has wondered about the possibility of teaching congregants signs or dance moves so there can be some new way to relate to familiar songs. She is also considering adding screens to the sanctuary — even before the ones planned for an upcoming renovation — that would feature prerecorded musical performances similar to those now on the church's weekly livestream.

"I'm really trying to figure out what it feels like to have church where people don't sing," she said. "It goes against, really, the heart of my understanding of what it means for us to worship together."

Some denominational officials have already issued advice in light of warnings from the scientific community.

Citing the information from the singing organizations and other research, the Archdiocese of Baltimore this month has declared in guidelines for future Masses that "congregational singing by the assembly is suspended until further notice. Because singing expels significantly more aerosolized particles of virus than speaking, it creates a much greater risk of spreading the virus. In particular, choirs should not rehearse or sing until further notice."

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton issued a caution after a briefing with a doctor from the CDC and other National Council of Churches leaders.

"He also revealed to us that singing is right up there with coughing and sneezing in spreading this disease," she said in a May 1 video. "So I think it's very important for us, as different states and different governors are opening up society again, to be very careful and very deliberate in the way we go about reintroducing in-person worship."

Hearing of Eaton's warning and the more general notion of not singing when people regather in pews, the Rev. Boise Kimber responded that it was a nonstarter for a predominantly black church like his in New Haven, Connecticut.

"That ain't for us," he said, adding that singing is "part of our spiritual DNA."

Others have done more than verbally object — they have started singing in worship again.

"We did sing, and it was glorious," said Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Cape Coral, Florida, that met for the first time since mid-March in its sanctuary on Sunday. "We did so out of simple obedience to Christ."

He said the multiethnic church's service was attended by 160 people, which was a bit more than half its usual gathering. They sang six songs as they often do in their liturgy, including the traditional Charles Wesley hymn "And Can It Be" and "O Church, Arise," a contemporary hymn by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

Ascol, who opposes online worship and has instead offered an archive of online services or drive-in services in the church parking lot, said he was disappointed in religious leaders who have taken a more cautious approach.

"The speed with which so many have acquiesced to draconian overreach of civil authorities is breathtaking and revealing," said Ascol, president of Founders Ministries, a neo-Calvinist evangelical group with mostly Southern Baptist members, in an email to Religion News Service.

"It's as if they have no regard for the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and, far worse, the Word of God — which instructs Christ's church to gather regularly for worship."

Seth O'Kegley, director of worship and music at First United Methodist Church of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is pursuing a different strategy, as his congregation awaits word from the regional bishop about when it can open its doors again.

"As far as music goes, we are going to start with no congregational singing," he said of the mostly white church with 400 to 450 congregants.

A group of no more than six paid professionals will sing in a more remote spot of the cross-shaped sanctuary during the traditional service, more than 16 feet away from congregants (a distance cited by two scientists in the singing organizations' webinar for how far the virus can travel). A "pared-down band," smaller than the usual six to eight members and spread out across a platform, will provide music for the contemporary service.

"We're hoping this gives people that participatory experience even though we ask them not to sing along," O'Kegley said.

The lack of regular congregational music now — as many worship online — doesn't mean congregants aren't singing. O'Kegley said some people stand and join in when hymns are played via their digital connections.

Witvliet, a professor of congregational studies at Calvin Theological Seminary, said members of his Christian Reformed congregation, Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids, gather around their kitchen table and sing along — and their Zoom worship service features individuals and families singing and playing instruments from their homes.

However, conflicting scientific reports have made some church leaders unsure how to proceed once they reopen.

For example, two researchers at Bundeswehr University in Munich concluded, "In a choir or in the church, a safety distance of at least 1.5 m (or 4.9 feet) should still be maintained in order to protect yourself effectively against a droplet infection even if you cough unprotected." Their study, published in German and translated via Google Translate, differs from others' recommendations while also noting the need for staggered seating for singers and good ventilation.

"If you read all (the reports), they are all over the map," said Philip Brunelle, organist-choirmaster at Minneapolis' Plymouth Congregational Church and founder of VocalEssence. When it comes to congregational singing, he thinks it's probably "better for us to wait until such time as we have a better idea about what is healthy and what is allowed."

Brian Hehn, director of the Hymn Society's Center for Congregational Song, is working with an ecumenical consultation to devise recommendations for worship in Catholic and Protestant congregations. He said his group's future musical advice will likely be based on the consultation's guidance.

Leibrand, the Washington state doctor, said he isn't likely to meet again in person with his church members for at least the next couple of months. He expects when they do gather, they'll be following his advice that "everybody will wear masks and we will probably sing at low volume."

He said he's gratified to see the global attention to the findings he and his colleagues reported.

"We did what we wanted to do here," he said, "and that's not to wreck everybody's Sunday but to try and keep them safe for a few more Sundays."

• Adele Banks. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Significant liturgical decisions have left the liturgical ministry by all the baptised out in the cold and refocused the Mass as a clerical experience.

John N. Collins addresses the issues of priest and presbyter and as a factor in clericalised worship decision in ‘"Is it just the priest"?

The Catholic scripture scholar calls for more creative and evangelical way of conceiving ministry in the Church" in scripture scholar calls for more creative and evangelical way of conceiving ministry in the Church' in La Croix (May 6, 2020).

The clergy's ability to celebrate the Easter sacraments without the active, physical participation of the baptised assembly may be the turning point in a conversation concerning the relationship between clerical ministry and lay ministry in Catholic liturgy.

If it is the turning point, then liturgy has done her work.

She has taken us from the shell of the liturgical question to its Christological kernel or centre. How, now, do we understand and express our common baptismal discipleship through worship, ministry and mission?

The fact of clergy performing public liturgy on their own is problematic enough but more critical is to ask: why would they?

The simplistic answer is clericalism. But the more significant answer lies in the unresolved tension between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood that all member of the Church share through baptism.

Unresolved tension

This unresolved tension is seen in two examples.

The first example is a preparatory group in the United States that has devised three models for post-COVID Masses with congregations. All three are essentially clerical experiences.

In the first model, communion is not given to the faithful at all.

In the second model, pre-consecrated hosts from the tabernacle are distributed to them after Mass.

And in the third model, communion is distributed to the faithful immediately following the Ecce Angus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God).

The second example is the suggestion that the common priesthood enables the laity to gather in their homes and celebrate the Mass with bread and wine as a more authentic expression of koinonia (service-ministry).

"If the prayer for spiritual communion is the best on offer, wouldn't it be better to do a DIY (do-it-yourself) Mass here at home? It would be more real," wrote one of my parishioners.

"Why is a priest more permitted or sacralised to celebrate a sacrament (excluding marriage) and me a layperson is not sacralised enough to do it, even in extraordinary times?" the person continued.

When liturgical questions of ministry and authority are seriously presented our response must consider the ministry of Christ, the priest, as well as our theologies of sacramentality, sacramental mediation, communion, leadership and sanctification.

Ultimately this crisis is leading us to look more closely at baptism as the source of ministry, mission and priesthood.

Conflicting and forgotten priesthoods

Chapter Two of Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, is titled De Populo Dei (on the People of God).

This title was chosen specifically to show that our primary, universal discipleship is undifferentiated by the terms cleric and laity, for which the name for the latter - laos Theou - is unambiguous.

But "People of God" is also used to distinguish believers who are not ordained from those who are, suggesting that the non-ordained belong to the group of the laos-baptised and are different from the group of the ordained-baptised.

This further suggests that the Church is made up of two different groups equal in some things, but not in all. Clergy and laity share a common source, but some have a more significant share of it.

The result is that "People of God" is not a reliable descriptor of the common discipleship shared by all the baptised.

The same is true of the term Christifidelis; that is, the faithful or Christian faithful.

When John Paul II used the term christifideles laici to reconcile the division, he only showed how deep the problem goes and widened the gap to the christifideles clerici.

Priesthood of all believers

The term "priesthood of all believers" has been used to name the universal baptismal discipleship of believers. Priesthood applied to all the baptised raises many questions concerning the identity of the baptised as priest and the identity of the cleric as priest.

Surely, laity and clergy cannot both be priests?

If priesthood arises out of the sacrament of Christian initiation (baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist), how is ordination a step up and out of this initiation into a new clerical state?

If Christian initiation is initiation into Christ and a participation in his tria munera as priest, prophet and king, what exactly does initiation confer? Is it an incomplete sharing that is only completed through ordination?

Initiatory participation in Christ's tri munera has brought the nature, purpose and theology of priesthood for both lay and ordained ministry into question.

If all "incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the People of God" and have "become sharers in Christ's priestly, prophetic and royal office", then all share in Christ's tria munera (CCC204).

But what does this mean for liturgical practice?

If Christian initiation is an initiation into the Church, and it calls each believer to exercise the tria munera of Jesus (teacher, sanctifier and leader) primarily within the Church, some ask why all believers cannot simply celebrate the Eucharist when an ordained priest is not present?

If the answer is that the tria munera is shared in different ways, then one must ask how Christ shares it differently with laypeople and clerics, since he is neither cleric nor lay?

It would seem that the categories we assign do not apply to Christ, or our Christology.

The liturgical problem

The problem for liturgical praxis is the lack of a functional Christology that enables us to understand how Jesus - the primordial sacrament and source of all ministry, mission and sanctification - is most fully expressed in liturgy.

Because the sacramentality of the Church exists within the sacramentality of Jesus. The Christocentric ground of all liturgical mission, ministry and sanctification is its relatedness to the existence and sharing of the tria munera of Jesus amongst the baptised within the Church.

The sacramental connection between the tria munera of Christ and the exercise of it by Christian disciples is pivotal.

At the heart of the matter is this: if initiation confers a share in Christ's priestly office then the ministries that flow from this are sacramental. They are a direct effect of the sacraments of initiation themselves - which seems to be the basis for suggesting that the baptised (lay) celebrate the Mass.

If we say that all Christians share sacramentally in the tria munera of Christ can we also say that laity and clerics inhabit or experience them in fundamentally distinct ways? If this is true, then either what is shared is different, or how it is shared is different.

So, do laity receive an apostolate to do things and clergy a ministry to sanctify? If this is true, then the distinction in the tria munera is a distinction intended by Christ.

Thus, the heart of the problem is not the teaching that baptism brings a universal discipleship shared by all. The heart of the problem is how Christ shares the tria munera with all the baptised in one way and in a substantially different way with the ordained.

If Christ's sacramental sharing in baptism to all believers is "universal" and his sharing sacramentally in Holy Orders to an ordained person is "hierarchical", then the problem lies in our Christology.

This is the basis of the problem we are seeing many COVID-19 liturgical responses. It is clear in the theologies of the "priest-alone" and the "DIY Mass".

Both are inadequate because they forget that liturgy is the exercise of the priestly office of Christ and his priesthood is the paradigm against which "priesthood" in the Church is measured.

In the liturgy, Christ's priesthood is the means of the sanctification of men and women, expressed in symbol and sign in public worship performed by the mystical body of Christ, its head and members, not just by some of them.

Many of the lockdown liturgical responses show us either clinging to the hierarchical forms of worship or laicising worship at home with family.

Overall, this particular lockdown has shown that while the place of the laity has been re-established theologically in many - but not all - churches, the theology of the ordained has not kept pace.

• Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is titled: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).
• Article first published in La Croix International. Republished with the author's permission.

Organised religion normally involves congregations gathering, the word ‘church' is based on the word ‘assembly'.

The respiratory virus can spread with disastrous effects in a closely packed crowd and for very good reasons public gatherings were banned during the time of lockdown.

The ‘source and summit' of Catholic life and worship is the Eucharist.

The third of the Ten Commandments is "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." (Exodus 20:8) and Catholics interpret this as an obligation to attend mass on Sundays. In modern Catholic practice most of those attending mass receive Holy Communion.

In a Pastoral Letter, circulated in the Diocese of Auckland on 20 March 2020, Catholics were told by Bishop Patrick Dunn:

Having carefully and calmly reviewed the advice from the Ministry of Health, the New Zealand Catholic Bishop Conference have agreed to suspend all Masses including Sunday Mass until further notice. I formally give you dispensation from the obligation to participate at Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation (cc 87#1, 1247)

At 11.59 pm on Wednesday 25 March New Zealand went Alert Level 4 and the Bishops instructed all Catholic churches to close until further notice. Mass was not to be celebrated publicly. Priests were instructed:

You cannot dispense Holy Communion personally to individuals and, for those who have chapels in their presbyteries / religious houses, you cannot allow anyone in from outside but will have to act as a "closed community" until such time as the restrictions are lifted.

The Pastoral Letter sent to the Catholic people from the Bishops of Aotearoa New Zealand on Saturday 28 March declared that "the sacraments of the church are unavailable to parishioners. This an especially great suffering for both priests and people, unprecedented in our lifetime."

That letter included the statement: "The sacraments, which are the primary communicators of the life of God within the Church, are not the origin of grace, nor do they have a monopoly on it. God is the origin of all grace and God freely chooses to reward virtue, good intentions and actions."

Bishop Dunn's letter of 20 March had a paragraph headed "Keeping the Lord's Day Holy."

Although Mass will not be available on Sunday in this time, people are encouraged to celebrate Sunday as domestic Church.

Gathering to pray in small groups, particularly whanau groups. This might include:

• reading and pondering the Scriptures for Sunday,
• giving thanks for all that we are blessed with,
• praying for the needs of individuals, families, New Zealand and the world.
• You will also be able to pray Sunday Mass individually or in small groups through the diocesan website www.aucklandcatholic.org.nz where Sunday Mass will be available on the front page of the website from 6.00 pm each Saturday.

Two months later we have now moved, as a nation, to Alert Level 2, public gatherings of ten persons are permitted and educational institutions can resume face-to-face classes.

In planning how the organisation should resume theological education the CEO of Te Kupenga, Areti Metuamate, proposed that the Catholic Theological College should try and facilitate reflection on our recent experience.

• What had happened?
• What had dioceses, parishes and families done?
• What was good, what was bad?
• What have we learnt?

The You Tube clip giving four short accounts of experience is intended as a conversation starter.

• Fr Merv Duffy SM - Dean of the Catholic Theological College. Te Kupenga the Catholic Leadership Institute in New Zealand has just been formed as the result of a merger between The Catholic Institute (TCI) and Good Shepherd College (GSC)

And so, what should each follower of Jesus do?

We should sincerely pray for the spiritual conversion of the rich and powerful. And we should oppose them!

We need to put on the nonviolent fight of our lives to ensure that we don't sleepwalk ourselves right back into a morally sick "normal."

Old habits of humanity die hard - both individually and structurally.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the sinful structures of raw profit-centred capitalism and death-dealing militarism will surely continue marching on - crushing underfoot the poor, vulnerable and the planet itself - unless we humbly admit our significant personal indifference, repent, and strive to transform ourselves and these structures of sin.

Pope Francis, in his recent homily on Divine Mercy Sunday warned that as the world looks forward to the eventual recovery from the pandemic.

"There is a danger that we will forget those who are left behind.

"The risk is that we may then be struck by an even worse virus, that of selfish indifference. A virus spread by the thought that life is better if it is better for me.

"It begins there and ends up selecting one person over another, discarding the poor, and sacrificing those left behind on the altar of progress.

Humanity has the chance to engage in the nonviolent fight of our lives to ensure that we don't sleepwalk ourselves right back into a morally sick "normal."

"The present pandemic, however, reminds us that there are no differences or borders between those who suffer."

"We are all frail, all equal, all precious."

"May we be profoundly shaken by what is happening all around us: the time has come to eliminate inequalities, to heal the injustice that is undermining the health of the entire human family."

In every parish, diocese, civic, academic, business, labour and social forum we need to start dialoguing, planning and organizing ways to build structures and systems that work for everyone - from the moment of conception to natural death - where no one gets left behind and everyone has a seat at the table!

And we need to develop strategies on how best to influence and pressure the government and corporate leaders (e.g. boycotts, divestment) to put the common good and the care of the planet as their top priorities - not power and profit (see: https://gofossilfree.org/divestment/what-is-fossil-fuel-divestment/).

All of this can easily tempt humanity, each of us to feel overwhelmed.

But it is essential not to allow ourselves to become overwhelmed.

It's not all up to you and me. The Holy Spirit is with us!

Each of us in our own personal sphere of influence (e.g. family, friends, parish, workplace, social media, lobbying) can make a difference.

In their courageous 1983 pastoral letter on war and peace titled, "The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response," the U.S. Catholic bishops wrote: "Let us have the courage to believe in the bright future and in a God who wills it for us - not a perfect world, but a better one. The perfect world, we Christians believe, is beyond the horizon, in an endless eternity where God will be all in all. But a better world is here for human hands and hearts and minds to make."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

Under the current law, up to 10 people are permitted to make up the church service.

With such a limitation, it became abundantly clear that the parishes would exclude people.

Eleanor, representing the Foxton and Shannon communities was invited to be one of ten people participating in the Cathedral as the parishes live-streamed Sunday Mass.

On Friday she wrote.

Dear Friends,
I went to Bunnings this afternoon.

There were no queues, people were walking freely in and out of the store, shopping at close proximity to one another and then it dawned on me what Jacinda was doing.

It is not only unpractical but cruel, and now we are presenting this same model to our parishioners.

Imagine a parish of 200 people where only ten can enter the church at a time with restrictions, which means that parishioners must now scramble to get into their own church.

When the Mass was in the presbytery it was beautiful because it looked like a family saying Mass together but if we are going to have a Mass in the Cathedral or church with only a selected few and all the other parishioners excluded, Jacinda would succeed in humiliating us as a worshipping community.

Thank you for asking me to come, but in light of what I experienced today, I have to decline.

God bless us all
Eleanor

Mass from the Cathedral with just ten people was cancelled however continued as it was during lockdown, live-streamed from the confines of the Cathedral Presbytery.

• The Cathedral, Palmerston North, Our Lady of Lourdes and Foxton parishes

For example, in Houston, a young adult woman who went to Sunday Mass the first weekend in May when her parish reopened for public Mass, said her initial excitement changed to anxiety and fear as she noticed others not following the parish's new guidelines for Mass attendance.

Her mind raced with distraction during the Mass even as she focused on the liturgy.

For her, despite the wearing of a mask and following every guideline, the uneasiness and concern may have been too much. Back home, she realized she was not sure if she would go back again the next weekend, especially after considering that the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese has still dispensed the obligation to attend Sunday Mass.

"I really appreciated the measures the parish has taken to distance and sanitize, but the anxiety ... it was difficult to deal with," she said. "I may try daily Mass."

As churches reopen, favourite pews might now be blocked off, friendly faces might seem distant or unrecognizable behind masks, or those who remain at home might feel jealous of those who can attend Mass.

These experiences are "absolutely" normal, real and valid, according to Anabel Lucio Morales, a licensed community counsellor at the Counseling and Behavioral Health Clinic at Catholic Charities in Galveston-Houston.

While she admitted other generations also have endured crises, this experience is "much more troubling" due to the constant news about it, which can increase anxiety.

"But we should not be governed by fear," she said.

"We should use wisdom in making the best decisions for ourselves and family, and trust that God has not forsaken his people. We face a real danger, and we must adjust how we live life. But we should not live in fear but rather in the peace that God gives us."

Parishioners need to remember these new measures are there for the health and best interest of everyone, she said.

"We are mind, body and soul" with the physical, emotional and spiritual sides that are all interconnected, she said.

How we think is going to impact how we feel, she said. Negative or anxious thoughts will drive an anxious or nervous emotion. Continue reading

Research has shown that many people are struggling with feelings of isolation and loneliness. People are longing to get back to life as "normal" after weeks of physically distancing and staying at home.

At the Humanitarian Disaster Institute, we've spent 15 years studying and ministering in mass disasters around the globe, including public health crises like the Ebola outbreak.

Our research shows that in most situations, churches can help their congregations and communities best by getting back to what they were doing before the calamity, especially in-person worship gatherings.

But just because the economy is reopening doesn't mean your church should automatically return to pre-COVID-19 gathering norms yet.

Even in the lowest impacted regions, the administration has recommended a staged approach.

Churches that rush to prematurely reopen their doors will do more harm than help.

As churches around the country are feeling pressure to rush decisions about how to best reopen we want to remind us that the church never actually closed — just the doors to our buildings closed.

Some have argued that being in proximity to others at church is no different from being in proximity to people at the grocery store or bank.

But it is different.

While business is primarily transactional, the life of a church congregation is inherently social.

We gather to worship God, but we also gather to connect with one another.

Unless we run into a close friend, we don't normally shake hands or hug someone in the grocery store or movie theatre, but where a community of people is knit together spiritually and socially these interactions happen frequently.

While business is primarily transactional, the life of a church congregation is inherently social.

In addition, formal rituals, such as sharing in communion or pausing during a service to shake hands or hug, obviously increase the risk of infection.

But such rituals aren't the only risk of worship services.

Singing in a group, which is integral for many congregations, has been known to spread COVID-19.

Passing an offering plate, greeting people at the church door, and handing out songbooks are all examples of how common church behaviour can increase the risk of infection.

Even if churches decide to forego virus-sharing practices, the informal contacts are almost unavoidable, even if we consciously plan to avoid them.

Worship services, as well as the social time before and after, have their own rhythms, with norms we are conditioned to participate in.

It is asking a lot of those gathered, distracted in a variety of ways, not to fall back into pre-COVID-19 ways.

We must assume that people will behave as they've always been conditioned and encouraged to behave in these spaces.

No matter how we plan, people in disaster situations are notably bad at assessing risk and predictably overconfident about the control they have over their environment.

Nor can church leaders control the behaviour of whoever might walk in the door.

Even if we limit capacity and instruct people to sit six feet apart, people will still press through our doors in closer proximity to one another.

Distance between people inside restrooms (not to mention the cleanliness of handles, knobs and countertops in between uses) isn't enforceable.

Toddlers, some people with intellectual disabilities, and some people with dementia can't be expected to understand and follow the rules we choose to institute.

Churches that rush to prematurely reopen their doors will do more harm than help.

Announcing the church is open may also unwittingly put social pressure on those who are most vulnerable, like older adults and congregants with compromised immune systems, to come to church.

With our inability to widely control for asymptomatic carriers, we may not know we have spread COVID-19 in our church until it is too late and some of our most vulnerable members have been exposed.

There are plenty of valid reasons to allow businesses to begin to function again (but also challenges and concerns to doing so).

But allowing retail stores or restaurants to reopen does not indicate we are "back to normal."

To help churches navigate COVID-19, we developed a comprehensive faith-based and research-based planning guide (which is available in five languages).

We have also launched the first faith-based and research-based disaster spiritual and emotional care and intervention manual to help churches provide support while physically distancing and staying at home.

We've created an online resource hub with access to materials and videos from our COVID-19 Church Online Summit.

On April 30, we helped lead the online Spiritual First Aid Summit with Food for the Hungry, NavPress and Outreach that had over 10,000 church leaders participate to learn how to care for their neighbours, churches, communities and world during COVID-19 and beyond.

During this crisis, we have continued to be most impressed by the worshipping communities who have thoughtfully purposed to love their neighbours well by pausing from their normal worship routines.

We are hopeful that congregations will continue to love well until it is truly safe to gather again as we did before COVID-19.

Don't get us wrong; we also grieve and miss being in person with our own church communities and deeply desire to gather again.

But to be safe, we must consider how to do so in ways that don't fuel the spread of COVID-19 and that don't put our most vulnerable at greater risk.

• Jamie Aten is founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College.
• Kent Annan is director of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership at Wheaton College.
• First published by RNS. Republished with permission.

Though the long-term effects of the coronavirus are yet to be determined, what is clear is that the crisis has forced every one of us to change deeply rooted habits and behaviour — from work and play to worship — just to survive.

Also clear is that the virus has intensified the extreme disparities in social and economic outcomes for people of colour and poor whites whom America has ignored for far too long.

These disparities are compounding yearslong injustices in vulnerable communities that do not bear witness to our "nation under God."

Crisis is an opportunity for growth and positive change, but to make it so often requires reframing the problem, looking at the issues through a different lens.

Just as we've been forced to make changes in our lives and institutions in response to COVID-19, we can decide not only to think differently about one another, but to act differently.

A day will come when this pandemic subsides. But will the world return to the way it was before this virus dramatically shifted its course? And more importantly, should it?

Loving others is the work that God has called us to do. And if we love others, we will want justice for everyone, regardless of our differences.

Social justice is one of the hallmarks of God's word spoken from the heart of the biblical prophet Amos to "Let justice roll down like water and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream."

As infections and deaths continue, a significant amount of the U.S. population will experience long-term effects on their physical health, mental health and finances.

Families, friends and colleagues will have the stress and inconvenience of isolation.

The millions who have lost their jobs will struggle to survive.

With the stress and demands of being sick, caring for the sick, worrying about getting sick or trying to find food and pay bills, the mental health of many has already been negatively affected.

The church has a critical role to play in abating the appalling level of human suffering, especially in communities that are underserved.

We should be like the good Samaritan, who, despite not knowing the person in need, gave so much to bring about the healing of his neighbour.

Given churches' proximity to and familiarity with the communities they serve, and the access they have to resources either directly or through networks, they are in a unique position to help where needed.

Congregational leaders have a track record of assisting communities during troubled times, often faster than the government.

Your church and congregation can begin by building upon existing relationships and networks, knowing they are sustainable and vetted resources.

Expand food pantries and collaborate with businesses, organizations and schools to help with the unexpected cost of expanding food distribution efforts. Ask retired educators in your congregation to provide online tutoring.

Use your buildings.

Many churches have open gathering spaces that could provide families experiencing homelessness a place to stay, especially if your state is under a stay home order.

Offer pastoral counselling and mental health assistance, sharing links to your church's worship services.

I would strongly encourage pastors, faith leaders and staff to share as much of your worship services, Bible studies and Christian education available online as possible.

Don't forget those who belong to your church.

There's something about being able to see one another, talk to one another, study with one another and pray with one another in real-time that provides a sense of peace and comfort to our brothers and sisters who might be scared and alone in our current circumstances.

It is also important to reach out to church members not online with phone calls and letters/cards so that they too feel connected.

These are a few of the many ways churches can help individuals and families cope with loss and recover from the devastation of the virus. As we reopen, additional services can include job training, asking members who own thriving businesses to help provide new jobs and addressing child care needs. Some churches are themselves in difficult situations, with limited resources. But even they can help their neighbours. That is one reason why it is so important to maintain local connections, to ask for help and to be the conduit between those in need and those who can help.

In a broader sense, the church can also leverage its social mission to inform and advocate for just policies, especially regarding the need for nationwide public health infrastructure and resources, which more than 23 million uninsured Americans lack.

We need to focus on the elderly, on low-wage and hourly workers, rural communities and those who are incarcerated, all of whom are particularly vulnerable during this crisis.

As government officials ponder economic aid during this health crisis, faith leaders and their congregations can urge Congress and the president to do so with an eye to ensuring the health and safety of all Americans.

• We are made to help one another, to carry one another.
• There is much suffering, but in the midst of the suffering, there is light.
• It is in the people going to work every day to stem the tide of death and suffering.
• It is in the people gathered together online, supporting each other.
• It is in the families appreciating anew those whom God has blessed to be in their lives.
• It is in all the people helping their fellow human beings through the crisis in some truly amazing and sacrificial ways.
• It's in our commitment during this "down" time, to ensure that the way we think about others and the actions we take, as well as the policies, reflect the loving way God thinks about all of us.

Hearing the message from a church leader can make a big difference in calling people to action.

The biblical call to "love our neighbours as ourselves" means using our influence to encourage others to make their neighbours all the people they have the ability to help.

There is a path out of the COVID-19 crisis.

With God's help, and through working together, we will emerge a more cohesive and resilient nation and world, helping to rebuild both lives and communities for future generations.

• Barbara Williams-Skinner is president and co-founder of the Skinner Leadership Institute and co-convener of the National African American Clergy Network. First published by RNS. Reproduced with permission.

All students at Dilworth - currently 575 in total - receive a fully-funded scholarship, worth about $35,000 a year.

The costs of the school are covered by the Dilworth charitable trust, which is responsible for a range of assets including the school's central-Auckland sites.

"It's a time when people are potentially going to find themselves really struggling financially, not just in the immediate term, but also in the medium to long-term," says Dilworth's Headmaster, Dan Reddiex

"For a lot of those parents, one of the primary concerns is going to be about the quality of education that their children receive."

"I think that's why at this point and time, it's really important that we're signalling that Dilworth may be a viable option."

Dilworth which caters to students from years five to 13, was established as part of philanthropist's James Dilworth's estate in 1906.

In his will, James Dilworth stipulated that the school should provide for "orphans, the sons of widows and the sons of persons of good character, of any race, and in straitened circumstances with such maintenance, education and training as to enable them to become good and useful members of society."

Trust chairman Aaron Snodgrass is a former pupil himself.

He says the school roll has doubled since his attendance in the early 90s and the board is anticipating it will remain steady throughout the inevitable post-COVID-19 economic downturn.

"During these times, we tend to have an increase in applications. We really do encourage people to apply for their boys if they meet the criteria," he says.

While the trust's asset-base is solid, it is unrealistic to expect it to escape any impact from Covid-19.

However, as with the 2007/8 financial crisis, plans are in place, Snodgrass says.

The number of scholarships and current school roll will not be impacted, he says.

Source

• thespinoff.co.nz
• Image: thespinoff.co.nz/

The Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin has been meeting with the Roman Curia to discuss gradually reopening Holy See offices as Italy prepares to end its national lockdown on 4 May.

The heads of Vatican dicasteries decided to implement a "gradual reactivation of ordinary services" while "safeguarding the health precautions to limit contagion".

This will start in May, a statement from the Holy See Press Office says.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says he will be releasing a plan to slowly lift coronavirus restrictions and reopen businesses.

"I wish I could say: let's reopen everything. Immediately."

"But such a decision would be irresponsible. It would bring up the contagion curve uncontrollably and it would frustrate all the efforts we've put in so far," Conte wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

After over a month of lockdown, more than 100,000 people are currently ill with COVID-19 in Italy.

In total, 183,957 total cases were documented by the Italian Ministry of Health.

Vatican City has reported nine cases of COVID-19 among its employees. The most recent confirmed case was reported this week after the patient was hospitalised.

"Appropriate sanitisation and checks were carried out among those who had had contact with the interested party on the only day of his presence at the workplace in the two weeks prior to the response, all with negative results," the Holy See Press Office says.

Vatican City is implementing measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in coordination with the Italian authorities, the Holy See Press Office adds.

St. Peter's Basilica and square, the Vatican Museums, and several other public offices in the Vatican City State have been closed for more than six weeks.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: You Local Rome