One could almost hear the collective sigh of relief as governments across Canada announced the lifting of some restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Profound impact
I spent Grade 9 to 12 attending a small Anglican school in Toronto. Probably like many young people forced to attend church, I graduated with a disdain for organized religion.
Before reading this editorial, take a few seconds to return to the cover of this week’s issue. That tender scene of a senior in long-term care reaching out but not touching a loved one is happening daily across Canada.
May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, V-E Day.
I received the call about the COVID-19 outbreak at my father’s long-term care home during dinner. A staff member had tested positive.
We need not sit sipping Lysol lemonade and Clorox cocktails in the left field bleachers with Donald Trump to insist that recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is too important to be left exclusively to politicians and health care technocrats.
It’s a pandemic within a pandemic — and a damning indictment of how we’ve been failing to care for our most vulnerable. People living in seniors’ homes across Canada are being hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19.
It’s not every day the Pope is thankful to be “scolded” by one of his bishops but, of course, these are not ordinary days.
Who knows how long this will last? Certainly not I. Although there are times I think I know as much about this never-before-seen virus as those white-coated “experts” who hold forth incessantly before the camera’s ravening eye.
When will things go back to the way they used to be? Catholics should hope never.
Fr. Alphonse de Valk, a stalwart of the pro-life movement, touched many lives in different spheres, especially in education, the particular charism of the Basilian Fathers. I will remember him as a fellow priest journalist.