The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing society to take a hard look at what is essential and what is optional or even superfluous in our daily lives. In some respects, this material downsizing is a secular version of the spiritual exercise Catholics embrace every year at Lent.
What are priests to do in a pandemic? Much fewer things than they would ordinarily do. But the one thing they must do is to keep doing the one thing which only they can do. They cannot abandon the sacraments.
We all feel the uncertainty in the air; we all hear that low-grade anxiety buzzing in the background.
With widespread orders from bishops across North America and Europe to cancel public Masses including the Sunday Eucharist, some naysayers were bound to arise.
In place of The Catholic Register’s editorial and letters from readers, this week we are turning over this page to reprint abridged versions from a sampling of messages from Canadian bishops to the people of their dioceses as they address the COVID-19 crisis.
Millions are now home, sheltered in place, self-quarantined, working remotely, home-schooling, keeping panic at bay but feeling anxiety rise.
A Saturday afternoon walk seemed a healthy idea during the social distancing edicts foisted on citizens everywhere to fend off COVID-19 risks.
Staying the course is an ironic metaphor for an asthmatic whose longest race ever was 3,000 metres.
Every crisis can teach us something about ourselves. Each is a chance to revise the way we live and the way we think about what is important and which people in society deserve our respect and admiration.
I had a coronavirus earlier this year.
Not THAT coronavirus. It was just a common cold, which is one of the many types of coronaviruses out there.
As you read this we will be in the last few weeks of our Lenten promises. If you are like me you have probably slipped once or twice.