CAN WE START TO EVALUATE THE RELEVANCY OF THE CHURCH DURING THE CORONAVIRUS YET?

This photo accompanies an article from Rorate Caeli written by an Italian agnostic but with deep family Catholic roots, which causes me to think he is still Catholic at heart but disillusioned by the secularized post-Vatican II Catholic Church. He has an ax to grind but writes food for contemplation like the Most Holy Eucharist in a monstrance. You can read it HERE.

Things are opening up in two states where my feet are firmly planted, Georgia and South Carolina. But not the Catholic Church out of an abundance of caution and rightfully so. In Albany, Georgia in our diocese and a small town outside of Augusta in our Diocese, numerous cases of the Coronavirus can be traced to funerals held in churches that was the catalyst that led to numerous others contracting the disease and many dying. Albany is the “epicenter “ of the virus in Georgia. Outside of Augusta, even the pastor has since died of COVID-19 as a result of that funeral.

In Savannah on Thursday, Fr. Brett Brannen stood atop Memorial Hospital with others in medical uniform and masks and many below him at the entrance of the hospital. He offered prayer, homily and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament and Fr. Brannen blessed Savannah with the Benediction north, south, east and west. It was covered by all the local TV stations and live-streamed and shared in a viral way.

What made this Benediction more viril, was the fact that others were with  Fr. Brannen. He was not a lone figure there with a server and one or two others. There may have been about 100 in attendance with most wearing masks and trying to spread out six feet apart, but not on the roof. Compare that image with the Lone Ranger in the photo above of Pope Francis. But at least it was Pope Francis and not an underling  priest, like Msgr. Marini.

Currently and perhaps through May, we cannot have Masses with more than a few people assisting on church property. Technically, we could have 10 to 15 in the congregation. In large church buildings, like St. Anne’s, people can spread out almost in two different states and still be in the same church.

And why is it wrong to ask for comparisons with Covid-19 and other flus currently experienced or the H1N1 virus a few years back which brought about for the first time these were allowed, restrictions on the Sign of Peace and the contagion producing Common Chalice? For example, in Augusta, a nursing home has had 80 residents and workers diagnosed with Covid-19. This was last week. There have been no reports of death there yet. But in a normal flu season, these same institutions as well as schools have flu viruses run rampant. In normal times some, if not many die, but there is no national news focus on it.

Should subsidiarity be put into place, which Vatican II mandated, (or did it actually mandate anything?) so that pastors can implement what civil law allows as restrictions are being eased in Georgia, South Carolina and even some states with Democrat governors, like Colorado, although that governor hasn’t come under scrutiny by the democrat media, only Georgia’s governor. Typical, no?