Plinthos. Below is a quote from a Ratzinger interview which expresses the neo-paganism of Italy and Europe. Perhaps that world of baptized pagans, of which he speaks, might benefit from the present situation of being deprived of the pastoral assistance of the Church for a few weeks.
"In a complex world like the one in which we live, there are many problems. Just consider Italy, and other Western countries, where Sunday Mass attendance is a source of great distress and suffering for the pastors, especially if we compare it to the overflowing churches of twenty years ago. The problems of a faith which progresses with difficulty, and of a certain paganizing of the faith, continue still. But there is some consolation to see that there is also faith which [in the best-selling newly published Catechism of the Catholic Church] is able to express itself and that there is a desire to come to know the faith."
From the April 1994 interview "A Look at the Faith of the '90's" (first published in Italian in the magazine Il Regno), Joseph Ratzinger, Ser cristiano en la era neopagana, Madrid: Encuentro, 1995, 148.
N.B. The 2016-2017 death toll from the flu in Italy was 25,000. Coronavirus is just a variation on that yearly flu theme. In light of that, the present measures seem quite misdirected and the Church just goes along with it as if a mere puppet of the State.
The indiscriminate and wholesale prohibition of the sacramental life of the Church for all of the 60.4 million Italian citizens because of a flu threat which is slightly higher than the yearly averages, seems pastorally irresponsible. Surely the Catholic Church in Italy should be able to conduct its own professional medical assessment of the new health threat and devise its own protocols which would both ensure the right of the faithful to access to their proper spiritual care while ensuring the public good.
Furthermore, it seems entirely out of order that the State should dictate to the Church when and how to carry out Her pastoral ministry. Each bishop has a grave personal responsibility, given to him by Christ, the Good Shepherd, in this regard, a responsibility which cannot be usurped by the State, by a Bishops Conference, or even by the Pope. The bishops spiritual care of the flock entrusted to him is divine law and each bishop is answerable directly to God for carrying it out.
Below is a plinthos suggestion for safe and sacramentally friendly measures which might be undertaken by a diocese, if there were still faith in Italy.
If the health threat is increased by large gatherings of people, which it seems to be, then a reasonable measure would be to restrict the number of people in a Church at one time and to keep open all the windows and doors, for greater ventilation, while prohibiting bodily contact between the persons in the Church and the unnecessary touching of anything inside or outside the Church. All of the able priests should be required to offer a public non-concelebrated Mass every day, alternating on all of the side altars of the Church, preferably staggering those Masses at successive hours, for the convenience of the faithful to participate in a sparsely attended Mass, the Sunday precept of attending Mass being transferred to be fulfilled on any day of the week at any Mass.
The protocol for confession, for this restricted time, should be outside in an open area, face-to-face, and, again, with no bodily contact between priest, penitent, or with any other thing.
Additional restrictions might be recommended for people over 69 years old and with health problems, the population most at risk of death from the coronavirus.
If people are still allowed to go shopping in stores, to take public transportation, or go to work, they should also be permitted to go to Church and to Mass and to confession, which are activities which is more vital to the good of the individual and to the common good than all of the above. For the government (even with the cooperation of some of the leadership of the Church) to pretend otherwise is prejudicial to the Catholic faith. That type of anti-Christian bias should not be accepted or tolerated, the treating of the free and public exercise of religion as a dispensable human activity. All of the Italian population should stand up in protest.
As an example of what I suggest, check out the Papal daily Mass below under the present ban, a dozen people were at that Mass.
Cf. Apocalyptic: Masses Suspended in All Italy Until April 3rd - "Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo"
Furthermore, it seems entirely out of order that the State should dictate to the Church when and how to carry out Her pastoral ministry. Each bishop has a grave personal responsibility, given to him by Christ, the Good Shepherd, in this regard, a responsibility which cannot be usurped by the State, by a Bishops Conference, or even by the Pope. The bishops spiritual care of the flock entrusted to him is divine law and each bishop is answerable directly to God for carrying it out.
Below is a plinthos suggestion for safe and sacramentally friendly measures which might be undertaken by a diocese, if there were still faith in Italy.
If the health threat is increased by large gatherings of people, which it seems to be, then a reasonable measure would be to restrict the number of people in a Church at one time and to keep open all the windows and doors, for greater ventilation, while prohibiting bodily contact between the persons in the Church and the unnecessary touching of anything inside or outside the Church. All of the able priests should be required to offer a public non-concelebrated Mass every day, alternating on all of the side altars of the Church, preferably staggering those Masses at successive hours, for the convenience of the faithful to participate in a sparsely attended Mass, the Sunday precept of attending Mass being transferred to be fulfilled on any day of the week at any Mass.
The protocol for confession, for this restricted time, should be outside in an open area, face-to-face, and, again, with no bodily contact between priest, penitent, or with any other thing.
Additional restrictions might be recommended for people over 69 years old and with health problems, the population most at risk of death from the coronavirus.
If people are still allowed to go shopping in stores, to take public transportation, or go to work, they should also be permitted to go to Church and to Mass and to confession, which are activities which is more vital to the good of the individual and to the common good than all of the above. For the government (even with the cooperation of some of the leadership of the Church) to pretend otherwise is prejudicial to the Catholic faith. That type of anti-Christian bias should not be accepted or tolerated, the treating of the free and public exercise of religion as a dispensable human activity. All of the Italian population should stand up in protest.
As an example of what I suggest, check out the Papal daily Mass below under the present ban, a dozen people were at that Mass.
Cf. Apocalyptic: Masses Suspended in All Italy Until April 3rd - "Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo"