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Denver Newsroom, Apr 21, 2020 / 03:15 pm (CNA).- An Argentine archbishop has proposed 13 measures that would aim to allow churches to reopen churches during the coronavirus pandemic while reducing the risk of contagion.

The proposal is an effort to balance safety and the need for Catholics to receive the Eucharist, Archbishop Víctor Fernández of La Plata said this week.

In response to the pandemic, Argentina has been under lockdown since March 20. According to John Hopkins University, there are 3,031 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 145 deaths in the country.

Fernández said that although the Church is providing material sustenance to those hardest hit by the pandemic “when we think about sustaining the interior life of the faithful and encouraging its growth, we find ourselves in the serious difficulty of seeing them deprived of the Eucharist for a long time, and we can also foresee that this situation could last for several months.”

In a letter dated April 19 and addressed to the conference’s executive committee, the bishop said the Second Vatican Council teaches that “no Christian community is built up if it is not rooted and centered on the celebration of the Holy Eucharist,” and that Saint John Paul II emphasized that the Mass “rather than an obligation, should be felt as a requisite deeply inscribed in Christian existence.”

Fernández said the letter he sent puts together the suggestions of several bishops and that it is understandable “that many of the faithful are calling on us to find some way to make the Eucharist accessible again.”

“We tell them that they can experience other forms of prayer, and they do, but as Saint John Chrysostom has said “’You can also pray in your home, however, you cannot pray the same way you do in church where the brethren are gathered together.’”

Fernández noted that Pope Francis “teaches that God ‘in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter.’ It’s good that our faithful have learned that and so it’s not the same thing for them,” he said, adding that Catholics are eager “the food of the love that is the source of supernatural life.”

“It won’t be easy to prove that this situation is lasting too long, nor can we simply wait till the pandemic is completely over,” the prelate noted.

“We know that exposing yourself to infection is irresponsible especially because it involves exposing others to infection and indirectly could lead to a public health crisis that we don’t want to see in our country,” he said.

Aiming to send “a clear message to our People of God to show that we’re truly concerned and that we intend to take some steps that would allow us to resolve this situation as soon as possible,” without neglecting “the health concerns of the authorities” Fernández proposed a series of obligatory measures to celebrate the Eucharist publicly:
1) Keep a distance of two meters between people to the side, front and back. This will require removing or closing off half the pews in the church.
2) No more than two people per pew.
3) Once the pews are occupied in that manner, no more people are to be allowed to enter the church.
4) In the churches where there is usually a lot of people in attendance, the number of Masses should be increased so the faithful can spread themselves out over Saturday and Sunday at different times. Given the prevalence and closeness of churches this will not involve using transportation.
5) Mass should not be celebrated publicly at the most frequently visited shrines due to the difficulty of establishing appropriate controls.
6) There should be no line for communion, instead the Eucharistic ministers should go to the people positioned at the ends of the pews and place the Eucharist in the hand.
7) Every Eucharistic minister should wash his hands with soap before and after and apply alcohol gel.
8) The sign of peace and any physical contact should be omitted.
9) Mass should last no more than 40 minutes.
10) People should leave the church progressively, not all at once, and avoid greeting each other.
11) No intentions should be taken at Mass time, only those previously received by phone, mail or messages.
12) Those people who because of their age are prevented from attending may receive Communion at home.
13) The dispensation from the Sunday obligation should be temporarily maintained so that people who prefer to exercise extreme caution don’t feel obliged to attend.

The archbishop also pointed out in his letter that “if the economic impact has to be foreseen, it’s also appropriate to place a value on those things that provide consolation and strength to people during hard times.”

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Lima, Peru, Apr 26, 2020 / 06:18 am (CNA).- An archbishop in Venezuela warned that desperation is growing in the country, as the national coronavirus quarantine measures have compounded a tenuous political and economic situation. He urged people in the country to resist violence and social unrest.

Extreme hunger “does not reason or know rules,” said Archbishop Ulises Gutiérrez of Ciudad Bolívar, adding that this desperate hunger “is becoming a fuel more dangerous than gasoline.”

Gutiérrez spoke with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, in an April 23 interview, after looting and protests broke out in seven states in Venezuela.

Protestors objected to price hikes on food and a gasoline shortage exacerbated by the ongoing quarantine that was imposed last month to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the latest government report, there have been 298 cases and 10 deaths in the country due to the virus.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval under the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro, with severe shortages of food and medicine, high unemployment, power outages, and hyperinflation. Some 4.5 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015.

The current COVID-19 quarantine is “aggravating the situation,” the archbishop said, noting that the quarantine was implemented without accompanying measures to protect the most vulnerable.

As a result, families are suffering, and many cannot access clean water, electricity or gasoline.

The country is experiencing “a totally destroyed economy in which agricultural producers can’t get their products out because they’re not getting gasoline supplied to them, or they have to buy it on the black market for 2 or 3 dollars a liter,” he said. In some cases, crops are rotting in farmers’ fields due to lack of fuel to transport them to market.

Gutiérrez voiced concern over the hunger-fueled looting and protests throughout the country, as well as the government’s violent suppression of the protests.

“The common denominator in all these protests is hunger,” he stressed.

With equipment in short supply and many of the country’s doctors have already emigrated due to the political and economic crisis, Gutiérrez acknowledged, the pandemic poses a significant threat.

“In short, the outlook is very dark,” he said.

But despite the desperate situation, the archbishop urged people not to resort to looting and violence.

“[S]atisfying hunger short term [by committing robbery] only leads to the destruction of regular commerce,” he said.

“The situation we’re going through is very tough, difficult, and fragile,” Gutiérrez said, likening the conditions to a pressure cooker, “which could lead us to unprecedented explosive social unrest, which nobody wants, and which would bring with it more hunger and greater suffering for the people.”

Still, the archbishop said he has reason for hope: “Our trust is in God and his providence keeps us going, encouraging and accompanying our people, assisting them with our Caritas social programs.”

“We have community soup kitchens, a medicine bank, outpatient medical care, programs for infant nutrition and nursing mothers, etc., which although it’s impossible to reach everyone, is a sign of God’s love through the Church,” he said.

Denver Newsroom, Apr 28, 2020 / 05:17 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver has announced that he is donating to the University of British Columbia’s research toward a COVID-19 vaccine.

“May the search for COVID-19 solutions also be a moment of solidarity, of collaboration, and of growing together as a visible sign to the world of the healing and reconciliation so needed right now,” Archbishop Miller said April 27 as reported by the B.C. Catholic.

Ryan Thomas, a special advisor to the archdiocese, told CNA that Archbishop Miller wanted to express, through his donation, the Catholic Church’s support for science and medicine that contribute to the common good.

“The Church— as Pope Francis has said from the beginning of his pontificate— is called to go out, we're called to engage, not called to retreat,” Thomas told CNA.

“From a scientific standpoint, that means identifying the research that is worthy of our investment, that meets the high standards that we have to protect life,” he said.

Thomas declined to specify the amount of the donation, but said that it was in the thousands of dollars.

The global effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine includes at least 50 other research teams, the university says, many of which in the U.S. and Canada have received government funding and are being conducted by large pharmaceutical companies.

Pro-life leaders have warned in recent months that among the many COVID-19 vaccines currently in development worldwide, in some cases researchers are using old cell lines derived from the cells of aborted babies.

It was important to Archbishop Miller, Thomas said, that the Church be seen to be promoting research into a vaccine that Catholics can support in good conscience.

A group of Evangelical Christians and Catholics in Vancouver began to rally around the idea of supporting a vaccine that corresponded to Christian ethical standards, and eventually presented the idea of supporting UBC’s research to Archbishop Miller.

Thomas said Miller made sure to inquire about whether UBC’s vaccine research makes use of aborted fetal cells, which it does not.

Dr. Wilf Jefferies, the project’s lead researcher, told CNA via email that his research team is currently in the process of validating the potency of vaccine candidates in preclinical trials, in order to assess their potential toxicity before trying them in human subjects.

The UBC lab is using immune-boosting components called adjuvants in its vaccine candidate, with the hopes of reducing the dosage of vaccine required for complete protection against the disease. In addition, Jefferies hopes that UBC’s vaccine will continue to provide protection against COVID-19 even if the virus mutates over time.

“I am heartened by the unity and kindness that is being demonstrated during this pandemic,” Jefferies told CNA.

“I think the response by the archdiocese is an affirmative and practical way to address the critical need in our society to develop a vaccine...I am sincerely humbled by the support we have received from the archdiocese and from other groups and individuals.”

So far, Jefferies’ lab has received grants from the government-funded Michael Smith Health Research Foundation and the Sullivan Urology Foundation affiliated with the University of British Columbia, as well as a number of private donations.

There are at least 1,000 clinical trials currently taking place around the world to test potential COVID-19 vaccines.

A group of pro-life leaders in a letter to the Trump administration earlier this month reiterated that development of a COVID-19 vaccine should avoid unethical links to abortion.

“No American should be forced to choose between being vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating his or her conscience,” reads the April 17 letter to Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Fortunately, there is no need to use ethically problematic cell lines to produce a COVID vaccine, or any vaccine, as other cell lines or processes that do not involve cells from abortions are available and are regularly being used to produce other vaccines,” it continued.

The letter’s signers include Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities; the heads of three other bishops’ conference committees; and leaders of many other Catholic and non-Catholic groups.

The Pontifical Academy for Life has noted that Catholics have an obligation to use ethically-sourced vaccines when available, and have an obligation to speak up and request the development of new cell lines that are not derived from aborted fetuses.

The 2008 Vatican document Dignitatis personae strongly criticized aborted fetal tissue research. However, as regards common vaccines, such as those for chicken pox and measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), that may be derived from cell lines of aborted babies, the Vatican said they could be used by parents for “grave reasons” such as danger to their children’s health.

In a 2017 document on vaccines, the academy noted a “moral obligation to guarantee the vaccination coverage necessary for the safety of others… especially the safety of more vulnerable subjects such as pregnant women and those affected by immunodeficiency who cannot be vaccinated against these diseases.”

 

Penn State Behrend’s Black School of Business inducted 30 students into the Beta Gamma Sigma international business honor society on April 17. The students are enrolled in the college’s residential programs and in Penn State World Campus majors that are offered by the Black School.

Penn State Brandywine’s Sustainovation Team has partnered with Tyler Arboretum to host an online discussion club for podcasts, offering a creative solution for the local community to stay connected during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Meaghan Paige, a women’s fashion brand started by a Penn State Brandywine alumna, is supporting the local community by offering free, handmade cloth face masks during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

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