April 2, 2020

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APRIL 2, 2020

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to our good’

Pope Francis arrives for a prayer service in an empty St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican March 27, 2020. At the conclusion of the service the pope held the Eucharist as he gave an extraordinary blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world), in the time of the coronavirus. In his meditation, the pope reflected on Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” He answered that God turns everything to the good, “even the bad things.”

(CNS PHOTO/VATICAN MEDIA)

‘Field hospital’: Europe’s churches offer empty facilities to fight pandemic VCATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

ROME – In addition to expanding shelters for the homeless during Italy’s COVID-19 lockdown, Catholic dioceses and parishes are offering rooms to medical personnel exhausted by long hours at work or who will not go home to avoid the danger of spreading the virus to their loved ones.

The Italian bishops’ conference is posting, and updating daily, a list of actions and activities carried out by diocesan Caritas organizations.

The Diocese of Crema, in Italy’s devastated Lombardy region, said March 28 it was preparing to host “35 Chinese doctors who will come to assist at the Crema hospital and a field hospital that will be built over the next five or six days” on the grounds of a former convent now owned by the diocese.

The diocese also has offered “25 places for health workers who cannot return to their families after work so as to not place their relatives at risk.”

The Diocese of Bergamo, also in Lombardy, has set aside 50 single rooms with bathrooms in the diocesan seminary for doctors and nurses coming to help from outside the region.

(CNS PHOTO/FLAVIO LO SCALZO, REUTERS)

Military personnel load coffins into a truck in Seriate, Italy, March 25, 2020. The coffins have been piling up in a church due to the high number of deaths from the coronavirus.

In fact, the bishops’ conference said, Crema and Bergamo are just two of the 23 dioceses that have informed the national civil protection service that they can provide accommodation for up to 500 medical personnel.

Another 18 dioceses have made more than 300 beds in 25 seminaries, convents, retreat houses or clinics

available to the government for people who are in quarantine or recently released from the hospital, it said.

And 21 dioceses, the statement said, have expanded the number of beds they offer to the homeless as well as expanding their normal operating hours to 24 hours a day, given that people are not supposed to go outside.

Across Europe, Catholic dioceses and religious orders are offering to turn church facilities into spaces needed for health care or housing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The German Catholic news agency KNA reported the Archdiocese of Cologne is treating coronavirus patients flown in from Italy and has opened its seminary to provide food and showers for homeless people.

Catholic clinics in the archdiocese were providing urgently needed intensive care beds for six patients from Italy, Cologne Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki said. The archdiocese has 43 catholic hospitals with a total of 12,000 beds.

“It is an act of charity to provide fast and unbureaucratic help,” he said. The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia arranged the transfer SEE ‘FIELD HOSPITAL’, PAGE 9

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CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL ISSUE Holy Week notes . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Offertory needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Online learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1918’s hero nuns . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Palm Sunday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 End-of-life issues . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

Pastor: Church entering ‘totally uncharted waters’ NICHOLAS WOLFRAM SMITH CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Amid a shutdown that has brought the Bay Area to a standstill, Father Tom Martin said he hopes as pastor he can reassure people and provide some calm during a critical time in their lives.

“It’s really important to recognize that the church is a spiritual community,” said Father Martin, pastor of St. Pius Parish in Redwood City. “We are truly united through the Eucharist. We’re not Father Tom just an amalgamation of activiMartin ties.”

Since March 16, San Mateo County, along with the rest of the Bay Area, has issued shelter-in-place orders that have closed most public spaces and prevented gatherings, including religious ones. Father Martin said that since the order came through, he, the parish staff and fellow clergy have tried to spiritually support parishioners under the current restrictions.

The tension the parish has had to balance is keeping close to people when everyone needs to maintain distance, responding to the needs of the faithful while being responsible in upholding public health. Father Martin praised the parish’s staff for being proactive in determining the parish’s response to the shutdown, and added that the collaborative decision-making culture had been an enormous help as the parish faced temporary closure.

St. Pius has begun streaming Mass every day of the week in English and Spanish, in addition to a rosary novena and evening prayer. The parish also offers reconciliation for two hours each Saturday in the church vestibule, encouraging people to practice social distancing as they wait.

While there was some initial anxiety from parishioners after the parish closed, he said understanding the health risks involved with keeping parishes

open has made people appreciate the action. Father Martin said people also understand the spiritual aspect of the parish closures that Archbishop Cordileone highlighted, that it was a charitable act to make sure lives were not endangered.

As a pastor, Father Martin said shuttering the public celebration of Mass has emphasized for him how important the Eucharist is to parishioners, and how hurtful it can be to not have access to it. ”We had some heartbreaking phone calls from people today seeking to receive the Eucharist and it was really edifying that people take their faith so seriously,” he said. In addition, the pastor hopes through the shelter in place order Catholics come to understand how the Eucharist and and prayer unite the church spiritually.

The parish has also been working how to support people who are vulnerable during the lockdown with grocery deliveries or check-ins over the phone.

“I don’t want people to feel afraid and isolated,” he said. “This is a pretty tight-knit community, people know each other. Everyone is doing their part, and as frightening as this time is, I’m really reassured and grateful that people are handling this well,” he said.

With the church closed for liturgies, parish collections have taken an inevitable hit. There is a legitimate concern over the parish’s finances, Father Martin said, but it takes second place to pastoral worry over how parishioners are doing.

“I’m not being pollyannaish – I’m worried about the infrastructure of the parish, but I’m less concerned about that than making sure that people are physically, mentally, and spiritually well. If we maintain that, things will be well,” he said.

Parishioners have already reached out for help, as families have struggled to provide food for their children and parents cried over layoffs. As he shopped at Safeway in the days before the shelterin-place came into effect – “total bedlam,” he said – Father Martin chatted with an elderly woman who told him that despite living through the Great Depression and World War II, she had never witnessed

Archbishop advises priests on Holy Week liturgies In a March 24, 2020, letter to priests, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone addressed celebration of Holy Week liturgies – Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020, through Easter, April 12, 2020. The archbishop developed the instruction after consultation with the deans, the vicar general and the vicars for clergy. The instruction, summarized below, is only for Holy Week 2020 and without an assembly in attendance.

– The distribution of palms, usually a principal part of Palm Sunday, is to be delayed for Masses when the faithful are attending Mass again in the churches.

The chrism Mass, this year on Holy Thursday, will have sacramental oils blessed for use in the parishes throughout the year. The consecrated oils will be delivered to parishes by the dean of each deanery or his representative who will accept the oils following the chrism Mass.

– Holy Thursday rites will not include the usual washing of the feet and the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the altar of repose.

– The Good Friday liturgy will include a special intercession by Archbishop Cordileone “for a swift end to the coronavirus pandemic that afflicts our world.”

– The Easter Vigil will not include the lighting and blessing of the fire, the preparation of the paschal candle or a procession. The candle will be lit in the sanctuary followed by the Exultet. Reception of sacraments of initiation, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, has been moved to the “Vigil of Pentecost (May 30, 2020) if and to the extent circumstances at that time allow,” Archbishop Cordileone said.

Following are Holy Week liturgies to be livestreamed from St. Mary’s Cathedral and available on the archdiocesan YouTube channel.

Remember these prayer opportunities are available only online. The faithful may not attend.

Palm Sunday Mass, April 5, 11 a.m.; chrism Mass, April 9, 2020, 10 a.m.; Holy Thursday Mass, April 9, 7:30 p.m.; Good Friday service, April 10, 3 p.m.; Easter Vigil, April 11, 9 p.m.; Easter Sunday, April 12, 11 a.m.

St. Philip bell rings in the darkness CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Volunteers at St. Philip the Apostle Parish in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco are ringing the big church bell daily as a sign of solidarity during the coronavirus pandemic. The St. Philip Parish Belfry Society is ringing the bell in the church tower at noon on weekdays, 5 p.m.

Saturday, and 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Bell captain David Castellanos rang Tuesday March 24, Bill Yenne was in the next day at noon with his grandson Cash Yenne Bolos, and after that group members have been taking turns, Yenne told Catholic San Francisco. In addition to Castellanos and Yenne, St. Philip Belfry Society

members include Todd Siemers, Andrew DeGrandi, Jane Perry, Arturo Pena, Mary Staunton, Mary Sullivan, Oscar Sullivan and Daniel Roddick.

Yenne shared the news in a Facebook post titled “Ringing of Bells in a Time of Darkness.”

“Bells have long been the voice of the church and churches, a form of communication technology predating telephones, telegraph and the internet, yet still viable and still impressive,” Yenne told Catholic San Francisco a year ago in an article on bell-ringing during the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in Paris.

“They express jubilation in times of joy, and solidarity in times of calamity.”

anything like she saw at the grocery store that day. She asked him what he did, and after replying that he was a Catholic priest, she told him, “You’re needed now more than ever.”

The 9/11 attacks are the last touchstone people have for such a sudden cataclysmic change in society. Father Martin, who was working for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown at the time, said he remembered that for a while, churches were packed and the pace of life slowed down. After a month, it was back to business as usual.

“This is different because it affects everyone directly, and I’m hoping people learn from this,” he said. “There’s too much hype, too much running around, let’s reorient ourselves.”

In his homily at Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Father Martin spoke of the crisis as a desert journey and an opportunity for living in Christ more intentionally.

“It is a time to get out of ourselves, to get away from what Robert Cardinal Sarah calls the ‘dictatorship of noise,’” he said in homily notes posted on the parish website. “It is a time of sacrifice and giving in some very practical ways: our St. Pius Women’s Club: donations to Streetlight Ministries and Faith in Action ministry preparing meals for those in need.”

He said the three pillars of Lent – prayer, almsgiving and fasting – “are being lived in a quite visceral way as we deal both locally and globally with the coronavirus pandemic.”

He acknowledged fear of the known and unknown but also urged the faithful to embrace “a privileged time of grace as the Lord invites us to slow down just a bit and consider his presence in our lives.

“We are consoled by the psalmist who exclaimed, “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want,’” Father Martin said.

“In a very real and tangible way,” he said, “this pandemic has forced us to dwell in the desert, even if only for a time. The desert is much a spiritual state of mind as it is a specific place.”

NEED TO KNOW CSF CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE: Visit catholic-sf. org or Facebook for updates throughout the day. Get a selection of the day’s Catholic coronavirus news each evening by subscribing to CSF’s coronavirus email newsletter. Enter your email in the form on the website.

The paper’s April 9 print issue is on schedule. For submissions, questions or comments, email csf@sfarch.org.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: With shelter-in-place restrictions expected to remain in place for several more weeks, visit sfarch.org for resources on staying safe and living the faith. Includes links to livestreamed Masses from 25 parishes, other broadcasts and spiritual resources.

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone Publisher Mike Brown Associate Publisher Rick DelVecchio Editor/General Manager EDITORIAL Christina Gray, associate editor Tom Burke, senior writer Nicholas Wolfram Smith, reporter

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ARCHDIOCESE 3

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

St. Anselm reaching out to isolated parishioners CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Volunteers at St. Anselm Parish in Ross are making calls from their own homes to longtime parishioners, prioritizing seniors and those living alone, to offer spiritual and material support during the public health emergency.

“We are reaching out to as many parishioners as possible to see if the parish can assist them in any way,” Father Jose Shaji, pastor of the Marin County parish, told Catholic San Francisco in a March 21 email. “Not only spiritual assistance but any kind of assistance.”

“The response has been very positive,” parishoner Pat Langley said.

“People really like the idea of their parish reaching out this way.”

Earlier this year a survey of St. Anselm parishioners revealed that a majority feel the parish and the universal church should do a better job of reaching out to all members of the parish community regardless of age, gender, marital status or sexual orientation.

Langley said she is one of about eight people at the parish who have made about 80 calls so far. Young people in the parish have volunteered to fetch groceries and medicine.

“So far we’ve had no takers” for help she said, but the human touch of a call made and a conversation had during an uncertain time in history seems as welcome as an offer for help.

“Another reason we are doing these calls is that people who live alone and may not have contact, are having contact,” said Langley.

People she talks to are concerned but not panicked.

“People are just accepting that this is what they have to do for the better of the community,” she said. “We are only a week into it, though. Who

(PHOTO BY CHRISTINA GRAY/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

knows what happens if this goes on for months.”

Many on the St. Anselm outreach call team are also members of the Marin Organizing Committee, a network of faith communities, nonprofits, educational, civic and labor groups.

The committee is advocating the county pass a law that would freeze evictions resulting from job loss or illness during the crisis. Gov. Gavin Newsom is allowing counties to pass their own such laws.

Langley said the volunteers are asking the parishioners they call to email the Board of Supervisors with a letter of support for such a measure.

“It’s important right now that our parishioners have a sense they can do something to help someone else,” she said.

Pandemic cancels priest’s 100th birthday Mass and party CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

World War II. The Holocaust. The Great Depression.

The Vietnam War. 9/11.

Sts. Peter and Paul Parish’s Salesian Father Armand Oliveri has lived through these and other historic events in his Salesian Father nearly 100 years. The Armand Oliveri coronavirus is the latest.

The global pandemic has forced the cancellation of a large March 28 celebration of that milestone, parish secretary Gibbons Cooney said.

About 100 members of Father Armand’s extended family, Salesians from all over the province, members of the Salesian Boys and Girls Club, parishioners and fans of the much-loved priest planned to attend the celebration with a special Mass and party, Cooney said.

His actual birthday is March 30.

Armand Oliveri was born near Savona, Italy, on March 30,1920. His family came to San Francisco in 1929 and settled in North Beach where he attended Sts. Peter and Paul School. He was ordained in 1950 and after a long career as a teacher served as a parish

The Marin County parish is also offering online prayer requests and inviting everyone in the archdiocese to be part of the project.

A statue of Mary is at the center of a courtyard at St. Anselm Parish in Ross, where parishioners are reaching out to offer help to older members of the community and those living alone.

priest in Canada and in San Francisco at Corpus Christi Parish and finally, Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, where he served as both assistant pastor and pastor.

Father Oliveri has been in residence at the parish since 2004 and still concelebrates Mass.

The celebration will be postponed until after the virus is no longer a threat to the public and churches are open for Mass once more, Cooney said.

Father Oliveri will mark the day privately (with proper social distance, of course) with his fellow Salesians at the parish, he said.

On a March 27 post to the parish Facebook page, the community was invited to pray the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary March 30 with a special intention for Father Oliveri.

Until recently, Cooney had been inviting people from all around the archdiocese to send birthday cards to Father Oliveri for his milestone birthday. In recent weeks he’s been asking instead for emailed greetings at gibbons@salesiansspp.org. He will print them out for Father Oliveri.

Catholic San Francisco asked Father Oliveri through Cooney what his wish was for this special birthday.

“Blessing and thanks for all that care for him and for his family and that everyone stay healthy,” Cooney relayed.

“And a new belt.”

The outreach effort is in addition to online prayer intentions that a group at San Anselm has been receiving since early March.

Parishioner Robert Yee Meave said the idea came from an article about a convent in New York that has been accepting prayer petitions for over 100 years to include in their nightly prayer – first by written or oral request, and then later people phoned their requested intentions.

“It made me think that we could start a group and receive requests through a web link, which I then established,” he said in an email. “It went live in early March, and requests have been increasing as word gets out and people see the link on the parish website.”

T

Meave sends the group an email with each new request.

“We begin praying for that intention that night,” he said. “We also include the pope’s monthly intention in our prayers. We are very pleased that requests are coming in, and to have the opportunity to pray for those intentions.”

Examples of intentions include: A single parent asks for our prayers that she can find a new job with better pay; arequest to pray for a relative in the military stationed overseas; that we pray to alleviate the fear and anxiety related to the COVID-19 virus, and that the Lord may carry us on his shoulders through this time; for good health due to cancer; for a daughter with ALS; for an elderly father who is hospitalized following a fall.

“What I’d like to emphasize is that anyone can use the site – this is not limited to St. Anselm parishioners,” he said. “Also, if other parishes wish to come up with their own group, I’m happy to share the design of the form or help them to establish a link on their own website to our group.

“Other people are very welcome to join our group – whatever can be done to have more people praying and more people knowing that this resource exists.”

Contact Meave at robt@traxlertong.com.

Your offertory support at this time is critical

he effects of COVID-19 have manifested in many ways in the lives of parishioners and parishes throughout our archdiocese. Not being able to attend Mass during this holy season of Lent is particularly difficult.

Parishes and parishioners are facing a variety of challenges.

ROD LINHARES One of the primary challenges for our parishes is the loss of offertory funds due to the suspension of Mass. Offertory gifts support salaries of parish staff members, programs and ministries, maintenance of our buildings and grounds, and many other vital components of our parish life.

Continued offertory support is critical. Without it, our parishes and the people who work in them will suffer. Father Andrew Spyrow, pastor of St. Raphael Parish in San Rafael, commented.

There are several ways you can continue making your offertory contribution.

You can give online through your own parish website (if your parish offers online giving), through the

archdiocese website (sfarch.org), by mailing your giving envelope to your church, or by dropping it in the mail slot at your parish office. All gifts, regardless of amount, are very beneficial and greatly appreciated.

If your parish does not have online giving, using the archdiocese link is easy – just select your (or any) parish name from the drop-down menu, enter the amount of your gift, etc.

If possible, please consider an amount that equals your regular offertory contribution. Pastors will be most appreciative, and they will be inspired to know that they can depend on receiving your continued support.

In spite of these uncertain times, there are many indications of parishioners continuing to vibrantly live our faith. Our parishes have been livestreaming Masses, virtual rosary rallies have taken place, and other celebrations of the Holy Spirit are occurring.

We will emerge from this situation even stronger as a faith community, and we pray for the day that we can again share the holy sacrifice of the Sunday Mass as a family.

On behalf of our parishes, and their staffs, thank you for all you do for your parish.

ROD LINHARES is archdiocesan director for development. If you have any questions, please contact him at (415) 6145581 or linharesr@sfarch.org.

4 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

From homeroom to Zoom room in less than 24 hours NICHOLAS WOLFRAM SMITH CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Within 24 hours of receiving notice on March 10 all Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco would have to switch to distance learning, St. Matthew School’s digital campus was up and ready to continue educating students online while the parochial school’s hallways and classrooms were quiet.

“The cool part about it is we went from being a physical school to an online school in less than 24 hours. We did a great job and I’m very proud,” said Adrian Peterson, principal of St. Matthew School in San Mateo.

Peterson said the school developed how its learning protocol looked from scratch, quickly building out a daily grid of lessons and how teachers presented material and how students would work on their own.

The archdiocesan schools department issued principals expectations for online learning, and from there “each individual principal had to create the standard at their school, making up how many hours, what a day looks like,” she said.

Students in junior high generally have two live lectures per day through Zoom and spend the rest of their time with pre-recorded lectures and independent work based on their daily lesson plan, while students in younger grades have Zoom classes staggered through the week.

Peterson said students brought their books home with them before classes were suspended, and any student who needed a device to access the internet was allowed to check one out from the school.

As a Google for Education school, an alliance that gives students and teachers Google products that have been customized for educational settings, students and teachers were already equipped with some of the tools they would need. Teachers use Google Classroom to check on students’ work and use Google Hangouts

(COURTESY PHOTO)

Students at St. Matthew School meet through Zoom to continue learning. The video meeting service has helped the school pivot to online learning in the wake of the school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘We were trying to get kids away from devices and now we’re trying to get them on. This is one time it’s worked to our advantage.’

ADRIAN PETERSON, Principal, St. Matthew School to answer student questions and talk with students, which Peterson said had been an enormous help.

One of the decisions the school had to make was how much video conferencing to do with students through Zoom. Peterson said she thought they had arrived at a “healthy balance,” but would continue fine-tuning it as distance learning continued.

“I think that has been the most critical element,” she said. “We’re adjusting as we go.”

Even with all the changes, some things have stayed the same. The school records a video for morning assembly, announcing birthdays and beginning the day with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Peterson said the school has also continued to

do spiritual formation for students.

Instead of Masses on Fridays, attendance and schoolwide participation in Stations of the Cross, students will watch Mass online or do spiritual reflections. Msgr. John Talesfore, pastor of St. Matthew Parish, will also do some lessons on spiritual formation, she said.

“We’ve tried to be as normal as anything. We’ve done really well and I’m proud of where we are,” Peterson said.

Meghan Daschel, a fourth grade teacher at St. Matthew School, said distance learning has helped students work on their technology skills and made them “more independent and responsible for their own learning which as a teacher has been really

Digital tools help parishes bridge social distance divide NICHOLAS WOLFRAM SMITH CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

In the initial aftermath of the shelter-in-place orders issued throughout the Bay Area, Father Larry Goode’s busy parish of St. Francis of Assisi felt like a ghost town.

“The whole week we were wandering around,” said Father Goode, pastor of the East Palo Alto parish. “This is a busy place with meetings every single night of the week, and all of a sudden nothing.”

A parishioner who volunteered to set up livestreaming equipment has helped the priests broadcast Mass online. Father Goode said the parishioners’ response had been successful and he “couldn’t believe how well it’s going,” with people tuning in from as far away as Argentina.

“It’s just amazing to see it work, to be able to connect with people,” he said.

That connection is important, as the parish has been cancelling or delaying important communal activities like weddings, baptisms and quinceañeras. Putting the brakes on so many events, Father Goode said, has been “a daunting task,” but people had been understanding.

Father William Brown

Teresa Cariño

“I was afraid they would be upset, but people realize the seriousness of what’s going on,” he said.

The ministries that met at St. Francis are also trying to resume some sense of normalcy. The scheduled weekly meetings for Legion of Mary, the parish prayer group and other organizations have been moved online, and a representative from each ministry will host a meeting using the parish’s live streaming equipment.

“We’ve never been through this before and so not knowing exactly what to do, it’s a big job,” Father Goode said.

While most parishes have had to rapidly scale up their live streaming capability, communicating digitally has been another challenge. Without the parish bulletin, the traditional

standby of parish communications, pastors have increasingly turned to platforms like Flocknote, an email and texting tool for churches to reach parishioners.

Father William Brown, pastor of St. Hilary in Tiburon, has been using Flocknote for a few years and called the service “a real godsend – no pun intended.”

The parish has about 800 names on its list, with an open rate of about 50%, which is a very high rate in email communications.

Before shelter-in-place, he said, they had used it for communicating with parishioners or members of a parish ministry on short notice. Since the parish cannot put out a bulletin and no one comes to church, Father Brown said, they have been using it more frequently. In the past weeks, Father Brown told parishioners about the suspension of public Masses, closing the church entirely, and livestreaming Mass.

“And given the fact we have no collections, I’ve used it to encourage online giving through our website,” he said.

In the past week, the service proved SEE DIGITAL TOOLS, PAGE 5

wonderful to see.” But she, like many teachers, looks forward to seeing her students again in person.

“I know that this experience has truly made me grateful for the time that I get to spend with them,” Daschel said.

One notable outcome of moving learning online has been for parents to see just how much work students do, Peterson said.

“We’re sticking to our minutes: Kids are doing seven hours of schoolwork during a day,” she said.

That can also be a challenge, as some parents juggle working from home with assisting their children with their schoolwork.

“And the uncertainty over when they’re going back (to school) is causing great alarm,” she said.

The school also faces institutional uncertainty, as the closure of archdiocesan Catholic schools has been extended to April 17 and no one knows when counties’ shelter-inplace orders will be lifted.

End of year testing is currently on hold for students. St. Matthew’s biennial auction, which tends to raise around $250,000 for the school, has had to be retooled into an online format. The consequence of the economic disruptions to parents’ lives could have a profound effect on the tuition-based school.

“Those kinds of decisions weigh on a principal,” Peterson said.

Despite the sudden changes, St. Matthew has been able to continue its mission to educate students.

“Catholic school students are still being educated, I truly believe that,” Peterson said. “Our kids are still getting the amount of work they normally would. I think the hardest thing is they miss their friends.”

The switch to online learning has had one unexpected reversal, Peterson said.

“We were trying to get kids away from devices and now we’re trying to get them on,” she said. “This is one time it’s worked to our advantage.”

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ARCHDIOCESE 5

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

Local women religious respond to pandemic CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

While religious sisters were on the front lines attending to the sick during the flu epidemic of 1918, women religious in the Archdiocese of San Francisco are responding prayerfully and practically to the current global pandemic that has not yet reached its peak.

In a video posted March 25 to the Dominicans of San Rafael Facebook page, prioress general Sister Carla Kovak spoke to sisters about the “interplay of light and dark in the story of healing” on the feast of the Assumption of Mary.

“The mystery of this now moment in dealing with coronavirus calls us to recognize that light even in nature includes the interplay with darkness,” Sister Kovak said in a clip shot outdoors where clouds moved through a blue sky behind her.

She said it was important “to notice the light of Christ shining in and among us” in the human stories of courage and kindness around us.

Sister Kovak encouraged Dominican sisters to “be a light in the darkness” of the pandemic by responding with the love and obedience of Mary in learning from the archangel Gabriel that she would give birth to the son of God. “Let us repeat her words, ‘let it be done to me according to God,’” Sister Kovak said.

Sisters at the San Rafael convent are sheltering in place by watching TV Mass together, with empty chairs between for necessary social separation. They are also working in the community garden and praying for those with the virus and their caregivers.

They have also posted “Be Not Afraid” signs around their suburban property as encouragement to friends and neighbors, some of whom fetch groceries for the mostly over-60 sisters.

“Our ‘yes’ at this time is to be present to one another and to allow others to be present to us,” Sister Kovak said.

A few miles up the road in Terra Linda in northern San Rafael, Mother Anna Marie Vanni, prioress of the Mother of God Carmelite Monastery, said in a phone call that the cloistered nuns there have become “real hermits” praying for intentions of local Catholics that are coming in by phone and email.

The phone has been a lifeline, she

(COURTESY PHOTOS)

Left, a Dominican nun of Corpus Christi Monastery in private prayer in Menlo Park.

Right, Sister Patricia Riley, OP, on the grounds of the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, where the community created a public message of hope. said, both for the sisters and for their supporters, many of whom attended daily Mass at the monastery chapel before all public Masses ceased in the archdiocese.

“We all seem to need it right now,” she said. “There is something about a human voice.”

Another contemplative order, the Dominican Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery in Menlo Park, said in a March 16 Facebook post that “it is at times like this that a cloistered nun is impelled to more closely unite herself to her divine spouse” in prayer.

“Our contemplative life is wholly apostolic in that we implore God’s grace on behalf of all people,” the message reads in part. “For when the hands and feet of Christ – that is, his priests, apostolic religious and laity – are shackled from service, cloistered communities, as the heart of Christ, burn more ardently with his love.”

Missionaries of Charity Sister Mary Maximilliana answered the phone at the community’s Pacifica convent

March 27 and told the paper the shelter-in-place order had suspended the order’s daily meal ministry to the homeless in San Francisco but not its ministry to the terminally ill.

“Thanks be to God we’ve been able to keep open our hospice,” she said of the nearby Gift of Love hospice.

The sisters continue nursing residents, none of whom have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Sister Maximilliana said the sisters also spend an extra hour each day in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament for protection for God’s people against the coronavirus.

The Sisters of Mercy closed Mercy Center in Burlingame to all public events and in their confinement are sending handwritten notes of encouragement to patients in a Tenderloin neighborhood recovery program, Mercy Sister Joan Marie O’Donnell said.

“We are also calling on legislators for the release of particularly vulnerable immigrants who are in various

detention centers in California,” she said.

Mercy sisters are also urging county legislators to place a moratorium on rental evictions.

The sisters also join a daily virtual prayer group with Mercy High School in Burlingame and participate in conference calls with local interfaith groups to discuss collective responses to the ongoing needs created by the pandemic.

Sister Rosina Conrotto, archdiocesan director of consecrated life, affirmed the role of religious in a March 24 letter to women religious in the archdiocese.

“Let us continue to pray for one another that we may be spared the virus, that we many deepen our awareness of God’s love and presence in our lives, and that we may remember that we are in solidarity with all those in the world who are suffering from fear, anxiety, impatience and from the disease itself,” she said.

DIGITAL TOOLS: Help parishes bridge social distance divide FROM PAGE 4

handy in squashing a scam in which parishioners were being asked to buy iTunes gift cards for Father Brown.

“I sent out a note as soon as I heard,” he said.

Another upside for him is cutting postage and printing costs, and the waste associated with bulletins.

“The only downside is it can’t reach people who don’t have email and we can’t include too much or people will get sick of it,” he said.

At St. Ignatius, parish staff have been creative in coming up with ways the parish can carry on its communal life in a virtual space. One, the

“Sacred Space” project, started as a way to build some peace into people’s lives.

Teresa Cariño, faith formation director at St. Ignatius, said the parish “got the sense that since work from home started, people were having a harder time setting boundaries between work and personal life. So, we wanted for an hour to carve out time to just be together as a community, even though we can’t be physically together.”

Led by a parish staff member, the meeting starts with people sharing how they are doing and then leads to prayer and faith-sharing. Cariño said it started as a Zoom meeting room but

they will retool it to be on Facebook, with people interacting through comments.

The parish also live streams a Sunday Mass at 10 a.m. and then hosts a virtual coffee hour afterward where people can discuss the readings and talk about their faith. Each weekend the parish also releases a children’s liturgy of the word video.

Cariño said becoming a digital parish has turned her home office into a production studio, with parish staff also releasing “visio divina,” a visual version of lectio divina, a recorded Stations of the Cross, and a podcast featuring her, worship coordinator Maggie Warner, and Jesuit Father

Travis Russell, associate pastor at St. Ignatius.

The theme of the podcast, “displacement,” which was chosen before shelter-in-place orders were issued, turned out to be “pretty prophetic,” Cariño said, as hosts discuss how they have seen displacement in their lives and in social issues.

The first episode, released last week, saw about 50 downloads and appreciative parishioner feedback, Cariño said.

“It’s very fruitful to have these very spiritual conversations, and for me doing it there’s a real groundedness and real sacredness that happens in the midst of our conversation,” she said.

6

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

SISTERS’ HEROIC EFFORTS W DURING THE 1918 FLU PANDEMIC Daughters of Charity

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

“The nationwide influenza epidemic struck in the fall of 1918: San Francisco is not spared,” Marie N. Mahoney writes in “Reflections: Mary’s Help Hospital and Seton Medical Center, 1893-1985,” published

by Seton Medical Center.

“The number of new cases reached 700 per day and

by October 2018, there were 6,791 cases” she writes.

“From September through December, there were 445,000 deaths in the United States. The medical and nursing staffs of Mary’s Help Hospital responded to the epidemic. In addition, Archbishop Hanna sent Christian Brothers and Holy Name Sisters to Mary’s Help Hospital to help nurse the influenza victims.

The hospital, which had been dedicated in 1912 and blessed by then-Archbishop Patrick Riordan, was licensed for 165 bed but was expanded to accommodate more patients.

“Every portion of available space was used for the influenza victims. It was said that even the space adjacent to the engine room was utilized for patients.

The total number of influenza patients treated in-house was 74, while an additional 100 patients were nursed by Mary’s Help Hospital staff in their homes.”

Home care has always been an integral part of the Daughters’ services, Mahoney writes, sharing a letter sent the night of Oct. 10, 1918, to Sister Fidelis, Sister Servant of Mary’s Help Hospital on Guerrero Street in San Francisco, from Sister Eugenia Fealy, Visitatrix, asking that Daughters from the hospital be sent to assist with the care of influenza patients in Menlo Park.

“If conditions have not improved at Menlo Park can you not send two sisters and then borrow from other houses to help you out,” the letter states.

“Sister Bruen says auto will be sent for sisters every morning and bring them back in every morning.

Have sisters wear masks, use spray and gargle.”

The Daughters of Charity of the West Central Province brought their nursing skills to hospitals and Army camps to care for U.S. soldiers in the East, South and Midwest. Many sickened and died in the effort. Private rooms and wards in nearly every Catholic hospital were turned over to the soldier patient, and tent cities were set up when the hospitals ran out of room, according to the provincial archives. Sisters’ letters from the fall of 1918 “indicate the vast amount of good accomplished.” A thank you letter from an Army chaplain was typical

of the gratitude expressed after the disaster subsided, and private letters show “the vast contribution of Catholic religious at this trying time.” Here are examples of the correspondence, courtesy Scott Keefer, provincial archivist.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Ten sisters for Charity Hospital were on duty day and night with 50 soldiers at Jackson Barracks, at the request of Father J. J. Donovan, SJ, chaplain, 9th French Mortar Battalion. “The sisters furnished the soldiers with tobacco, cakes, ice-cream and brought tonic. … The sisters washed their clothing; kept them supplied with cigarettes and gave them many delicacies, little treats and extra lunches.”

Father Donovan later sent an official letter of thanks.

“When it was impossible to get nurses at any price and my own men dying for want of proper care, Sister Stanislaus at Charity Hospital sent 12 sisters, trained nurses, gratis, and a number of aides for both day and night in our five hospital buildings. Thus was relieved a chaotic condition that had become desperate.”

Boston, Massachusetts

Sept, 29, 2018: “An epidemic of influenza has broken out in Boston, whole families, are down, many dying within six hours of the attack; Cardinal O’Connell called on the Sisters of Carney Hospital, to go and bring succor to the poor stricken families, but very soon their number was insufficient, and His Eminence telegraphed to our dear Mother to send as many Sisters as possible; Mother sent three Sisters from the Central House, and wrote to Sister Raphael to get as many from the houses in Boston, as could be spared. Sister Olympia McCarthy, Sister Isabelle Purcell and Sister Claire Janvier, left this afternoon for Boston.”

(COURTESY CATHOLIC HISTORICAL RESEARCH CENTER, ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA)

A tent city at St. Paul Hospital during the 1918 flu epidemic. Forty-five tents were set up on hospital grounds to care for soldiers from nearby Camp Dick. The sisters and staff stayed the course, an Army colonel later said, “until the battle was won.”

Camp Meade, Maryland

Oct. 5: “Our dear Mother hears today, from the Sisters who went to Camp Meade – the epidemic is very serious, 100 deaths in one day – 30 deaths the first night our Sisters were on duty, one of the Sisters had the consolation to baptized three soldiers that night … Messages from Washington received this evening, say that 35 cases at the University-Sisters are wanted to nurse there, also. The Sisters of the Immaculate Conception School, were the only available ones, consequently they will take turns.”

Oct.6: Sunday – We made our monthly retreat today. Father Moloney gave a little sermon at the eight o’clock Mass, exhorted all to pray very fervently for the intentions of the Holy Father Benedict XV – gave some idea of the situation of the world at the present time … Priests are being killed in the war. Seminaries are closed in Europe. Telegraph and phone messages were received today, from different cities, asking for Sisters and nurses.”

Oct. 7: “Sister Paula, Assistant, left for Baltimore this morning, two young Sisters down with the influ-

‘Influenza Pandemic and the Sisters’ CATHOLIC HISTORICAL RESEARCH CENTER ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA OCT. 1, 2018

(COURTESY CATHOLIC HISTORICAL RESEARCH CENTER, ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA)

Some 2,000 sisters in Philadelphia responded to the flu epidemic of 1918, an effort that made headlines and that city leaders gratefully acknowledged in the aftermath.

The Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, also known as the Spanish Flu, is considered one of the worst epidemics in history. Between the spring of 1918 and the summer of 1919, an estimated 50 million deaths worldwide were attributed to the flu, 34 million more than the total casualties of World War I. In the United States, deaths have been estimated around 675,000, with Philadelphia being one of the hardest hit city with between 13,000 and 16,000 flu related deaths.

On Oct. 3, 1918, the Board of Health of the city of Philadelphia ordered the closing of all schools and suspended church services until further notice] The ban would remain in effect for most of October, being lifted once the flu ran its course on the 26th. Archbishop Dennis Dougherty offered the use of archdiocesan buildings as temporary hospitals and enlisted all

ith the coronavirus pandemic causing growing suffering throughout the world and calling caregivers to the front lines, many are reminded of the courage of women religious of St. Vincent de Paul during the influenza epidemic of 1918.

Archivists for the Daughters of Charity and Sisters of Mercy, two of the orders involved in the effort, shared some of their records from the time with Catholic San Francisco, at the request of Presentation Sister Rosina Conrotto, director of Consecrated Life for the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Also thanks to Rachel Foote, archivist for the Presentation Sisters in San Francisco; Sister Margaret Ann Gainey, Daughters of Charity, Los Altos Hills; Emily Reed-Jordan, Digital and Audiovisual Records Archivist Mercy Heritage Center, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas; and to Msgr. John Talesfore for the story idea.

home, this evening; they have pathetic facts to relate – some say that the outside world will never know the number of deaths in this Camp.”

Oct. 20: “Sunday, we had our two Masses, a sermon

by Father Hayden, no Vespers, the Rosary devotions, followed by Benediction, at three o’clock. News from the Soldiers’ Home, Washington, of the edifying death of a young Sister (Gabreilla Mullan?), only a year vocation, another victim of the ‘flu.’”

Oct. 21: “Our dear Sister Dolores Martella died this morning, at six o’clock a good, humble Sister and a very capable one; she could be put at any work; she spent her eleven years of Community life in the Academy, where she made herself most useful, and was much appreciated by the children. Sister was taken with the dreadful flu, after having helped to nurse the children who were down with it, also. The body had to be removed from the house, as soon as possible, for precaution; it was placed in Mother Seton’s Monument. The Director, Sisters of the Habit and seminary Sisters accompanied the remains at five o’clock.”

Oct. 22: Father Cribbins sang the Requiem Mass for our dear Sister Dolores. At two o’clock the Community repaired to the graveyard, when our dear departed was placed in her last resting place. Sister was the first one to be buried in that part where several pupils, who died during the Civil War, were buried.”

Oct. 23: “The plague is not decreasing; we are told that whole families are wiped away – in Pennsylvania the bodies are burnt and in some places trenches are dug to put the bodies – in other cities coffins are left two and three days in the graveyards before they can be put in the graves; there is no one to dig them. Here our pupils are getting better – and the two Sisters who have been nursing the sick, at Mount St. Mary’s, have been discharged, the sickness is decreasing there – one Seminarian died, and no soldier; the only camp where no deaths occurred – a Doctor, [who is Jewish, said that the little medal did it all.”

Dec. 2: “The influenza has broken out among our workmen, nearly all are down; the Sisters had to milk the cows, today, and were delighted to do it.”

Dec. 18: “We heard of two deaths, which occurred yesterday, one, the best and most virtuous Sister Servant in the Province; Sister Gertrude Kerns of St. Mary’s, Troy, who having spent herself during the

‘Sister Mary Reilly died like a soldier at the point of duty, never thinking of giving up until exhausted nature could do no more.’

Austin, Texas

“From the Camps and the city of Austin came the worst cases of the flu – they poured into Seton Infirmary until not only this building was taxed to its uttermost limits, hut tents had to be put up all over their extensive grounds of Seton. … Sisters stood nobly at their overwhelming tasks, like the true hearted heroines giving their strength to the full – and beyond. … Sister Mary Reilly died like a soldier at the point of duty, never thinking of giving up until exhausted nature could do no more. She died on October 18, 1918.”

priests, non-cloistered nuns, and the members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to aid the victims of the flu. The sisters of numerous religious orders across the city would play an indispensable role in fighting the flu.

Throughout the course of the flu, over 2,000 nuns, about two-thirds of all sisters in the archdiocese, helped care for the sick, functioning mainly as nurses in hospitals across the city. The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for instance were sent to the Municipal Hospital as well as acted as private nurses, going door to door in poor neighborhoods to find and care for the sick. The sisters who taught as St. Peter Claver School helped turn the building into an emergency hospital and served as nurses for the close to 50 patients who would be treated in the building. The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis also were deeply involved in the fight against the flu as the sisters ran three hospitals, St. Agnes, St. Mary, and St. Joseph, which together saw over 1,300 patients. Other religious or-

enza, at St. Martin’s School; a patient at St. Agnes’ Hospital, jumped out of the window, in his delirium and was killed. Sister Cornelia De Sarro, falls, the first victim of the influenza, among the Sisters, only four days sick, other Sisters on the missions are sick.

At St. Joseph’s, nearly all the teachers of the college and 31 pupils, today down with it.”

Oct. 14: “The epidemic is thinning the ranks of our soldiers; everywhere the plague is making numerous victims, and nothing has been found yet, to check its progress. Sister Martha Burke and Sister Clara Clifton left this morning for Baltimore, to help a little, one at St. Agnes’ Hospital and the other at St. Mary’s Asylum.”

Oct. 16: “Our dear Sister Dolores Martella, who was taken sick, a few days ago, with influenza, a very serious case, on account of a run down condition and weak lungs, was anointed this morning, and received the last sacraments, fully conscious and resigned.

Oct. 17: “The epidemic stage being long passed, at Camp Meade, the Sisters who had been sent there, at the request of our beloved Cardinal, five of our Sisters, included, were discharge. Our Sisters came

ders that sent nurses to various hospitals across the city included Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, Sisters of the Immaculate Heart, Sisters of Saint Joseph, Sisters of Mercy, and Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

An account from an IHM nun recalls entering houses and finding entire families sick in bed together with no one to care for them. When this happened the sisters would bathe the sick, clean the house and then prepare food and medicine for the sick. Sisters working in the hospitals, despite a lack of experience, were tasked with mixing medicines as well as taking temperatures and feeding the sick. Many sisters worked 12-hour shifts, with one stating that “through this experience I have learned to appreciate my vocation to the religious life more than ever before.”

The impact of the sisters’ work was immeasurable as without them many hospitals would have been dangerously understaffed and unable to care for the inflected. Many patients credited the sisters for helping them pull through and the medical staff would comment that they could “see the change there is in this place since the Sisters came.” After the epidemic had subsided, government officials praised the work

7

of the sisters with the Pennsylvania Department of Heath stating that “without the serviced rendered by these good women many additional lives would have been sacrificed.”The mayor of Philadelphia echoed similar sentiment in a letter declaring that “I have never seen a greater demonstration of real charity or self-sacrifice than has been given by the sisters in their nursing of the sick.”

Since the sisters were put into direct contact with the flu when caring for the sick, a number of them would also become infected with the disease. It was recorded that 23 sisters died from the flu. One such case reported in the Catholic Standard and Times stated that Mother Marie Aloysius of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus had continued working in the hospital despite her sickness until the day before she passed. The service and sacrifice of the religious sisters during the Spanish Flu epidemic is an important part of Philadelphia history that must be remembered and celebrated. Indeed, their largely anonymous actions helped save the lives of many throughout the city and keep the worst pandemic from being even more deadly.

(COURTESY MERCY HERITAGE CENTER)

St. Mary’s Hospital, a ministry of the Sisters of Mercy and the oldest hospital in San Francisco, served as a nursing station during the 1918 flu pandemic.

SISTERS OF MERCY WHO LOST THEIR LIVES SERVING OTHERS DURING THE OUTBREAK Sisters of Mercy served at more than 100 nursing stations through the country during the 1918 flu epidemic, including Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco, a ministry of the Mercy Sisters in Burlingame. The following are the names of Mercy Sisters who lost their lives serving during the outbreak. (Source: “Mercy Ministers from Coast to Coast: Sisters of Mercy Response to the Spanish Influenza Pandemic in the United States, 1918-1919,” a poster presented at the Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2019. Thanks to Emily Reed-Jordan, Digital and Audiovisual Records Archivist, Mercy Heritage Center, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Belmont, North Carolina).

Mary Mildred Gilroy - Mercy Hospital, Baltimore Sister Mary Ann Carroll - St. Vincent’s Male Orphanage, Baltimore Sister Mary Josephine Trichel - Served visiting sick of the community, Vicksburg, Mississippi Sister Mary Teresita Sullivan - Served preparing meals for sick families, Trenton, New Jersey Sister Mary Scholastica Mankel - Served Sacred Heart Catholic School, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee Sister Mary Patricia McLaughlin - Served as district nurse, Scranton, Pennsylvania Sister Mary Raphael O’Connor - Served Kentucky miners and families in remote town

Sister Mary Raphael O’Connor

Sister Mary Annette Duffy

Sister Mary Ligouri Dodds St. Joseph’s Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan Sister Mary Loretto Reddy - St. Joseph’s Orphanage, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Sister Mary Macrina Kinney St. Jerome Hospital, Buffalo, New York

Sister Mary Annette Duffy - St. Paul’s Home (orphanage), Manchester, New Hampshire

Sister Mary Ignatius Hester - Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Sister Mary Catherine Mapes - St. Anthony Hospital, Pocatello, Idaho

8 FAITH

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

SUNDAY READINGS

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion MATTHEW 21:1-11 At the procession with palms When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tethered, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them here to me. And if anyone should say anything to you, reply, ‘The master has need of them.’ Then he will send them at once.” This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: Say to daughter Zion, “Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them. They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them, and he sat upon them.

The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. The crowds preceding him and those following kept crying out and saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.” And when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?” And the crowds replied, “This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

At the Mass ISAIAH 50:4-7 The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

PSALM 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

All who see me scoff at me; they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads: “He relied on the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, if he loves him.”

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Indeed, many dogs surround me, a pack of evildoers closes in upon me; They have pierced my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

They divide my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots. But you, O Lord, be not far from me; O my help, hasten to aid me.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

I will proclaim your name to my brethren; in the

midst of the assembly I will praise you: “You who fear the Lord, praise him; all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him; revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

PHILIPPIANS 2:6-11 Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

MATTHEW 26:14 27:11-54 Jesus stood before the governor, Pontius Pilate, who questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?” But he did not answer him one word, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Now, on the occasion of the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wished. And at that time, they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had assembled, Pilate said to them, “Which one do you want me to release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over. While he was still seated on the bench, his wife sent him a message, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him.” The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus. The governor said to them in reply, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They answered, Barabbas!” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus called Christ?”

They all said, “Let him be crucified!” But he said, “Why? What evil has he done?”

They only shouted the louder, “Let him be crucified!” When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.

Look to it yourselves.” And the whole people said in reply, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.”

Then he released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be cruci-

The necessity of wounds

A

lan Paton’s “Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful” is a fictionalized novel based on true events, dealing with the dreadful apartheid era in South Africa.

In the story, a black court messenger named Emmanuel Nene visits Robert Mansfield, a white headmaster of a whites-only school, mostly out of curiosity and in admiration of Mansfield’s humanity and inclusiveness.

The government comes down on Mansfield and orders him not to allow his white students to mingle with the black students of another school for a football game. Mansfield resigns from his position because for him “it is time to go out and fight everything that separates people from one another, and especially people of FATHER CHARLES one color and one race from PUTHOTA people of another color and race.” They both talk about how they are “going to get wounded” not only by the government but by their people who want them to stay within their own segregated communities. Nene then says to Mansfield, “I don’t worry about the wounds. When I go up there,

SCRIPTURE REFLECTION

which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? And if I say I haven’t any, he will say, was there nothing to fight for? I couldn’t face that question.”

We can relate to Nene’s readiness to get wounded.

When we stand up for truth, justice, peace community, unity and dignity, we are likely to get wounded.

It is easy to stay on the sidelines, but to get involved and pay the price for it, it takes courage. Jesus is our ultimate paradigm.

Here we are on the threshold of the Holy Week.

What a holy time in the midst of eerie circumstances!

We as the church cannot even come together to celebrate the holiest of the mysteries connected with Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. These mysteries give purpose to our life, love, struggles, suffering, death, evil and final union with God. Our anguished isolation now only makes the Holy Week mysteries all the more poignant for us. The world is suffering, particularly now because of the threat of disease. We dwell on Jesus’ suffering to find our way out of the present crisis and to experience the healing grace.

Jesus knows suffering firsthand. He was wounded fatally in his fight for our freedom from the bondage of sin, evil, and death. The four suffering servant songs of Isaiah (chapters 42, 49, 50, 52 to 53) have always been interpreted by the church as prophetic of SEE PUTHOTA, PAGE 9

fied. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him.

Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat upon him and took the reed and kept striking him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him.

As they were going out, they met a Cyrenian named Simon; this man they pressed into service to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgothawhich means Place of the Skull-they gave Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he had tasted it, he refused to drink. After they had crucified him, they divided his garments by casting lots; then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And they placed over his head the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left.

Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, and come down from the cross!” Likewise, the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. So, he is the king of Israel! Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way. From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “This one is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. But the rest said, ‘Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him.” But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice and gave up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.

The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, and they said, “Truly, this was the Son of God!”

LITURGICAL CALENDAR, DAILY MASS READINGS MONDAY, APRIL 6: Monday of Holy Week. IS 42:17. PS 27:1, 2, 3, 13-14. JN 12:1-11.

TUESDAY, APRIL 7: Tuesday of Holy Week. IS 49:1-6. PS 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5ab-6ab, 15 and 17. JN 13:21-33, 36-38.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8: Wednesday of Holy Week.

IS 50:4-9a. PS 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34. MT 26:14-25.

THURSDAY, APRIL 9: Holy Thursday - Chrism Mass. IS 61:1-3a, 6a, 8b-9. PS 89:21-22, 25 and 27. RV 1:5-8. IS 61:1 (cited in LK 4:18). LK 4:16-21.

FRIDAY, APRIL 10: Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion. IS 52:13—53:12. PS 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25. HEB 4:14-16; 5:7-9. PHIL 2:8-9. JN 18:1—19:42.

SATURDAY, APRIL 11: Holy Saturday, at the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter. GN 1:1—2:2 or GN 1:1, 26-31a. PS 104:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12, 13-14, 24, 35 or PS 33:4-5, 6-7, 12-13, 20 and 22. GN 22:1-18 or GN 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18. PS 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11. EX 14:15—15:1. EX 15:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 17-18. Is 54:5-14. PS 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13. Is 55:1-11. IS 12:2-3, 4, 5-6. BAR 3:9-15, 32–4:4. PS 19:8, 9, 10, 11. EZ 36:16-17a, 18-28. PS 42:3, 5; 43:3, 4 or IS 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6 or PS 51:12-13, 1415, 18-19. ROM 6:3-11. PS 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23.

MT 28:1-10.

OPINION 9

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

The dispelling of an illusion

W

e don’t much like the word disillusionment.

Normally we think of it as a negative, something pejorative, and not as something that does us a favor. And yet disillusionment is a positive, it means the dispelling of an illusion and illusions, unless we need one as a temporary tonic, and not good for us. They keep us from the truth, from reality.

There are many, many negatives to the current coronavirus that’s wreaking a deadly havoc across the planet. But there’s one positive: Against every form of resistance we can muster, it’s dispelling the FATHER RON illusion that we are in control ROLHEISER of our lives and that, by our own efforts, we can make ourselves invulnerable. That lesson has come upon us uninvited. This unforeseen and unwelcome virus is teaching us that, no matter our sophistication, intelligence, wealth, health, or status, we’re all vulnerable, we’re all at the mercy of a thousand contingencies over which we have little control. No amount of denial will change that.

Granted, at one level of our consciousness we’re always aware of our vulnerability. But sometimes after we have walked a dangerous ledge for a long time, we forget the peril and are no longer aware of the narrowness of the plank upon which we’re walking. Then too our sense of our vulnerability to a hundred million dangers is, like our sense of mortality, normally pretty abstract and not very real. We all know that like everyone else we are going to die one

day; but normally this doesn’t weigh very heavily on our consciousness. We live instead with the sense that we’re not going to die just yet. Our own deaths aren’t really real to us. They are not yet an imminent threat but only a distant, abstract reality.

Generally, such too is the vagueness of our sense of vulnerability. Yes, we know abstractly that we are vulnerable, but generally we feel pretty secure. But as this virus spreads, consumes our newscasts, and brings our normal lives to a halt, our sense of vulnerability is no longer a vague, abstract threat. We’re now much more aware that we all live at the mercies of a million contingencies, most over which we have little control.

However, to our defense, our innate sense that we’re in control and can safeguard our own safety and security should not be too-hastily and too-harshly judged.

We can’t help it. It’s the way we’re built. We’re instinctually geared to hate our weaknesses, our vulnerability, our limitations, and our awareness of our own poverty and are instinctually geared to want to feel secure, in control, independent, invulnerable, and selfsufficient. That’s a mercy of grace and nature because it helps save us from despondency and helps us to live with a (needed) healthy pride. But it’s also an illusion; perhaps one that we need for long periods in our lives but also one that in moments of clarity and lucidity we’re meant dispel so as to acknowledge before God and to ourselves that we’re interdependent, not selfsufficient, and not ultimately in control. Whatever else about this virus, it’s bringing us a moment of clarity and lucidity, even if this is far from welcome.

We were given the same lesson, in effect, with the downing of the Twin Towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. In witnessing this single tragic incident

we went from feeling safe and invulnerable to knowing that we are not able, despite everything we have achieved, to ensure our own safety and safety of our loved ones. A lot of people relearned the meaning of prayer that day. A lot of us are relearning the meaning of prayer as we sit quarantined at home during this coronavirus.

Richard Rohr suggests that the passage from childhood to adulthood requires an initiation into a number of necessary life-truths. One of these can be summarized this way: You are not in control! If that is true, and it is, then this coronavirus is helping initiate us all into a more mature adulthood. We are becoming more conscious of an important truth. However, we may not see any divine intent in this. Every fundamentalist voice that suggests that God sent this virus to each of us as a lesson is dangerously wrong and is an insult to true faith. Still we need to hear God’s voice inside of it. God is speaking all the time but mostly we aren’t listening; this sort of thing helps serve as God’s microphone to a deaf world.

Illusions aren’t easy to dispel, and for good reasons.

We cling to them by instinct and we generally need them to get through life. For this reason, Socrates, in his wisdom, once wrote that “there is nothing that requires as gentle a treatment as the removal of an illusion”. Anything other than gentleness only makes us more resistant.

This coronavirus is anything but gentle. But inside all its harshness perhaps we might feel a gentle nudge that will help us dispel the illusion that we are in control.

OBLATE FATHER RON ROLHEISER is president of the Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas.

‘FIELD HOSPITAL’: Europe’s churches offer empty facilities in crisis FROM PAGE 1

from northern Italy where hospitals are stretched beyond their limits in the crisis.

Archbishop Woelki also said starting March 30, homeless would be able to get a hot meal and take a shower at the seminary. He made the announcement in a service that was held in Cologne cathedral without a congregation and streamed online. He pointed out that the homeless were especially hard hit by the corona pandemic, KNA reported.

In Ukraine, Father Lubomyr Javorski, finance officer of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, acknowledged the pastoral role of chaplains, but said, “The church also has many property resources which can be used during the pandemic. These facilities can be converted into hospitals, but also made available to physicians far from their workplaces, and to people returning from abroad with nowhere to spend their quarantine.”

Bishop Mario Iceta Gavicagogeascoa of Bilbao, Spain, said he, like other bishops, had been forced to close local churches, but was now preparing some for pandemic victims.

“We’ve responded to the appeal of civil authorities by making facilities and buildings available,” Bishop Iceta told the Religion-Digital news agency March 25.

“The conversion of a religious congregation building here is already underway, and the authorities are studying how to prepare other diocesan properties,” he said.

Bishop Iceta told Religion-Digital Catholic he was ready to resume his previous career as a doctor, if Pope Francis consented.

“The church, as Pope Francis says, is a field hospital – isn’t this a favorable occasion to deploy the services of this hospital?” said the 55-year-old bishop, who trained as a surgeon before his ordination and sits on Bilbao’s Academy of Medical Sciences.

“I haven’t practiced medicine for a long time and would need to catch up on current advances. But if it were necessary and there was no better solution, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would offer to resume.”

In Italy, TV channels showed San Giuseppe Church at Seriate being used as a depository for coffins, which were later gathered by military trucks for

cremation as local authorities struggled with the scale of deaths.

In Germany, one southern diocese said it had opened a telephone hotline for needs ranging from shopping to child care, while Benedictine nuns in Bavaria said March 26 they were manufacturing 100 reusable respiratory masks daily for local hospitals.

In Portugal, dioceses offered seminary rooms and other facilities to health professionals and civil protection teams.

The Catholic Ecclesia news agency reported March 26 Portugal’s Guarda Diocese had turned over its apostolic center for “emergency care,” while the Jesuit order’s Oficina technical college in Lisbon said it was producing visors with 3-D technology for local medical centers.

“The manufacture of visors immediately aroused interest from other sectors, such as firefighters, municipality officials and security forces,” the school’s director, Miguel Sa Carneiro, told Ecclesia. “Former students whose companies have this equipment are making it available, and we’re creating a network of partnerships to will allow increased production.”

PUTHOTA: The necessity of wounds FROM PAGE 8

Jesus’ suffering because of striking similarities. The first reading (third servant song) this Palm Sunday speaks of the suffering inflicted on God’s servant.

They beat him, pluck his beard, spit on him, and humiliate him, but the servant is resolute in his trust of God. The fourth servant song from Isaiah speaks even more graphically of the servant’s wounds and the causes for which he was ready to receive them: “… he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed … because of his anguish he shall the light; … My servant, the just one, shall justify the many, their iniquity he shall bear… he surrendered himself to death, was counted among the transgressors, bore the sins of many, and interceded for the transgressors” (53:5,11,12).

The responsorial Psalm 22 continues the theme of wounds, suffering, and abandonment. The poetic hymn from the Philippians speaks of Jesus’s kenosis

(self-emptying), obedience, death on the cross, his exaltation by the Father, and our confession of Jesus as Lord. The Gospel of Matthew, we are aware, was written to persuade his Jewish and the new Christian community that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. In the long passion narrative, Jesus is the suffering servant who undergoes stages of gruesome suffering climaxing in grisly crucifixion.

In his monumental two-volume work, “The Death of the Messiah,” Raymond E. Brown speaks about Matthew portraying Jesus as being in full knowledge and control of the events through all his sufferings.

Jesus is deeply enshrined in the salvation history of Israel and fulfills God’s messianic promises to Israel.

Like their Master, Christians would face betrayal and sufferings and be abandoned. The church’s mission now is to continue the new age of salvation ushered in by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The introductory statement of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on “The Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium Et Spes) spells out the Church’s vision of

the mission: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.” In this time of coronavirusrelated apprehension and insecurity, we as a church are to be the sign of solidarity with the world. This Palm Sunday, all by ourselves in our homes, we commemorate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, followed by the mysteries we traditionally hold sacred on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and on Holy Saturday with the vigil service of Easter and on Easter day itself. United in spirit with one another, with the whole church and other churches and religions, and with the whole wide world, through love and faith, let us open our lives in a whole new way to the redemptive grace of Jesus’ suffering and the joyful hope of Easter.

FATHER CHARLES PUTHOTA is pastor of St. Veronica Parish, South San Francisco.

10 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

Pandemic radically alters Catholic end-of-life experience CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Catholic end-of-life rites and rituals have long brought peace to the dying and comfort to the people they leave behind. But the highly contagious coronavirus is forcing priests, cemetery professionals and the grieving to quickly adjust to new realities.

Pastoral visitation and sacramental anointing of the sick, vigils, funerals and burial of the dead, and mourning the loss of a loved one is, in the age of coronavirus, more complicated and for some, simply heartbreaking.

Monica Williams, director of the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s seven Catholic cemeteries, described the pandemic’s impact on the Catholic experience of dying, death and grieving in a phone interview March 25.

“One thing we know about death and grieving is that it finds a good, healthy outlet in ritual and strong community support,” she said. “And those two things have been compromised by this pandemic.”

Anointing of the sick

The anointing of the sick is one of the seven sacraments given by priests to sick, old or dying Catholics.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone outlined modifications to this rite in a memo issued to the priests of the archdiocese March 16.

“The thing that’s really important is that priests limit themselves to dipping into the oil of the sick only once,” said Msgr. John Talesfore, pastor of St. Matthew Parish in San Mateo.

He told the paper March 26 that he was unaware of anyone in his school or parish who has contracted the virus. Still, he instructed his pastoral staff early on with strict modifications to the process.

“I’ve been acting from the perspective that we should behave as if we have the virus so we can protect others,” he said. “In doing so will be most apt to protect ourselves.”

The forehead and palms of the sick are anointed in the sacrament, and the memo states that priests may use a thumb as they always have, or a cotton ball dipped just once in oil, instead.

Priests must clean their thumb after each anointing with a sterile towelette. Used towelettes or cotton balls must be either burned or buried afterward (a religious requirement, not a medical one).

Msgr. Talesfore, who is 60, said the archbishop has requested that when possible in a parish setting, priests younger than 60 “take the brunt” of sick calls.

He knows of no priest in the archdiocese who has had an opportunity to anoint a person with the coronavirus. He replied quickly when asked about

(COURTESY PHOTO)

Mourners gather at a gravesite at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. his fears of contracting the virus himself in priestly service.

“It’s certainly a consideration when we see how many priests have died in Italy,” he said. “I can only speak for myself, but if a person were desiring the sacraments and I had access, I would go, I would not think about it.”

Vigils, funerals and burial

With shelter-in-place mandates in effect throughout the state, social distancing the norm, and all public Masses canceled by the archbishop, the Catholic cemeteries’ offices are closed to the public, Williams said.

Cemetery staff are working reduced hours and split shifts to “enable us to continue to fulfill our ministry,” she said. Final arrangements are being done for the most part by phone or email.

What is available to a bereaved family at the cemetery is a small burial or interment service at the gravesite or crypt limited to a maximum of 10 people.

San Francisco funeral homes are permitting no gatherings at all.

“Generally, people have been compliant, I will say, but certainly very disappointed, very hurt,” Williams said. “This is a hard time for someone to lose someone they love and not really be able to say goodbye in a way that is as supportive as we normally think of a big public funerals as being.”

Msgr. Talesfore said he was at the cemetery twice in recent weeks for burial services for two different families.

When he got to the cemetery for one, he saw a long chain of cars coming up the drive.

“I don’t feel good about people’s judgement in these circumstances,” he said. “I think that’s why we have to act with an abundance of caution.”

He said all the prayers of final commendation at the burial site and told the families he would offer Mass privately for the deceased.

He’s trying to help families understand the power of the Mass even if they are not present for it.

“While being present does have added efficacy in their own spiritual life and their relationship with the Lord, the power of that sacrament is not hindered in these circumstances either for the deceased or for them,” he said.

Williams said a number of families who have chosen cremation have decided to postpone services “until we get to the other side of this and we can welcome back larger groups of people.”

Planning a memorial Mass, possibly on the birthday or anniversary date of the deceased, can help restore some of a family’s need for ritual and remembrance after a loss during the pandemic.

“Create a little ritual together even if we can’t have the big ritual,” she said. “Assemble pictures and begin to plan that very special time where we can be together celebrating that person’s life and thanking God for the gift that they’ve been.”

Grief without human contact

“In grief, touch is one of the healing pieces, and we can’t do that right now,” said Mercy Sister Toni Gallagher, bereavement coordinator of the archdiocese’s grief and consolation ministry.

She wrote at length about the “loss of relationship” in a March 24 reflection on grief and the coronavirus.

“The touch, the warmth, the hand of another,” she wrote about the loss of human contact. “The grasp that says I am with you in this, I am here for you.”

Families who lose someone they love may feel they have no way to mourn together, but there are many things they still can do, said Sister Gallagher.

“There’s nothing to prevent them to go to a family plot and remembering,” she said. “There’s nothing to prevent them from praying the rosary together.”

Sister Gallagher said it’s important to empower mourners and consolers alike to see that “this is a faith moment.”

“Our hands are tied, but are hearts aren’t tied,” she said. “If we are not to be carrying the cross with each other, what is our faith about?”

Small businesses weather pandemic a day at a time CLARE DEIGNAN CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Small businesses are struggling through the pandemic a day at a time, with no end date to shelterin-place orders that have been in force nearly three weeks and no idea how long the recovery might take when the emergency is over.

Michael Norton, president and owner of McCoy Church Goods in San Mateo, said that for the safety of staff and customers the store is accepting orders only by phone and mail. “We’re a bit of a hardware store for churches and so we want to make sure that they have their needs covered, too,” he said.

Norton has not had to lay off anyone at this time.

“People aren’t coming in because of the shelter-inplace so we’re going to tap into vacation time and sick leave,” he said.

But looking ahead to the next few months, Norton is unsure how long he’ll be able to pay staff salaries or even the rent.

“I am still trying to figure what that’s going to be like in the next few months, but we’re trying to do our best,” he said. “I’m taking it one day at a time.’

When asked what people can do to support the business, Norton laughed: “I know prayers are free.”

Urban Soul Salon owner Ann Fan is taking the pandemic’s economic fallout one day at a time, too.

After immigrating from China, where she had practiced law, Fan had to reinvent her career. In November, she moved to a larger space in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, running her hair salon from the main

(CNS PHOTO/SHANNON STAPLETON, REUTERS)

Employees laid off from an Oakland cafe that closed due to the financial crisis caused by the coronavirus collect food items March 18, 2020.

floor and practicing classical Chinese acupuncture on the lower floor.

She does not face any immediate economic concerns and is focusing on her health: eating and sleeping well.

“I’ve got many clients calling to say, ‘We know we can’t see you, but do you mind if we prepay you to help you out,’” Fan said. “We have a lot of people who care about each other and this is the most important thing for the country. I believe America will be the country to recover first.”

A third small business owner, an electrician, told Catholic San Francisco that he has had to let two employees go and has two remaining. Most of his jobs

are ending and he has no new jobs lined up, said the business owner, who asked to remain anonymous for this article.

“It’s a disaster,” he said.

“Now, we are going to have to split jobs, every second day, and decide who goes to work and who stays home,” he said. “It’s a day at a time. I think it’s the same for everybody, so we are going to just have to figure it out.”

Nearly 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week ending March 21 as shelter-in-place orders shut down large parts of the economy, with service industries especially hardhit. It was the highest weekly number since the U.S. Labor Department began keeping records. The previous record was 695,000 in October 1982.

The current economic downturn is unusual, said Alexander Field, an economics professor at Santa Clara University.

“It’s one that’s specifically caused by various actions governors have ordered to try to flatten the curve, save lives and slow the spread of the virus,” he said. “Other recessions are caused by various factors which cause spending to go down and then … that drags down output.”

Field said the $2 trillion stimulus package passed

by Congress and signed by President Trump will offer some relief to small businesses and workers, but he is unsure if it will be enough. He said that no matter how long shelter-in-place orders remain, it will take time to return to normal.

“We don’t have good fix on an exit strategy,” he said.

WORLD 11

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

Rome’s homeless find refuge near the Vatican HANNAH BROCKHAUS CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY

ROME, Italy – Along the edge of Bernini’s colonnade, the semi-circular rows of columns which wrap St. Peter’s Square in Rome, many homeless spend time during the day and sleep at night, as tourists and locals walk by.

But during the coronavirus pandemic, which has led Italian authorities to lock down the country, close St. Peter’s Square, and order everyone to stay home, where can those with nowhere to go find shelter?

There are an estimated 8,000 homeless in Rome, according to Massimiliano Signifredi, communications director for Sant’Egidio, a Catholic community and volunteer network based in Rome.

“Unfortunately, no one has thought of these people,” he told CNA. “These people are at risk, not only because of the virus, but because of isolation.”

Of those 8,000 homeless, he explained that around 3,000 will not be able to find room in shelters across the city, and instead choose “to live at the train stations and at places like St. Peter’s Square, which continues to be a place of refuge for those without a home.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, with the streets abandoned and bars and restaurants closed, “those who do not have a home find themselves in great difficulty,” Signifredi said. “Even to go to the bathroom is a problem without a house; and to wash your hands frequently, like we should, you cannot do if you are on the street.”

One state police officer who works near the Vatican, and who spoke to CNA on condition of anonymity, said one of the places where many homeless typically sleep at night – under the gallery of one of the nearby buildings – is now empty.

But the outer edge of Bernini’s colonnade still hosts many of its usual guests, though numbers are slightly reduced. “Some people really do not want

(CNS PHOTO/GUGLIELMO MANGIAPANE, REUTERS)

A homeless person is treated by a Red Cross worker during the COVID-19 outbreak in Rome March 17, 2020.

to go; they prefer to stay outside,” the officer said, adding that the police cannot force anyone to go to a shelter against his or her wish.

Despite added risks, the services for homeless men and women near the Vatican have continued uninterrupted, including the papal charities-run showers and bathrooms, located under and between the right colonnade and a Vatican wall.

Now, volunteers take names in the morning of people wanting to use the facilities, and police use the lists to allow those people to enter the area, accessible only through the closed square.

Sant’Egidio and another Catholic charity, Caritas Roma, continuing to distribute food to people in need according to their usual schedules.

Access to a meal is especially difficult during the coronavirus lockdown, since there are no open restaurants giving out food at the end of the day and no one passing by to offer something or to give some money, Signifredi said.

“For these people, we have not interrupted our delivery of food on the street, because we look for these people all year,” he explained. “We know where they are.”

Last November, the Vatican’s office of papal charities and Sant’Egidio together opened a new shelter and soup kitchen in a building facing the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.

Palazzo Migliori has around 30 beds. Signifredi said previously people would enter the shelter at 7 p.m., have dinner, sleep, and leave around 8 p.m. the next morning. Now, trying to help people stay off the streets even during the day, they have drastically extended these hours.

“So people stay inside their ‘home’ as much as possible,” he said.

Now the guests can enter the shelter at 4:30 p.m., staying until the next day after lunch, only having to spend a few hours outside. They can also get all three meals at the soup kitchen.

Signifredi said the principle worry of men and women living on the streets right now is “they will not find the necessary help to live, they will be more isolated.”

“They see that the [city’s streets are] empty and that there is no one to help. I can tell you that people are very grateful when we go to find them.”

He said though volunteers are wearing masks and gloves and maintaining one meter of distance between themselves and others, “a physical distance does not mean a human distance.”

“We should continue to communicate the fact that they are our friends … We cannot shake hands or give a hug, but we can continue to communicate our affection for a person.” Even with the mask on the eyes can show a smile, he stated.

Philippine doctors among worst-hit COVID-19 casualties JOSEPH PETER CALLEJA UNION OF CATHOLIC ASIAN NEWS

MANILA, Philippines – The coronavirus has claimed the lives of 12 doctors in the Philippines, while at least seven are quarantined in hospitals after testing positive, according to the Philippine Medical Association.

The number of deaths among doctors accounts for almost 17% of the 71 recorded fatalities caused

by COVID-19.

“We are still grieving but at this point we cannot do anything about what has lapsed already, what has been done already,” Dr. Oscar Tinio, the association’s chairman, said on March 29 in an interview.

The senior health official said the deaths and quarantining of medical staff have made an acute shortage of doctors in the country worse, saying the ratio of doctors to patients in the Philippines was al-

VIA PHONE, PRIEST HELPS DYING MAN THROUGH ACT OF CONTRITION, PRAYER

PORTLAND, Ore. – Because of hospital coronavirus restrictions, a suburban Portland priest March 22 was not allowed to meet with a Catholic patient dying of COVID-19.

Msgr. John Cihak, pastor of Christ the King Parish in Milwaukie, did make telephone contact and because of a provision in church law was able to lead him through the process of an act of contrition and a prayer for forgiveness.

“This may become a common occurrence given restrictions placed by hospitals,” said a March 23 memo to western Oregon priests from Msgr. Gerard O’Connor, director of the Office of Divine Worship of the Archdiocese of Portland.

Although the sacraments of reconciliation and anointing of the sick cannot be administered over the telephone, a Vatican tribunal’s March 19 indulgence offers another possibility.

“Where the individual faithful find themselves in the painful impossibility of receiving sacramental absolution, it should be remembered that perfect

ready very high at 1:40,000.“This is way higher than the ideal ratio of one doctor per 10,000 patients,” Tinio said.Many doctors have voiced concerns over a lack of protection on the front line.

“We are willing to risk our lives to fight this pandemic. But we need help and cooperation from the government and from the public by staying at home and by giving us more masks and personal protective equipment (PPE),” said another doctor who wished to remain anonymous.

Many hospitals are relying on donation drives to help them and their health workers outside Manila after they complained of a lack of masks and PPE on social media.

Meanwhile, the Philippines is continuing its fight against the pandemic by conducting more Covid-19 tests nationwide. The Department of Health is conducting 1,000 tests per day, up from 300 last week.

“Let us expect that there will be more COVID positives because our testing capacity has also increased,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque said.

Duque told the public not to expect the number of cases to immediately drop because the Philippines has just begun conducting more tests. The government has also been working with Manila Archdiocese in sheltering not only street dwellers but also health workers fighting the pandemic.

“Our front-liners will be most welcome in the dorms and bedrooms of religious and diocesan formation centers and retreat houses,” said Bishop Ambo David, vice president of the Catholic bishops’ conference.

The prelate, together with Caritas Kalookan, is also spearheading a food program in his own diocese. He called those helping the program “foot soldiers” for being “brave enough to go out and deliver food to the poor so that they can stay home.”

contrition, coming from the love of God, beloved above all things, expressed by a sincere request for forgiveness (that which the penitent is at present able to express) and accompanied by ‘votum confessionis,’ that is, by the firm resolution to have recourse, as soon as possible, to sacramental confession, obtains forgiveness of sins, even mortal ones,” said the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, reaffirming longstanding church law regarding forgiveness when confession is not possible.

nourish social relations and care for the person” during this pandemic, it said.

All 163 papal academicians were asked to take part, and the “Note on the COVID-19 Emergency” was the result of that consultation, the academy said in a news release. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, academy president, gave Pope Francis a copy of the text during a private meeting in the Apostolic Palace March 30.

“The pope confided in me two of his concerns: how to help right now, especially the weakest; and for the future, how to come out of this (crisis) strengthened in solidarity,” including on a global level, the archbishop said in the written statement.

Titled, “Pandemic and Universal Brotherhood,” the text highlights what ethical standards must prevail when dealing with the care and support of both individuals and communities in health care as well as more “existential” concerns that often go ignored in a world increasingly focused on individual rights, isolationist national interests and a flood of data divorced from the people it represents.

PAPAL ACADEMY: SOLIDARITY NEEDED IN PANDEMIC

VATICAN CITY – The COVID-19 pandemic has caught entire communities and nations off guard, and the best way to tackle this global crisis is together as a global family, the Pontifical Academy for Life said.

“An emergency like that of COVID-19 is overcome with, above all, the antibodies of solidarity,” the academy said in a seven-page “note” published March 30 on its website, academyforlife.va.

With experts in the field of science and ethics, the papal academy wished to “contribute its own reflections” in order to foster “a renewed spirit that must

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

12 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | APRIL 2, 2020

Vincentians aid vulnerable in three counties CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Staff and volunteers of St. Vincent de Paul Society conferences in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin County are busy helping feed and even house the homeless and needy during the coronavirus pandemic.

Sts. Peter and Paul parishioner Marc Bruno sent Catholic San Francisco images showing members of the parish SVdP conference distributing food to homeless and hungry men and women in North Beach March 30.

Bagged meals were stationed on an ironing board set up in front of the church, he said, while recipients stood at six-foot social distancing markers on the sidewalk.

“I’ve never seen such an orderly and thankful crowd,” Bruno said.

Three volunteers walked up Columbus Avenue and Green and Vallejo streets delivering baskets of food to people sitting on the sidewalks.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County assisted more than 90 families with food in rural Pescadero thanks to the St. Matthew Parish conference, spokeswoman Krissy Lagomarino said.

“We set up our own drive-through food pantry and observed social distancing guidelines,” she said.

Also, in the past two weeks, members of the St. Matthew conference made 55 home visits to drop food bags and Safeway gift cards.

In Marin County, SVdP staff are back to work at the nonprofit’s free dining hall in downtown San Rafael.

Wearing full protective gear, the staff serve bagged breakfasts and lunches prepared by vol-

(COURTESY PHOTOS)

Members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society conference of St. Peter and Paul Parish in San Francisco handed out 55 bags of food to the homeless in the North Beach neighborhood March 30. unteers sheltering in place at home, including the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael.

“We have county disaster workers on-site with us every day, encouraging our diners to maintain social distance and wash their hands while waiting to get up to the door,” deputy director Suzanne Walker said.

Walker said SVdP of Marin joined the county’s effort to place people experiencing homelessness in local motel rooms to facilitate broad-based sheltering-in-place.

“There were 15 homeless families and 30 individuals brought into motel rooms in March,” she said.

SVdP staff made food runs to those hotels.

Keeping apart but staying connected

(CNS PHOTO/DAVID RYDER, REUTERS)

(CNS PHOTO/KATIE RUTTER)

(CNS PHOTO/SHANNON STAPLETON, REUTERS)

(CNS PHOTO/MARCO BELLO, REUTERS)

Left, young people in Seattle practice social distancing March 27, 2020. Right, Brian and Katie Rutter watch a Mass that their pastor, Father Tom Kovatch, livestreamed from St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Bloomington, Ind., March 28, 2020.

Left, people in Carmel-by-the-Sea are seen at the beach March 28, 2020. Right, people in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., watch a movie at a drive-in theater during the coronavirus pandemic March 28, 2020. President Donald Trump extended the social distancing guidelines until April 30.

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love under the mantle of Our Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. love under the mantle of Our Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy.

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