How will the Church in Ireland be situated when all this is over?

In a strange way, this crisis could act as a moment of grace as well as of suffering, writes David Quinn

With public Masses suspended, we find ourselves in unprecedented times. How many previously regular Massgoers will revert to their pre-crisis levels of attendance? That’s only one of the questions to be considered in this present moment.

The immediate task is, of course, to save lives. We must also try to ensure that people’s livelihoods are not wrecked over the long-term because that would also extract a tremendous toll. Marriages would be destroyed, mental health problems escalate, our ability to fund a decent healthcare service into the future compromised.

The Church itself has always been in the business of saving lives. An eye-opening article for me was written by a Chinese writer, William Huang, for the online Catholic magazine Mercatornet.com. He showed how modern China’s network of hospitals rests on a foundation originally laid down by Christian missionaries in the 19th Century.

Indeed, the very first hospital in Wuhan, the city in China from which this pandemic originated, was founded by an Italian bishop, a Franciscan named Eustachius Zanoli.

Outbreak

All around the world, hospitals that were originally Christian, or are still Christian, are responding to this disease outbreak. The Church alone runs 5,500 hospitals worldwide, and about 16,000 health clinics, most of them in the developing world. As Catholics, we can be very proud of this. Our outreach to the sick reaches back 2,000 years. The modern hospital system grew out of Christianity. We cannot assume it would have developed on its own. If it was an inevitable development, then why did so many cultures not have one in place before the arrival of Christianity?

But the first concern of the Church is for souls. This seems like an old-fashioned thing to say, but above all else the Church is concerned with how each of one us stands in relation to God. The Church must be a good shepherd in season and out of season. Above all, it must be a good shepherd when the wolf is at the gate, or worse, among the flock, as this one is.

It must protect our physical well-being, and also our spiritual well-being, ensuring we do not lose faith or hope.

This is why Pope Francis has said that if the Church abandons people now, at this hour of crisis, then the people will abandon it.

Fortunately, in Italy, priests appear to be stepping up to the mark. They are risking their lives for their parishioners. As at last week, 60 priests had died in northern Italy. Some of these will have picked up the virus in the same way as everyone else – by unknowingly having contact with an infected person.

If priests and religious and lay Catholic volunteers who are not medics stepped back, the cost would not be in lives, but in spiritual welfare”

But others will have been infected while bringing the last sacraments to sick and dying people, knowing the risk they were taking.

We are all called to be like Christ. But the priest in particular stands as an icon of Christ, willing to lay down his life for others, as Christ did. This is the biggest demand we can ever make of anyone. It cannot even be a demand, or an expectation for that matter. It is extraordinary that priests and religious – both female and male – as well as laity would deliberately risk their lives for others voluntarily.

Nurses and doctors are doing the same thing, of course, including my own wife, who is a nurse. Without them, the whole battle against this blight would fail. But if priests and religious and lay Catholic volunteers who are not medics stepped back, the cost would not be in lives, but in spiritual welfare, and that cannot be overestimated.

Those priests and religious and lay people, including lay chaplains, are taking risks for the sake of the spiritual well-being of their fellow Catholics.

That is what is happening in Italy but what is happening here? At the time of writing, it might be too early to say. We are not at the same critical stage as Italy and, God willing, never will be, because northern Italy has particular reasons why it is so bad (such as a much older population, intergenerational living, large numbers living in apartment blocks, poor local air quality, many smokers, very strong trade links with Wuhan), but things will get worse here and then we will see what the Church in Ireland is really made of.

We see the strange sight of priests and bishops preaching to deliberately empty churches”

For example, as of now, are bishops and priests already quietly visiting dying people in the hospitals to bring them the Last Rites?

The churches are closed, as we know. People cannot attend Mass. This is unprecedented. There appears to be no record of churches ever before shutting up so systematically in a pandemic in the long ages of the Church.

Priests, as we know, are using the internet to reach their parishioners through conducting online Masses. We see the strange sight of priests and bishops preaching to deliberately empty churches in hope that they are reaching many at home.

We witnessed the moving sight of bishops such as Eamon Martin and Phonsie Cullinan carrying the Eucharist through the empty streets of their towns. Parish priests should consider following suit. Perhaps many already are.

As for ordinary Catholics, what are we doing? Are we praying, studying the bible, reading the great spiritual writers?

In a strange way, this crisis could act as a moment of grace as well as of suffering, as a time when we realise what really matters in life. The Church can help us come to this realisation, as can our own private prayers and meditation.

The Bible says: “Be still and know that I am God.” Right now we are being forced to be still.

Depending on how the Church responds in the coming weeks, people will return to Mass. Indeed, perhaps we might even see an increase in number if there is a sufficient realisation that it is the Ultimate Things that really count. Certainly we can pray for that. God will rarely give what we do not pray for in earnest.