Pope marks ‘Easter of solitude’ in virus lockdown

VATICAN CITY, April 12, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Pope Francis broke with
centuries of tradition to livestream Easter Sunday mass to those
suffering in the solitude of a coronavirus lockdown that forced the
world’s Catholics to improvise on their holiest day.

The 83-year-old pontiff spoke to the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics
from a hauntingly empty Saint Paul’s Cathedral at a ceremony attended
by just a handful of priests and a small choir that was spaced out
across the marble floor.

The pandemic raging outsides the Vatican’s locked gates has killed
more than 109,000 people and left billions confined to their homes.

The pope’s message was livestreamed for the first time — a bow to
technology in the face of a new illness that has changed the shape of
society and altered the way religion is observed.

“For many, this is an Easter of solitude lived amid the sorrow and
hardship that the pandemic is causing, from physical suffering to
economic difficulties,” the pope said quietly.

A handful of priests and a few faithful also gathered at the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City — locked down like the
Vatican — to say prayers at the spot where Christians believe Jesus
was crucified and resurrected on Easter.

– ‘Not a time for division’ –

The pope urged the world’s leaders to put aside their political
fights and call back their armies during a global health emergency of
a magnitude not seen in 100 years.

“This is not a time for division,” Francis said.

“May Christ enlighten all who have responsibility in conflicts, that
they may have the courage to support the appeal for an immediate
global ceasefire in all corners of the world.”

He said health considerations required world powers to ease
crippling economic sanctions imposed against their adversaries — a
possible reference to those weighing over pandemic-hit Iran.

“In light of the present circumstances, may international sanctions
be relaxed, since these make it difficult for countries on which they
have been imposed to provide adequate support to their citizens,”
Francis said.

He called for a “reduction, if not the forgiveness, of the debt
burdening the balance sheets of the poorest nations” and for European
nations to show the same “solidarity” they did in the wake of World
War II.

“After the Second World War, this beloved continent was able to rise
again,” he said.

“The European Union is presently facing an epochal challenge, on
which will depend not only its future but that of the whole world.”

– Religious improvisation –

The pope’s virtual Easter Sunday message was just the most vivid
example of religious improvisation in the age of social distancing and
confinement.

The faithful have already followed his advice and found creative solutions.

The archbishop of Panama took to the air and blessed his tiny
Central American nation from a helicopter. The faithful in Spain
blasted religious music from their balconies during Holy Week.

A parish near the Philippines’ capital Manila pasted the empty pews
with family photos that the faithful had emailed to the priest.

“Those photos are the representations of the people who are watching
and attending mass through livestreaming, so we also feel their
presence virtually,” priest Mark Christopher De Leon said. The
Orthodox Church in Greece is planning to hold mass behind closed doors
for its Easter on April 19.

Jews across the world did their best by using Zoom or other video
conferencing apps to “seder-in-place” when the eight-day Passover
holiday started on Wednesday evening.

State television in Lebanon broadcast mass under lockdown from an
empty church north of Beirut.

Catholics in neighbouring Syria — where celebrations had continued
in Christian quarters of Damascus despite years of agonising war —
stayed home this time because of the virus.

But an AFP reporter said many were watching a Facebook Live
celebration by the country’s patriarch.

Westminster Abbey in London is following the technological trend by
releasing Easter podcasts for the faithful of the Anglican Church.

And priests at France’s Roman Catholic shrine in the southwestern
town of Lourdes were relaying nine consecutive days of prayers on
Sunday by Facebook Live and YouTube.

In Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told a live mass broadcast live
that Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church had forgiven suicide bombers
behind attacks that killed at least 279 people last Easter.

“We offered love to the enemies who tried to destroy us,” he said.

– ‘Saints next door’ –

The lockdown forced the pope to improvise throughout Holy Week.

In previous years he had observed Holy Thursday service marking
Christ’s last supper by washing the feet of 12 inmates on the
outskirts of Rome.

The virus made this impossible.

Francis instead said a prayer for the dozens of priests and health
workers who have died across Italy while attending to the sick.

“They are the saints next door, the priests who gave their lives by
serving,” Francis said.

He invited five nurses and doctors to accompany him for the Good
Friday processions in order to highlight their profession’s sacrifices
over the past month.

Francis himself has reportedly been tested twice for COVID-19 since
coming down with a cold at the end of February.

He told the Catholic newspapers that people across the world could
try to spiritually escape their confinement through introspection.

“So: to be in lockdown, but yearning, with that memory that yearns
and begets hope,” the pope said.

“This is what will help us escape our confinement.”