lifesitenews--2020-03-15--Follow LIVE coronavirus updates here

Follow LIVE coronavirus updates here

LifeSiteNews is providing live coronavirus updates relevant to our readers on this page .
Please continue to check back for more information .
• U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put the British army “ on standby to keep food on supermarket shelves and petrol [ gas ] stations stocked with petrol as the coronavirus crisis intensifies.
” • Many Catholic Masses in Ireland have been cancelled .
The public health authorities on the Emerald Isle apparently are limiting public gatherings to 100 people .
• Spain and France are both on lockdown .
“ In Spain , people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ essential supplies and medicines , or for work , ” the BBC reported .
“ With 191 deaths , Spain is Europe 's worst-hit country after Italy .
In France , where 91 people have died , cafes , restaurants , cinemas and most shops are now shut.
” • Ren Zhiqiang , a high-profile Chinese tycoon , has disappeared after criticizing Xi Jinping ’ s response to the coronavirus , which originated in China .
• President Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus .
The wife of Spain 's prime minister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington Post .
• The Vatican has announced that “ because of the current global public health emergency , all the Liturgical Celebrations of Holy Week will take place without the physical presence of the faithful ” and “ until April 12 the General Audiences and the Angelus presided over by the Holy Father will be available only in live streaming on the official Vatican News website.
” • Georgia and Louisiana have both delayed their primary elections because of the coronavirus .
• Beginning Monday through May 11 , the U.S. Defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ domestically .
“ Service members will be authorized local leave only , although the Pentagon says exemptions may be granted ‘ for compelling cases , ’ ” Politico reported .
“ The Defense Department has also suspended ‘ unofficial visits ’ to the Pentagon and other facilities in the Washington area.
” March 14 , 2020 , 9:29 p.m. EST : The Archdiocese of Baltimore has cancelled all public Masses indefinitely .
Maryland Gov .
Larry Hogan has issued an executive order that says people who violate his ban on gatherings of more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a year in jail and $ 5,000 in fines .
Rev .
Mahoney will be livestreaming prayer outside the U.S. Capitol tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. EST .
March 14 , 2020 , 1:53 p.m. EST : The Archdiocese of New York , which serves 2.81 million Catholics , has cancelled Masses this weekend .
March 14 , 2020 , 1:21 p.m. EST : In his signature ecclesial prose , Vatican whistleblower and former nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has written about the coronavirus situation : His full statement can be read here .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ EST : As Catholic bishops around the world cancel public Masses and shutter churches , President Trump has declared this coming Sunday , March 15 as a “ National Day of Prayer.
” “ I am suspending for the time being the public celebration of Mass , both for Sunday obligation and daily Masses , beginning with this weekend ’ s Saturday afternoon Masses , ” Bishop Mark Brennan of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston wrote to Catholics in West Virginia , the entire state of which is in his canonical jurisdiction .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Roman Missal makes provision for a ‘ Mass without a Congregation ’ and I ask them to offer that Mass privately for their people.
” Milkwaukee ’ s Bishop Jerome Listecki has dispensed his flock from their Sunday Mass obligation through March 29 , 2020 , but didn ’ t prohibit priests from offering Mass publicly .
He encouraged priests to “ recommend to parishioners that communion be received in the hand versus on the tongue , ” despite the fact that receiving Communion on the tongue is likely far more sanitary and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the exception , not the rule , around the world .
“ This is not to dismiss personal piety and practice , but rather to make a choice that is best for the good of all .
In the same manner , I am discouraging reception of the Eucharist via the Precious Blood .
However , we must make sure some portion of the Precious Blood remains available for those who are gluten intolerant , ” Listecki continued .
“ The Sign of Peace is part of the ritual of the Mass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he insisted .
“ However , how we express the exchange of peace with one another can be either eliminated or announced to only include a simple bow or nod.
” In the Traditional Latin Mass , the faithful do not shake hands or converse duringg the Sign of Peace .
“ We don ’ t anticipate cancelling Sacraments – Mass , Reconciliation , Confirmation – but we will continue to monitor what is happening , ” Listecki added .
Meanwhile , a bioethicist who thinks people should die at age 75 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the coronavirus .
The Biden advisor , Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel , wrote in 2014 that he “ hope [ s ] to die at 75 , ” because “ living too long ” renders people uncreative , unable to work , “ faltering and declining , ” and “ transforms how people experience us , relate to us , and , most important , remember us .
We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble , ineffectual , even pathetic.
” March 13 , 2020 , 6:48 p.m. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Diocese of Dallas have suspended public Masses , denying over 1 million Catholics access to the Eucharist this weekend .
The Diocese of San Diego , led by Bishop Robert McElroy , is suspending Masses starting on Monday .
McElroy recently claimed that climate change is more deadly than abortion .
March 13 , 2020 , 5:52 p.m. EST : The Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York has affirmed the right of the faithful to receive Holy Communion on the tongue .
“ Catholics are hereby dispensed from their obligation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of March 14-15 , March 21-22 and March 28-29 , ” the diocese also announced .
“ Churches will remain open and Mass schedules will remain mostly unchanged .
However , the obligation is lifted for those three weekends .
We will continue to monitor official health advisories and update these directives accordingly.
” The faithful were reminded , “ Catholics who attend Holy Mass are not required to receive Holy Communion more than once per year .
No one is under any obligation to either receive or distribute Holy Communion.
” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the tongue still have that right , though they may freely choose to receive the Sacred Host in their hands during this precautionary time .
( See Redemptionis Sacramentum , no .
92 ) ” The 11:00 a.m. EST Sunday Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul , the Mother Church of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia , will be offered “ for all those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe as well as those working to provide for the health and safety of persons around the world.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nelson Perez will offer that Mass , which will be livestreamed .
Several hours south , the Diocese of Arlington inexplicably deleted from its website a statement that noted public health officials have said Communion on the tongue is not less sanitary than on the hand .
March 13 , 2020 , 5:35 p.m. EST : A source who just arrived in Germany has told LifeSiteNews that Masses in Munich are cancelled .
European countries are instituting more travel bans .
The BBC provides the following list : • Denmark : Bans all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( such as residency or emergency family visit ) • Czech Republic : Bans all foreigners from entering the country , except those with residence permits .
Bans its own nationals from leaving • Slovakia : Closes borders to all foreigners except Poles and those with a residence permit • Austria : Closes three land border crossings with Italy to all foreigners , except those with a medical certificate issued within four days .
No restriction on Austrian nationals • Ukraine : Closes border crossings to foreigners ( except diplomats ) for two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crossings with Italy .
Bus and train travel suspended .
Foreigners may only enter with a medical certificate issued within three days March 13 , 2020 , 5:24 p.m. EST : Tony Perkins , President of the Family Research Council , has more details about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ’ s efforts to exclude pro-life language from the massive coronavirus spending bill making its way through Congress : Congress 's coronavirus bill was supposed to be about saving lives – not taking them !
But tell that to Speaker Nancy Pelosi ( D-Calif. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind exploiting a global tragedy to help out her pals at Planned Parenthood .
Turns out , while Democrats are bashing the president for not working fast enough , they 're bogging down the debate with secret language on abortion .
The revelations should n't have caught anyone by surprise , but when a White House official broke the news that Pelosi tried to bury taxpayer-funded abortion in the stimulus bill , even MSNBC was stunned .
Openly liberal host Joy Reid did n't hold back her amazement , tweeting , “ Wow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ' objections to the House Democrats ' emergency coronavirus bill include issues related to abortion .
What does that have to do with COVID19 ... ?
” Absolutely nothing , which is why so many Republicans – including the president – were so frustrated .
Asked if he supported Pelosi 's first proposal , the president did n't mince words .
“ No , ” he fired back , “ because there are things that are in there that have nothing to do with what we are talking about.
” The original 124-pager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This crisis is not the time “ for them to get some of the goodies that they have n't been able to get for the past 25 years.
” Not only is blowing a hole in the Hyde amendment the surest way to stop progress , it 's also the best way to out themselves as hypocrites .
“ Pelosi wanted to sneak in a billion dollars in funding for abortion programs through the coronavirus stimulus package .
Do n't ever tell me the Democrats are n't politicizing this situation , ” Human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more astounding , Pelosi had the nerve to stand in front of the press and argue that this bill was about “ putting families first.
” If her colleagues had objections , she challenged , they should “ save it.
” “ We need to just make a decision to help families right now ... ” If she really believed that , House Minority Steve Scalise ( R-La . )
wanted to know , why was she trying to stuff the stimulus with “ liberal fantasies that have nothing to do with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a crisis , the only economy Democrats care about is the abortion industry 's .
Perkins also shared his thoughts on state governors pressuring churches to shut down Sunday services , allegedly to stop the spread of coronavirus : Veteran pro-life and human rights activist Rev .
Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition has expressed similar concerns on social media .
March 13 , 2020 , 4:23 p.m. EST : Pro-lifers in Washington , D.C will continue their usual presence outside the city ’ s enormous Planned Parenthood tomorrow , LifeSiteNews @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take “ reasonable precautions ” and stay home if they don ’ t feel well .
March 13 , 2020 , 4:13 p.m. EST : The Archdiocese of Toronto has cancelled all weekend Masses .
Cardinal Thomas Collins issued the following statement ( emphasis in original ) : “ Regarding Holy Communion , some health experts have indicated that it is preferable for communicants to receive the Eucharist in the hand rather than on the tongue , ” Collins also wrote .
“ To respect the right of the faithful to receive Holy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time I would ask that all those who wish to receive in this way be directed to a designated priest , deacon , or Extraordinary Minister .
Where there is only the priest present for distribution of Holy Communion , those who wish to receive communion on the tongue can be invited to come forward after those who have received on the hand.
” Catholics around the world are apparently asking for the intercession of St. Corona , who was martyred in 165 A.D. at age 16 .
March 13 , 2020 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should be an inspiration to every American , ” Vice President Mike Pence said as he praised Trump ’ s response to the coronavirus .
Pence , who led the White House ’ s coronavirus task force , was viciously mocked by many in the media after a photo surfaced of him and others praying before a meeting .
“ I ’ m also asking every hospital in [ the ] country to activate its emergency preparedness plan , ” he said .
He is granting the Department of Health and Human Services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enable telehealth ; the power to waive certain federal license requirements related to medicine ; the ability to waive requirements that limit hospital beds and length of stays ; the ability to waive requirements that people be hospitalized for three days before entering a nursing home ; and the authority to waive rules “ that severely restrict where ” hospitals can care for patients in their facilities .
“ No resource will be spared .
Nothing whatsoever , ” he promised .
Trump also promised the availability of far more coronavirus testing thanks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sector .
“ We don ’ t want everyone running out and taking ” tests unless they have symptoms , Trump noted .
He said the locations of testing spots , some of which apparently will be drive-throughs , will likely be announced Sunday evening .
He predicted the availability of 5 million coronavirus tests within a month but said “ I doubt we ’ ll need anywhere near that.
” “ The goal is for individuals to be able to drive up and be swabbed without having to leave your car , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the federal government “ to develop a website ” quickly – “ unlike websites of the past , ” Trump added , an apparent swipe at Obamacare ’ s disasterous website roll-out – to help people locate testing sites and complete questionnaires about their symptoms and potential risks of having contracted the virus .
Leaders of Walmart , Walgreens , Target , and CVS were with Trump in the Rose Garden and offered reassurances that their stores will remain open .
“ This will pass , ” said Trump .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for it ... a tremendous amount has been learned.
” The stock market has already begun to climb .
March 13 , 2020 , 3:25 p.m. EST : The Catholic bishops of the Netherlands are the latest prelates to cancel weekend Masses because of coronavirus .
Daily Masses are allowed to continue ; the bishops are attempting to ban Communion in the hand .
March 13 , 2020 , 3:10 p.m. EST : Today ’ s episode of The John-Henry Westen Show brings an on-the-ground update from Rome .
In Canada , Archbishop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after experiencing flu-like symptoms .
Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles , president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ( USCCB ) , has issued the following statement : With the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus , we are confronted once more with the fragility of our lives , and again we are reminded of our common humanity — that the peoples of this world are our brothers and sisters , that we are all one family under God .
God does not abandon us , he goes with us even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testing .
In this moment , it is important for us to anchor our hearts in the hope that we have in Jesus Christ .
Now is the time to intensify our prayers and sacrifices for the love of God and the love of our neighbor .
Let us draw closer to one another in our love for him , and rediscover the things that truly matter in our lives .
United with our Holy Father Pope Francis , let us pray in solidarity for our brothers and sisters here and around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pray for those who have lost loved ones to this virus .
May God console them and grant them peace .
We pray also for doctors , nurses , and caregivers , for public health officials and all civic leaders .
May God grant them courage and prudence as they seek to respond to this emergency with compassion and in service to the common good .
In this time of need , I invite all the faithful to seek together the maternal intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe , and I share this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guadalupe , Queen of the Angels and Mother of the Americas .
We fly to you today as your beloved children .
We ask you to intercede for us with your Son , as you did at the wedding in Cana .
Pray for us , loving Mother , and gain for our nation and world , and for all our families and loved ones , the protection of your holy angels , that we may be spared the worst of this illness .
For those already afflicted , we ask you to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Hear the cries of those who are vulnerable and fearful , wipe away their tears and help them to trust .
In this time of trial and testing , teach all of us in the Church to love one another and to be patient and kind .
Help us to bring the peace of Jesus to our land and to our hearts .
We come to you with confidence , knowing that you truly are our compassionate mother , health of the sick and cause of our joy .
Shelter us under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us in the embrace of your arms , help us always to know the love of your Son , Jesus .
Amen .
March 13 , 2020 , 3:03 p.m. EST : As Americans await President Trump ’ s address to the nation during which he is expected to declare a national emergency , Monsignor Rossi announced that the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception will indeed “ suspend the public celebration of Mass and there will be no scheduled Confessions effective Saturday , March 14 , until further notice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington.
” March 13 , 2020 , 2:30 p.m. EST : In Colorado , the Archdiocese of Denver , the Diocese of Colorado Springs , and the Diocese of Pueblo have all suspended public Masses , citing orders from the state ’ s governor against large gatherings .
The rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception , Monsignor Walter Rossi , has announced that the shrine will remain open this weekend .
Rossi is currently taking a leave of absence from the board of the Catholic University of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homosexual predation .
Rossi ’ s decision comes as welcome news to Catholics in the nation ’ s capital whose parishes are all closed this weekend by order of Archbishop Wilton Gregory .
The basilica is not a diocesan despite being physically in the Archdiocese of Washington .
A LifeSiteNews article on this is forthcoming .
March 13 , 2020 , 1:24 p.m. EST : Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of the Archdiocese of Newark have joined Archbishops Gregory and Etienne and Bishop Taylor , cancelling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liturgical services ” in the Chicago archdiocese are banned beginning tomorrow .
Newark will still have daily Masses , but not public Masses on the weekend .
The PGA tournament has become the latest sports championship to be cancelled .
March 13 , 2020 , 12:30 p.m. EST : Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of Little Rock , Arkansas was the first bishop in the United States to cancel all public Masses up to and including Easter Sunday .
He also suggested that it “ would be problematic ” to anoint the sick if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Read LifeSite ’ s article on this from this morning here .
March 13 , 2020 , 12:06 p.m. EST : A letter from Vicar of Rome Cardinal Angelo DeDonatis announcing that the Eternal City ’ s parish churches will be reopened says that the March 12 decision to close all churches in Rome was made in consultation with Pope Francis .
March 13 , 2020 , 11:58 a.m. EST : Brazil ’ s President Bolsonaro says he does not have coronavirus .
A White House source has informed LifeSiteNews that pro-lifers have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which bans most federal dollars from funding abortions , will be applied to the coronavirus testing and spending bill that Congress is expected to pass later today .
U.S. House Democrats have apparently conceded on that front .
March 13 , 2020 ( LifeSiteNews ) – The coronavirus pandemic has churches in multiple countries closed and Masses in some archdioceses cancelled indefinitely , political leaders self-quarantining themselves , and governments enacting strict measures to try to contain the spread of the virus .
The situation is rapidly changing .
LifeSiteNews will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this page .
In the U.S. , it ’ s “ certainly going to get worse before it gets better , ” Dr. Anthony Fauci , head of the government ’ s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases predicted this morning .
“ There 's no doubt we have not peaked yet.
” This morning , the Diocese of Rome announced it is reopening its parish churches for prayer , although Masses are still suspended .
Additionally , the churches of religious and monastic communities are supposed to stay open .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the same communities that habitually use them , ” since they are living there .
Others are not allowed to enter , according to the new decree .
Churches have been closed to the faithful in both Italy and Slovakia .
Polish bishops , however , have called for more Masses in response to the coronavirus , saying that it would be “ unimaginable ” to close churches .
More Masses will enable smaller congregations , they said , and “ just as hospitals treat diseases of the body , so the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , treat illness of the soul.
” The Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa will have an extra daily Mass prayed for the intention of ending the coronavirus outbreak .
In the United States , Archbishop Paul Etienne has suspended all public Masses in the Seattle archdiocese .
Etienne released a video Wednesday explaining that he had introduced the ban “ out of an extreme measure of caution ” and reminded his priests of their obligation to say Mass every day .
Last night , Washington , D.C. ’ s Archbishop Wilton Gregory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ until further notice and Catholic schools in the archdiocese are closed for two weeks .
The governor of Maryland , into which Gregory ’ s archdiocese extends , has banned gatherings of more than 250 people .
Bishops in Quebec , Canada have followed suit .
Masses are also cancelled in Belgium .
In Philadelphia , Bishop Nelson J. Perez has taken the less extreme step of suspending his flock ’ s obligation to attend Sunday Mass this week instead of forbidding them the holy sacrifice .
The bishops of Austria have similarly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as have the bishops of Ireland .
The miraculous pools at the shrine of Lourdes , France have been closed since March 1 in response to the coronavirus outbreak .
Scottish seminarians studying at Rome ’ s Pontifical Scots College have been sent home .
Christendom College sent students studying abroad through its famed Rome program home .
Many U.S. universities are extending spring break and moving classes to online formats .
At some schools , students are not allowed back on campus once they have left .
The NBA has suspended its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.K. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now self-isolating and his wife Sophie is confirmed to have coronavirus .
The couple recently returned home from London , England .
In Brazil , President Jair Bolsonaro ’ s press secretary , Fabio Wajngarten , tested positive for coronavirus .
As Wajngarten met with President Donald Trump over the weekend , this has led to questions about the American president ’ s health .
However , President Trump has stated that he is “ not concerned.
” This morning , it was reported that President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweeted that his test was negative .
President Trump is expected to address the nation at 1:30 p.m. EST today .
An attendee at the massive conservative conference CPAC , which took place at the end of February , tested positive for coronavirus , leading to concerns about how many people the person was in contact with .
Senators Ted Cruz ( R-TX ) and Lindsey Graham ( R-SC ) are self-quaranting along with Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida , Doug Collins of Georgia , Paul Gosar of Arizona , and Mark Meadows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Rep. Don Beyer , a Virginia Democrat , is also self-quarantining .
He announced he ’ d had dinner with someone who tested positive for coronavirus .
Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley of California has closed her Capitol Hill office for the week .
The mayor of Miami , Francis Suarez , has announced that he is also self-quarantining .
So has the Sunshine State ’ s Gov .
Rick Scott .
A Washington , D.C.-based staffer for Senator Maria Cantwell , D-WA , has tested positive for coronavirus .
“ Cantwell is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the week for a deep cleaning , ” The Hill reported .
Congress remains open as of now .
Canada ’ s Parliament has shut down .
The leader of Spain ’ s pro-life , populist party Vox has tested positive for coronavirus .
The United States has shut its borders to travelers from Europe who are neither U.S. citizens nor residents .
The countries affected by this ban are Austria , Belgium , the Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Hungary , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , the Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Portugal , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Sweden , and Switzerland .
President Trump announced this travel ban in a speech from the Oval Office on Wednesday night .
U.S. citizens and residents returning home from Europe will be expected to self-isolate for 14 days .
Non-citizens and non-residents who have been in China and Iran in the past 14 days will also be refused admittance .
U.S. citizens and residents will be allowed home if they land @ @ @ @ @ @ @ screening .
According to CNN , these are Atlanta , Chicago , Dallas , Detroit , Honolulu , Los Angeles , New York ( JFK ) , Newark ( New Jersey ) , San Francisco , Seattle , and Washington .
The U.S. is not alone in closing its borders to Europeans .
The Czech Republic has also announced that it will close its borders to non-Czechs traveling from Austria , Denmark , France , Germany , Italy , Norway , Spain , Switzerland , Sweden , and the U.K. , as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Korea .
Australia will not permit non-Australian travelers from China , Iran , Italy , and South Korean to enter for 14 days after leaving those countries .
Australians traveling from these nations are being required to self-isolate for two weeks after returning home .
Austria has banned travelers from China ’ s Hubei Province ( where the virus originated ) , Iran , Italy , and South Korea from visiting the country unless they have a recent medical certificate declaring them free of the coronavirus .
Hong Kong will not permit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Korean or China ’ s Hubei Province for the past two weeks , or who has a Chinese passport issued in the Hubei Province , to enter Hong Kong .
Hong Kong residents returning home from those regions will have to self-isolate for two weeks after their arrival .
According to CNN , which has a comprehensive list of travel restrictions , India is suspending all travel visas and has placed a two-week quarantine on all travelers who have recently visited China , France , Germany , Iran , Italy , South Korea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a number of its airports down completely to passenger travel .
Rome ’ s Ciampino airport will be shut to passenger traffic from midnight Friday .
Terminal 1 at Rome ’ s Fiumicino airport will close on Tuesday .


lifesitenews--2020-03-15--Coronavirus is ‘the killer of globalization’ and a ‘scourge’ from God: Rober

Coronavirus is ‘the killer of globalization’ and a ‘scourge’ from God: Roberto de Mattei

ITALY , March 14 , 2020 ( LifeSiteNews ) ― Coronavirus is both the “ killer of globalization ” and a “ scourge from God ” says Catholic historian and author Dr. Roberto de Mattei .
The celebrated intellectual recently released a video-recorded lecture about the political , historical , and theological implications of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world .
De Mattei has now recorded “ New Scenarios in the Coronavirus Era : Is Coronavirus a Divine Punishment ” in English , and it can be seen below .
“ I will not speak about this theme from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as I do not have this competence , ” De Mattei warns his listeners .
( Full lecture transcribed below . )
“ I will instead consider the argument from three other points of view : the point of view of a scholar of the political and social sciences ; the point of view of a historian ; and the point of view of a philosopher of history.
” In terms of political and social sciences , the scholar explains that the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic may signal the end of globalization .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medical system and of the supply chains that drive the national economy .
The central banks will not be able to prevent the resultant financial disaster .
“ The weak point of globalization is interconnection , the talisman word of our time , from the economy to religion , ” De Mattei explains .
“ Pope Francis ’ Querida Amazonia is a hymn to interconnection .
But today the global system is fragile precisely because it is so interconnected , ” he continues .
The result may be a collapse of the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social anarchy .
But whereas this may look desirable to the globalists longing for one world government , De Mattei argues that it will actually foil their plans .
“ Someone might observe that this process corresponds to the project of the globalist lobbies , the ‘ masters of chaos ’ as Professor Renato Cristin defines them in his excellent book , ” De Mattei says .
“ But if this is true , it is also true that what emerges defeated from this crisis is the utopia of globalization , presented as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the unification of the human race , ” he continues .
“ Globalization actually destroys space and pulverizes distances : today the key to escaping the epidemic is social distance , the isolation of the individual .
The quarantine is diametrically opposed to the “ open society ” hoped for by George Soros .
The conception of man as a relationship , typical of a certain school of philosophical personalism , declines.
” De Mattei believes that the pandemic is bringing an end to “ the world without borders.
” “ The master @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masters of chaos .
The killer of globalization is a global virus called the coronavirus , ” he declares .
In terms of history , De Mattei sees parallels between the 21st century and the 14th century , which suffered terribly from famine , plagues , and war in Europe .
Like our own century , the 14th century was a time of acute religious crisis , and many great saints taught that famine , plagues , and war were “ signs of God ’ s chastisement.
” “ Saint Bernardine of Siena @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flagella quibus dominus castigat : there are three scourges with which God chastises : war , plague , and famine , ” De Mattei recalls .
“ Saint Bernardine belongs to a number of saints like Catherine of Siena , Bridget of Sweden , Vincent Ferrer , Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort , who warned how throughout history natural disasters have always accompanied the infidelities and apostasy of nations , ” he continued .
“ It happened at the end of the Christian Middle Ages , and it seems to be happening today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not attribute these events to the work of evil agents but to the sins of men , which are even more grave if they are collective sins and still more grave if tolerated or promoted by the rulers of the peoples and by those who govern the Church.
” This leads De Mattei to the third section of his lecture , in which he argues that God is active in history and , despite the declarations of certain churchmen , punishes or rewards nations according to His divine justice .
“ The theology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and punishes not only men but also collectivities and social groups : families , nations , civilizations , ” he notes .
“ But while men have their reward or chastisement , sometimes on earth but always in heaven , nations , which do not have an eternal life , are punished or rewarded only on earth.
” De Mattei explains that “ God is righteous and rewarding and gives to each what is his due : he not only chastises individual persons but he also sends tribulations to families , cities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commit.
” He notes that earthquakes , famines , epidemics , wars , and revolutions have always been considered as divine chastisements , and he rebukes an unnamed bishop who told his flock that the coronavirus epidemic is only “ an effect of nature.
” “ But who is it that has created , ordered , and guided nature ?
” De Mattei demands .
“ God is the author of nature with its forces and its laws , and he has the power to arrange the mechanism of the forces and laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to produce a phenomenon according to the needs of his justice or his mercy.
” De Mattei believes he knows what great sin has brought down God ’ s wrath upon our heads : the apostasy of “ the men of the Church in their collective whole , with few exceptions.
” “ We are approaching Holy Week and Easter , and yet for the first time in many centuries in Italy , the churches are closed , Masses are suspended , and even Saint Peter ’ s Basilica is closed , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Easter liturgies urbe et orbi will not be drawing pilgrims from all over the world .
God , also punishes by “ subtraction ” as Saint Bernardine of Siena says , and today it seems like he has removed the churches , the Mother of all churches from the supreme Pastor , while the Catholic people are groping confused in the dark , deprived of the light of truth that should illuminate the world from Saint Peter ’ s Basilica , ” he continues .
“ How can we not see in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consequence of the self-destruction of the Church ?
” New scenarios in the Coronavirus era .
Is Coronavirus a divine punishment ?
The theme of my conversation is : The new scenarios in Italy and in Europe during and after the Coronavirus crisis .
I will not speak about this theme from a medical or scientific point of view as I do not have this competence .
I will instead consider the argument from three other points of view : the point of view of a scholar of the political and social sciences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ historian ; and the point of view of a philosopher of history .
As a scholar of the social sciences The political and social sciences study human behavior in its social , political and geopolitical context .
From this point of view I am not inquiring into the origins of the Coronavirus and its nature , but rather the social consequences that are happening and will happen .
An epidemic is the diffusion on the national or world scale ( in this case it is called a pandemic ) of an infective illness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a determined population in a very brief span of time .
The Coronavirus , which has been renamed Covid-19 , is an infective illness that began to spread through the world from China .
Italy is the Western nation that is now apparently the most afflicted by it .
Why is Italy under quarantine today ?
Because , as the most attentive observers have understood from the very beginning , the problem of the Coronavirus is not its fatality rate but the rapidity with which the contagion spreads among the population .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not terribly lethal .
A sick person who contracts the Coronavirus and is assisted by specialized health care personnel in well-equipped health care facilities can heal .
But if , because of the rapid spread of the contagion , which can potentially strike millions of people simultaneously , the number of sick people rapidly increases , there will not be enough health care facilities and personnel : the sick will die because they are deprived of the necessary care .
In order to cure grave cases it is necessary to have the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ventilate the lungs .
If this support is lacking , the patients die .
If the number of those who are sick increases , health care structures are not capable of offering intensive care to everyone and an ever greater number of patients will succumb to the disease .
Epidemiological projections are inexorable and they justify the precautions being taken .
“ If uncontrolled , the Coronavirus could strike the entire Italian population , but let ’ s say that in the end only 30 % become infected , that would be about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that out of these – reducing the rate – 10 % go into crisis , meaning that without intensive care they will succumb to the disease .
This would mean that 2 million people die directly , plus all of those who will die indirectly as a result of the collapse of the health care system and the social and economic order.
” 1 The collapse of the health care system in turn would have other consequences .
The first is the collapse of the nation ’ s productive system .
Economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ either supply or demand .
But if those who want to consume must remain at home and the stores are closed and those who are capable of selling goods do not succeed in getting their product to their clients because logistical operations , the transport of goods , and points of sale like stores enter into crisis , the supply chain collapses .
The central banks would not be capable of saving such a situation : “ The crisis after the Coronavirus does not have a monetary solution ” writes Maurizio Ricci in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Feltri in turn observes : “ The typical Keynesian recipes – creating jobs and artificial demand with public money – are not practical when the workers do not leave their homes , trucks do not circulate , stadiums are closed and people do not schedule vacations or work trips because they are sick at home or afraid of the contagion .
Aside from avoiding liquidity crises for businesses by suspending tax payments and interest payments to banks , the political system is powerless .
A government decree is not enough to reorganize the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perfect storm ” was coined several years ago by the economist Nouriel Roubini to indicate a mix of financial conditions that are such that it leads to a collapse of the market .
“ There will be a global recession due to Coronavirus ” , Roubini declares , adding : “ This crisis will spill over and result in a disaster.
” 3 Roubinis ’ s forecasts have been confirmed by the drop in the price of oil after the failure of OPEC to agree with Saudi Arabia , which has decided to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defiance of Russia , and are probably destined to be further confirmed as events unfold .
The weak point of globalization is interconnection , the talisman word of our time , from the economy to religion .
Pope Francis ’ Querida Amazonia is a hymn to interconnection .
But today the global system is fragile precisely because it is so interconnected .
And the system of distribution of products is one of the chains of this economic interconnection .
It is not a problem of the markets but of real economy .
Not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and agriculture , that is to say the pillars of the economy of a nation , can all collapse if the system of production and distribution enters into a crisis .
But there is another point that begins to be glimpsed : there is not only the collapse of the health system ; there is not only a possible crack in the economy ; but there can also be a collapse of the state and public authority – in a word , social anarchy .
The riots in Italian prisons indicate a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ psychological consequences because of the panic that they can provoke .
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century social psychology was born as a science .
One of its first exponents was Gustave Le Bon , the author of a famous book entitled Psychologie des foules [ Psychology of crowds ] ( 1895 ) .
Analyzing collective behavior , Le Bon explains how in a crowd the individual undergoes a psychological change by which feelings and passions are transmitted from one individual to another “ by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infectious diseases .
The modern theory of contagion , which was inspired by Le Bon , explains how , protected by the anonymity of a crowd , the most calm individual can become aggressive , acting at the suggestion of others or in imitation of them .
Panic is one of those feelings that is spread by social contagion , as happened during the French Revolution in the period that was called the “ Great fear ” 4 .
If a health crisis is compounded by an economic crisis , an uncontrolled wave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the crowd .
The state is then replaced by tribes and gangs , especially in the outskirts of large urban centers .
The social war , has been theorized by the São Paulo Forum , a conference of Latin American ultra-leftist organizations , is practiced in Latin America , from Bolivia to Chile , from Venezuela to Ecuador , and may soon expand to Europe .
Someone might observe that this process corresponds to the project of the globalist lobbies , the “ masters of chaos ” as Professor Renato Cristin defines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if this is true , it is also true that what emerges defeated from this crisis is the utopia of globalization , presented as the great road destined to lead to the unification of the human race .
Globalization actually destroys space and pulverizes distances : today the key to escaping the epidemic is social distance , the isolation of the individual .
The quarantine is diametrically opposed to the “ open society ” hoped for by George Soros .
The conception of man as a relationship , typical of a certain school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Francis , after the failure of Querida Amazonia , focused heavily on the conference dedicated to the “ global compact ” schedules at the Vatican for this coming May 14 .
This conference however has been rescheduled and has become more distant , not only in time but in its ideological presuppositions .
The Coronavirus brings us back to reality .
It is not the end of borders that was announced after the fall of the Berlin Wall .
Instead , it is the end of the world without borders , the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not the triumph of the new world order : it is the triumph of the new world disorder .
The political and social scenario is that of a society that is disintegrating and decomposing .
Is it all organized ?
It ’ s possible .
But history is not a deterministic succession of events .
The master of history is God , not the masters of chaos .
The killer of globalization is a global virus called the Coronavirus .
At this point the historian will step in to replace the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the perspective of a greater chronological distance .
Epidemics have accompanied the history of humanity from the very beginning all the way to the twentieth century , and they are always intertwined with two other scourges : wars and economic crises .
The last great epidemic , the Spanish influenza in the 1920s , was closely connected to the First World War and the Great Depression that began in 1929 , also known as “ the Great Crash , ” an economic and financial crisis that convulsed the economic world at the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that extended throughout the 1930s .
These events were followed by the Second World War .
Laura Spinnay is an English scientific journalist who has written a book called Pale Rider : The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World.5 Her book informs us that between 1918 and 1920 the virus which began in Spain infected approximately 500 million people , including even inhabitants of remote islands of the Pacific Ocean and of the glacial Arctic Sea , causing the deaths of 50-100 million individuals , ten times more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I contributed to the flu ’ s virulence , helping the virus spread throughout the globe .
Spinnay writes : “ It is difficult to imagine a mechanism of contagion more effective than the mobilization of enormous quantities of troops in the height of the autumn wave , who then reached the four corners of the planet where they were greeted by festive crowds .
In essence , what the Spanish flu taught us is that another influenza pandemic is inevitable , but whether it will cause ten million or one hundred million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be like in which it spreads.
” 6 In the interconnected world of globalization , the ease with which contagion can spread is certainly greater than it was a century ago .
Who can deny it ?
But the historian ’ s perspective goes even further back in time .
The twentieth century was the most terrible century of history , but there was another terrible century , “ The Calamitous Fourteenth Century , ” as Barbara Tuchman calls it in her book A Distant Mirror.7 I would like to focus on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Medieval era and the beginning of the Modern era .
I do so basing myself on historical works that are not Catholic but serious and objective in their research .
The Rogations are processions convoked by the Church in order to implore the help of Heaven against calamities .
The Rogations contain the prayer “ A fame , peste et bello libera nos , Domine : ” – from famine , plague , and war , deliver us , O Lord .
As the historian Robert Lopez writes , the liturgical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unfolded with all of its drama over the course of the fourteenth century.
” 8 “ Between the tenth and twelfth centuries , ” Lopez observes , “ none of the great scourges that mow down humanity seem to have raged in any great measure ; neither pestilence , of which there is no mention during this period , nor famine , nor war , which had a greatly reduced number of victims .
Moreover , the expanse of agriculture was widened by a slow softening of the climate .
We have proof @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glaciers in the mountains and of the icebergs in the northern seas , in the extension of wine growing into regions like England where today it is no longer practical , and in the abundance of water in regions of the Sahara that were later reconquered by the desert.
” 9 The picture of the fourteenth century was much , much different , as natural catastrophes combined with serious religious and political upheavals .
The fourteenth century was a century of deep religious crisis : it opened in 1303 with the famous “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , one of the greatest humiliations of the papacy in history ; it saw the transference of the papacy for seventy years to the city of Avignon in France ( 1308-1378 ) ; and it ended with forty years of the Western Schism from 1378 to 1417 , in which Catholic Europe was divided between two and then three popes .
A century later , in 1517 , the Protestant Revolution lacerated the unity of the faith of Christianity .
If the thirteenth century was a period of peace in Europe , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war .
We need only think of the “ Hundred Years ’ War ” between France and England ( 1339-1452 ) and of the assault of the Turks against the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Adrianople ( 1362 ) .
In this century Europe experienced an economic crisis due to climatic changes caused , not by man , but by glaciation .
The climate of the Middle Ages had been mild and sweet , like its customs .
But the fourteenth century experienced an abrupt harshening of climatic conditions .
The rains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led to a general famine that assailed all of Europe , above all the northern regions , causing the death of millions of people .
The famine spread everywhere .
The elderly voluntarily refused food in the hope of enabling the young to survive and historians of the time write of many cases of cannibalism .
One of the principal consequences of the famines was agricultural destructuring .
In this period there were great movement of agricultural depopulation characterized by flight from the land and the abandonment of villages ; the forest invaded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the abandonment of the fields there was a strong reduction of soil productivity and a depletion of livestock .
If bad weather causes famine , the subsequent weakening of the body of entire populations causes disease .
The historians Ruggero Romano and Alberto Tenenti show how in the fourteenth century the recurring cycle of famines and epidemics intensified.10 The last great plague had erupted between 747 and 750 ; almost six hundred years later it reappeared , striking four times in the space of a decade .
The plague came from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ autumn of 1347 .
Over the next three years it infected all of Europe , all the way to Scandinavia and Poland .
It was the black plague , of which Boccaccio speaks in the Decameron .
Italy lost about half of its inhabitants .
Agnolo di Tura , the chronicler of Siena , lamented that no one could be found to bury the dead , and that he had to bury his five sons with his own hands .
Giovanni Villani , the chronicler of Florence , was struck by the plague @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chronicle ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence .
The European population that had surpassed 70 million inhabitants at the beginning of the 1300s was reduced by a century of wars , epidemics , and famines to 40 million ; it shrank by more than one third .
The famines , plague , and wars of the fourteenth century were interpreted by the Christian people as signs of God ’ s chastisement .
Saint Bernardine of Siena ( 1380-1444 ) admonished : Tria sunt flagella quibus dominus castigat.11 There are three scourges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plague , and famine .
Saint Bernardine belongs to a number of saints like Catherine of Siena , Bridget of Sweden , Vincent Ferrer , Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort , who warned how throughout history natural disasters have always accompanied the infidelities and apostasy of nations .
It happened at the end of the Christian Middle Ages , and it seems to be happening today .
Saints like Bernardine of Siena did not attribute these events to the work of evil agents but to the sins of men , which are even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and still more grave if tolerated or promoted by the rulers of the peoples and by those who govern the Church .
These considerations introduce us to the third point in which I will consider the events not as a sociologist or historian but as a philosopher of history .
Theology and the philosophy of history are fields of intellectual speculation that apply the principles of theology and philosophy to historical events .
The theologian of history is like an eagle that judges human affairs from the heights .
Some of great theologians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , Jacques Bénigne Bossuet ( 1627-1704 ) , who was called the eagle of Meaux , from the name of the diocese where he was bishop , Count Joseph de Maistre ( 1753-1821 ) , the marquis Juan Donoso Cortés ( 1809-1853 ) , the abbot of Solesmes Dom Guéranger ( 1805-1875 ) , professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira ( 1908-1995 ) , and may others .
There is a Biblical expression that says : Judicia Dei abyssus multa ( Ps 35:7 ) : the judgments of God are a great abyss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to these judgments and seeks to understand the reason for them .
Saint Gregory the Great , inviting us to investigate the reasons for divine action , affirms : “ Whoever does not discover the reason for which God does things in the very works themselves , will find in his own meanness and baseness sufficient cause to explain why his investigations are in vain.
” 12 Philosophy and modern theology under the influence above all of Hegel , have replaced the judgments of God with the judgments of history .
The principle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is reversed .
It is not the Church that judges history but history that judges the Church , because the Church , according to the Nouvelle théologie , does not transcend history but is immanent , internal to itself .
When Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said in his final interview that “ The Church is 200 years behind ” with respect to history , he assumed history as the criterion of judgment for the Church .
When Pope Francis , in his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia on December 21 , 2019 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his own , he is judging the Church in the name of history , overturning what should be the criterion of Catholic judgment .
History in reality is a creature of God , like nature , like all that exists , because nothing of what exists can exist apart from God .
All that happens in history is foreseen , regulated and ordered by God for all eternity .
Thus for the philosopher of history every discussion can only begin with God and finish with God .
God does not only exist ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and he rewards or chastises rational creatures according each one ’ s merits or faults .
The Catechism of Saint Pius X teaches : “ God rewards the good and chastises the wicked because he is infinite justice ... .
” Justice , theologians explain , is one of the infinite perfections of God.13 The infinite mercy of God presupposed his infinite justice .
Among Catholics the concept of justice , like the concept of divine justice , is often removed .
And yet the doctrine of the Church teaches the existence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of every person , with the immediate reward or punishment of the soul , and of a universal judgment in which all angels and all human beings will be judged for their thoughts , words , actions , and omissions .
The theology of history tells us that God rewards and punishes not only men but also collectivities and social groups : families , nations , civilizations .
But while men have their reward or chastisement , sometimes on earth but always in heaven , nations , which do not have an eternal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on earth .
God is righteous and rewarding and gives to each what is his due : he not only chastises individual persons but he also sends tribulations to families , cities , and nations for the sins which they commit .
Earthquakes , famines , epidemics , wars , and revolutions have always been considered as divine chastisements .
As Father Pedro de Ribadaneira ( 1527-1611 ) writes : “ wars and plagues , droughts and famines , fires and all other disastrous calamities are chastisement for the sins of entire populations.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an important diocese , whom I will not name , declared : “ One thing is certain : this virus was not sent by God to punish sinful humanity .
It is an effect of nature , treating us as a stepmother .
But God faces this phenomenon with us and probably will make us understand , in the end , that humanity is one single village.
” The Italian bishop does not renounce the myth of the “ single village ” nor the religion of nature of the Pachamama and Greta @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Great Mother ” can become “ stepmother.
” But the bishop above all forcefully rejects the idea that the Coronavirus epidemic or any other collective disaster can be a punishment for humanity .
The virus , the bishop believes , is only the effect of nature .
But who is it that has created , ordered , and guided nature ?
God is the author of nature with its forces and its laws , and he has the power to arrange the mechanism of the forces and laws of nature in such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the needs of his justice or his mercy .
God , who is the first cause above all of all that exists , always makes use of secondary causes in order to effect his plans .
Whoever has a supernatural spirit does not stop at the superficial level of things but seeks to understand the hidden design of God that is at work beneath the apparently blind force of nature .
The great sin of our time is the loss of faith by the men of the Church : not of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but of the men of the Church in their collective whole , with few exceptions , thanks to whom the Church does not lose her visibility .
This sin produces blindness of the mind and hardening of the heart : indifference to the violation of the divine order of the universe .
It is an indifference that hides hatred toward God .
How is it manifested ?
Not directly .
These men of the Church are too cowardly to directly challenge God ; they prefer to express their hatred towards those who dare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to speak of the chastisement of God gets stoned : a river of hatred flows against him .
These men of the Church , while verbally professing to believe in God , actually live immersed in practical atheism .
They despoil God of all his attributes , reducing him to pure “ being ” – that is , to nothing .
Everything that happens is for them the fruit of nature , emancipated from its author , and only science , not the Church , is capable of deciphering nature ’ s laws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sensus fidei itself teaches that all physical and material evils that do not come from the will of man depend on the will of God .
Saint Alphonsus Liguori writes : “ Everything that happens here against our will , know that it does not occur except by the will of God , as Saint Augustine says.
” 15 On July 19 the Church ’ s liturgy recalls Saint Lupus ( or Saint Loup ) , bishop of Troyes ( 383-478 ) .
He was the brother of Saint Vincent of Lerins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arles , belonging to a family of ancient senatorial nobility but above all of great sanctity .
During his lengthy episcopate ( 52 years ) , Gaul was invaded by the Huns .
Attila , at the head of an army of 400.000 men , crossed the Rhine , devastating everything he found in his path .
When he arrived before the city of Troyes , the bishop Lupus , vested in pontificals and following his clergy in procession , came to meet Attila and asked him , “ Who are you that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the response came : “ Don ’ t you know who I am ?
I am Attila , king of the Huns , called the scourge of God.
” To which Lupus replied : “ Well then , be the welcome scourge of God , because we merit divine scourges because of our sins .
But if it is possible , let your blows fall only on my person and not on the entire city.
” The Huns entered the city of Troyes , but by divine will they were blinded and crossed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without doing evil to anyone .
The bishops today not only are not speaking about divine scourges , but they are not even inviting the faithful to pray that God will liberate them from the epidemic .
There is a coherence in this .
Whoever prays , in fact , asks God to intervene in his life , and thus in the things of the world , in order to be protected from evil and to obtain spiritual and material goods .
But why should God listen to our prayers if he is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
If , on the contrary , God can , by means of miracles , change the laws of nature , avoiding the sufferings and death of an individual man , or great loss of life throughout an entire city , he can also decree the punishment of a city or a people , because their collective sins call down collective chastisements .
Saint Charles Borromeo said , “ Because of our sins , God permitted the fire of the plague to attack every part of Milan.
” 16 And Saint Thomas Aquinas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people who sin , vengeance must be made on all the people , just as the Egyptians who persecuted the children of Israel were submerged in the Red Sea , and as the inhabitants of Sodom were struck down en masse , or a significant number of people must be struck , such as happened in the chastisement inflicted for the adoration of the golden calf.
” 17 On the eve of the second session of the First Vatican Council , on January 6 , 1870 , Saint John Bosco had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him that “ war , plague , and famine are the scourges with which the pride and malice of men will be struck down.
” This is how the Lord expressed himself : “ You , O priests , why do you not run to weep between the vestibule and the altar , begging for the end of the scourges ?
Why do you not take up the shield of faith and go over the roofs , in the houses , in the streets , in the piazzas , in every inaccessible place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ word .
Do you not know that this is the terrible two-edged sword that strikes down my enemies and that breaks the wrath of God and men ?
” 18 The priests are silent , the bishops are silent , the Pope is silent .
We are approaching Holy Week and Easter .
And yet for the first time in many centuries in Italy , the churches are closed , Masses are suspended , and even Saint Peter ’ s Basilica is closed .
The Holy Week and Easter liturgies urbe et orbi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the world .
God , also punishes by “ subtraction ” as Saint Bernardine of Siena says , and today it seems like he has removed the churches , the Mother of all churches from the supreme Pastor , while the Catholic people are groping confused in the dark , deprived of the light of truth that should illuminate the world from Saint Peter ’ s Basilica .
How can we not see in what the Coronavirus is producing a symbolic consequence of the self-destruction of the Church ?
Judicia Dei abyssus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that what is happening does not prefigure the success of the sons of darkness , but rather their defeat , because , as Father Carlo Ambrogio Cattaneo , S.J.
, ( 1645-1705 ) explains , the number of sins , whether of a man or of a people , is numbered.19 Venit dies iniquitate praefinita says the prophet Ezekiel ( 21:2 ) – God is merciful but there is a final sin that God does not tolerate and that provokes his chastisement .
Furthermore , according to a principle of the theology of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not the enemies of the Church but the saints .
Omnia sustineo propter electos ( 2 Tim 2:10 ) says Saint Paul .
History revolves around the elect of God .
And history depends on the impenetrable designs of Divine Providence .
Throughout history there are those who oppose the law of God , whether men , groups , or organized societies , both public and secret , who work to destroy all that has been ordained by God .
They are able to obtain apparent successes , but they will always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have before us is apocalyptic , but Pius XII recalls that in the Book of Revelation ( 6:2 ) Saint John says , “ did not behold only the ruins caused by sin , war , famine , and death ; he also saw in the first place the victory of Christ .
And indeed the path of the Church throughout the centuries is a via crucis , but it is also always a march of triumph .
The Church of Christ , the man of faith and Christian love , are always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peace to a humanity without hope .
Iesus Christus heri et hodie , ipse et in saecula ( Hebr .
13:8 ) .
Christ is your guide , from victory to victory .
Follow him.
” 20 At Fatima the Blessed Mother has revealed to us the scenario of our time , and she assured us of her triumph .
With the humility of those who are aware that they can do nothing by their own strength , but also with the confidence of those who know that everything is possible with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retreat , and we entrust oursselves to Mary at the tragic hour of the events foretold by the message of Fatima .

“How can we not see in what the coronavirus is producing a symbolic consequence of the self-destruction of the Church?”
ITALY, March 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― Coronavirus is both the “killer of globalization” and a “scourge from God” says Catholic historian and author Dr. Roberto de Mattei.
The celebrated intellectual recently released a video-recorded lecture about the political, historical, and theological implications of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world. De Mattei has now recorded “New Scenarios in the Coronavirus Era: Is Coronavirus a Divine Punishment” in English, and it can be seen below.
“I will not speak about this theme from a medical or scientific point of view as I do not have this competence,” De Mattei warns his listeners. (Full lecture transcribed below.)
“I will instead consider the argument from three other points of view: the point of view of a scholar of the political and social sciences; the point of view of a historian; and the point of view of a philosopher of history.”
In terms of political and social sciences, the scholar explains that the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic may signal the end of globalization. It may cause the collapse of the Italian medical system and of the supply chains that drive the national economy. The central banks will not be able to prevent the resultant financial disaster.
“The weak point of globalization is interconnection, the talisman word of our time, from the economy to religion,” De Mattei explains.
“Pope Francis’ Querida Amazonia is a hymn to interconnection. But today the global system is fragile precisely because it is so interconnected,” he continues.
The result may be a collapse of the state and of public authority, leading to social anarchy. But whereas this may look desirable to the globalists longing for one world government, De Mattei argues that it will actually foil their plans.
“Someone might observe that this process corresponds to the project of the globalist lobbies, the ‘masters of chaos’ as Professor Renato Cristin defines them in his excellent book,” De Mattei says.
“But if this is true, it is also true that what emerges defeated from this crisis is the utopia of globalization, presented as the great road destined to lead to the unification of the human race,” he continues.
“Globalization actually destroys space and pulverizes distances: today the key to escaping the epidemic is social distance, the isolation of the individual. The quarantine is diametrically opposed to the “open society” hoped for by George Soros. The conception of man as a relationship, typical of a certain school of philosophical personalism, declines.”
De Mattei believes that the pandemic is bringing an end to “the world without borders.”
“The master of history is God, not the masters of chaos. The killer of globalization is a global virus called the coronavirus,” he declares.
In terms of history, De Mattei sees parallels between the 21st century and the 14th century, which suffered terribly from famine, plagues, and war in Europe. Like our own century, the 14th century was a time of acute religious crisis, and many great saints taught that famine, plagues, and war were “signs of God’s chastisement.”
“Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) admonished: Tria sunt flagella quibus dominus castigat: there are three scourges with which God chastises: war, plague, and famine,” De Mattei recalls.
“Saint Bernardine belongs to a number of saints like Catherine of Siena, Bridget of Sweden, Vincent Ferrer, Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, who warned how throughout history natural disasters have always accompanied the infidelities and apostasy of nations,” he continued.
“It happened at the end of the Christian Middle Ages, and it seems to be happening today. Saints like Bernardine of Siena did not attribute these events to the work of evil agents but to the sins of men, which are even more grave if they are collective sins and still more grave if tolerated or promoted by the rulers of the peoples and by those who govern the Church.”
This leads De Mattei to the third section of his lecture, in which he argues that God is active in history and, despite the declarations of certain churchmen, punishes or rewards nations according to His divine justice.
“The theology of history tells us that God rewards and punishes not only men but also collectivities and social groups: families, nations, civilizations,” he notes.
“But while men have their reward or chastisement, sometimes on earth but always in heaven, nations, which do not have an eternal life, are punished or rewarded only on earth.”
De Mattei explains that “God is righteous and rewarding and gives to each what is his due: he not only chastises individual persons but he also sends tribulations to families, cities, and nations for the sins which they commit.”
He notes that earthquakes, famines, epidemics, wars, and revolutions have always been considered as divine chastisements, and he rebukes an unnamed bishop who told his flock that the coronavirus epidemic is only “an effect of nature.”
“But who is it that has created, ordered, and guided nature?” De Mattei demands.
“God is the author of nature with its forces and its laws, and he has the power to arrange the mechanism of the forces and laws of nature in such a way as to produce a phenomenon according to the needs of his justice or his mercy.”
De Mattei believes he knows what great sin has brought down God’s wrath upon our heads: the apostasy of “the men of the Church in their collective whole, with few exceptions.”
“We are approaching Holy Week and Easter, and yet for the first time in many centuries in Italy, the churches are closed, Masses are suspended, and even Saint Peter’s Basilica is closed,” he states.
“The Holy Week and Easter liturgies urbe et orbi will not be drawing pilgrims from all over the world. God, also punishes by “subtraction” as Saint Bernardine of Siena says, and today it seems like he has removed the churches, the Mother of all churches from the supreme Pastor, while the Catholic people are groping confused in the dark, deprived of the light of truth that should illuminate the world from Saint Peter’s Basilica,” he continues.
“How can we not see in what the coronavirus is producing a symbolic consequence of the self-destruction of the Church?”
New scenarios in the Coronavirus era. Is Coronavirus a divine punishment?
Political, historical and theological considerations
By Roberto De Mattei
March 12, 2020
The theme of my conversation is: The new scenarios in Italy and in Europe during and after the Coronavirus crisis. I will not speak about this theme from a medical or scientific point of view as I do not have this competence. I will instead consider the argument from three other points of view: the point of view of a scholar of the political and social sciences; the point of view of a historian; and the point of view of a philosopher of history.
As a scholar of the social sciences
The political and social sciences study human behavior in its social, political and geopolitical context. From this point of view I am not inquiring into the origins of the Coronavirus and its nature, but rather the social consequences that are happening and will happen.
An epidemic is the diffusion on the national or world scale (in this case it is called a pandemic) of an infective illness that afflicts a large number of individuals of a determined population in a very brief span of time.
The Coronavirus, which has been renamed Covid-19, is an infective illness that began to spread through the world from China. Italy is the Western nation that is now apparently the most afflicted by it.
Why is Italy under quarantine today? Because, as the most attentive observers have understood from the very beginning, the problem of the Coronavirus is not its fatality rate but the rapidity with which the contagion spreads among the population. Everyone agrees that the illness in itself is not terribly lethal. A sick person who contracts the Coronavirus and is assisted by specialized health care personnel in well-equipped health care facilities can heal.
But if, because of the rapid spread of the contagion, which can potentially strike millions of people simultaneously, the number of sick people rapidly increases, there will not be enough health care facilities and personnel: the sick will die because they are deprived of the necessary care. In order to cure grave cases it is necessary to have the support of intensive care in order to ventilate the lungs. If this support is lacking, the patients die. If the number of those who are sick increases, health care structures are not capable of offering intensive care to everyone and an ever greater number of patients will succumb to the disease.
Epidemiological projections are inexorable and they justify the precautions being taken. “If uncontrolled, the Coronavirus could strike the entire Italian population, but let’s say that in the end only 30% become infected, that would be about 20 million people. Let’s say that out of these – reducing the rate – 10% go into crisis, meaning that without intensive care they will succumb to the disease. This would mean that 2 million people die directly, plus all of those who will die indirectly as a result of the collapse of the health care system and the social and economic order.”1
The collapse of the health care system in turn would have other consequences. The first is the collapse of the nation’s productive system.
Economic crises usually arise from the lack of either supply or demand. But if those who want to consume must remain at home and the stores are closed and those who are capable of selling goods do not succeed in getting their product to their clients because logistical operations, the transport of goods, and points of sale like stores enter into crisis, the supply chain collapses.
The central banks would not be capable of saving such a situation: “The crisis after the Coronavirus does not have a monetary solution” writes Maurizio Ricci in La Repubblica on February 28. Stefano Feltri in turn observes: “The typical Keynesian recipes – creating jobs and artificial demand with public money – are not practical when the workers do not leave their homes, trucks do not circulate, stadiums are closed and people do not schedule vacations or work trips because they are sick at home or afraid of the contagion. Aside from avoiding liquidity crises for businesses by suspending tax payments and interest payments to banks, the political system is powerless. A government decree is not enough to reorganize the supply chain.”2
The expression “perfect storm” was coined several years ago by the economist Nouriel Roubini to indicate a mix of financial conditions that are such that it leads to a collapse of the market. “There will be a global recession due to Coronavirus”, Roubini declares, adding: “This crisis will spill over and result in a disaster.”3
Roubinis’s forecasts have been confirmed by the drop in the price of oil after the failure of OPEC to agree with Saudi Arabia, which has decided to increase its production and cut prices in defiance of Russia, and are probably destined to be further confirmed as events unfold.
The weak point of globalization is interconnection, the talisman word of our time, from the economy to religion. Pope Francis’ Querida Amazonia is a hymn to interconnection. But today the global system is fragile precisely because it is so interconnected. And the system of distribution of products is one of the chains of this economic interconnection.
It is not a problem of the markets but of real economy. Not only finance but also industry, commerce, and agriculture, that is to say the pillars of the economy of a nation, can all collapse if the system of production and distribution enters into a crisis.
But there is another point that begins to be glimpsed: there is not only the collapse of the health system; there is not only a possible crack in the economy; but there can also be a collapse of the state and public authority – in a word, social anarchy. The riots in Italian prisons indicate a trend in this direction.
Epidemics have psychological consequences because of the panic that they can provoke. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century social psychology was born as a science. One of its first exponents was Gustave Le Bon, the author of a famous book entitled Psychologie des foules [Psychology of crowds] (1895).
Analyzing collective behavior, Le Bon explains how in a crowd the individual undergoes a psychological change by which feelings and passions are transmitted from one individual to another “by contagion” like that which happens with infectious diseases. The modern theory of contagion, which was inspired by Le Bon, explains how, protected by the anonymity of a crowd, the most calm individual can become aggressive, acting at the suggestion of others or in imitation of them. Panic is one of those feelings that is spread by social contagion, as happened during the French Revolution in the period that was called the “Great fear” 4.
If a health crisis is compounded by an economic crisis, an uncontrolled wave of panic can trigger the violent impulses of the crowd. The state is then replaced by tribes and gangs, especially in the outskirts of large urban centers. The social war, has been theorized by the São Paulo Forum, a conference of Latin American ultra-leftist organizations, is practiced in Latin America, from Bolivia to Chile, from Venezuela to Ecuador, and may soon expand to Europe.
Someone might observe that this process corresponds to the project of the globalist lobbies, the “masters of chaos” as Professor Renato Cristin defines them in his excellent book. But if this is true, it is also true that what emerges defeated from this crisis is the utopia of globalization, presented as the great road destined to lead to the unification of the human race. Globalization actually destroys space and pulverizes distances: today the key to escaping the epidemic is social distance, the isolation of the individual. The quarantine is diametrically opposed to the “open society” hoped for by George Soros. The conception of man as a relationship, typical of a certain school of philosophical personalism, declines.
Pope Francis, after the failure of Querida Amazonia, focused heavily on the conference dedicated to the “global compact” schedules at the Vatican for this coming May 14. This conference however has been rescheduled and has become more distant, not only in time but in its ideological presuppositions. The Coronavirus brings us back to reality. It is not the end of borders that was announced after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, it is the end of the world without borders, the end of the “global village.” It is not the triumph of the new world order: it is the triumph of the new world disorder. The political and social scenario is that of a society that is disintegrating and decomposing. Is it all organized? It’s possible. But history is not a deterministic succession of events. The master of history is God, not the masters of chaos. The killer of globalization is a global virus called the Coronavirus.
As historian
At this point the historian will step in to replace the political observer, seeking to see things from the perspective of a greater chronological distance. Epidemics have accompanied the history of humanity from the very beginning all the way to the twentieth century, and they are always intertwined with two other scourges: wars and economic crises. The last great epidemic, the Spanish influenza in the 1920s, was closely connected to the First World War and the Great Depression that began in 1929, also known as “the Great Crash,” an economic and financial crisis that convulsed the economic world at the end of the Twenties, with grave repercussions that extended throughout the 1930s. These events were followed by the Second World War.
Laura Spinnay is an English scientific journalist who has written a book called Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World.5 Her book informs us that between 1918 and 1920 the virus which began in Spain infected approximately 500 million people, including even inhabitants of remote islands of the Pacific Ocean and of the glacial Arctic Sea, causing the deaths of 50-100 million individuals, ten times more than the First World War.
World War I contributed to the flu’s virulence, helping the virus spread throughout the globe. Spinnay writes: “It is difficult to imagine a mechanism of contagion more effective than the mobilization of enormous quantities of troops in the height of the autumn wave, who then reached the four corners of the planet where they were greeted by festive crowds. In essence, what the Spanish flu taught us is that another influenza pandemic is inevitable, but whether it will cause ten million or one hundred million victims depends only on what the world will be like in which it spreads.”6
In the interconnected world of globalization, the ease with which contagion can spread is certainly greater than it was a century ago. Who can deny it?
But the historian’s perspective goes even further back in time. The twentieth century was the most terrible century of history, but there was another terrible century, “The Calamitous Fourteenth Century,” as Barbara Tuchman calls it in her book A Distant Mirror.7
I would like to focus on this historical period that marked the end of the Medieval era and the beginning of the Modern era. I do so basing myself on historical works that are not Catholic but serious and objective in their research.
The Rogations are processions convoked by the Church in order to implore the help of Heaven against calamities. The Rogations contain the prayer “A fame, peste et bello libera nos, Domine:” – from famine, plague, and war, deliver us, O Lord. As the historian Robert Lopez writes, the liturgical invocation present in the Rogation ceremonies “unfolded with all of its drama over the course of the fourteenth century.”8 “Between the tenth and twelfth centuries,” Lopez observes, “none of the great scourges that mow down humanity seem to have raged in any great measure; neither pestilence, of which there is no mention during this period, nor famine, nor war, which had a greatly reduced number of victims. Moreover, the expanse of agriculture was widened by a slow softening of the climate. We have proof of this in the retreat of the glaciers in the mountains and of the icebergs in the northern seas, in the extension of wine growing into regions like England where today it is no longer practical, and in the abundance of water in regions of the Sahara that were later reconquered by the desert.”9
The picture of the fourteenth century was much, much different, as natural catastrophes combined with serious religious and political upheavals.
The fourteenth century was a century of deep religious crisis: it opened in 1303 with the famous “slap” of Anagni against Boniface VIII, one of the greatest humiliations of the papacy in history; it saw the transference of the papacy for seventy years to the city of Avignon in France (1308-1378); and it ended with forty years of the Western Schism from 1378 to 1417, in which Catholic Europe was divided between two and then three popes. A century later, in 1517, the Protestant Revolution lacerated the unity of the faith of Christianity.
If the thirteenth century was a period of peace in Europe, the fourteenth century was an era of permanent war. We need only think of the “Hundred Years’ War” between France and England (1339-1452) and of the assault of the Turks against the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Adrianople (1362).
In this century Europe experienced an economic crisis due to climatic changes caused, not by man, but by glaciation. The climate of the Middle Ages had been mild and sweet, like its customs. But the fourteenth century experienced an abrupt harshening of climatic conditions.
The rains and floods of the spring of 1315 led to a general famine that assailed all of Europe, above all the northern regions, causing the death of millions of people. The famine spread everywhere. The elderly voluntarily refused food in the hope of enabling the young to survive and historians of the time write of many cases of cannibalism.
One of the principal consequences of the famines was agricultural destructuring. In this period there were great movement of agricultural depopulation characterized by flight from the land and the abandonment of villages; the forest invaded fields and vineyards. As a result of the abandonment of the fields there was a strong reduction of soil productivity and a depletion of livestock.
If bad weather causes famine, the subsequent weakening of the body of entire populations causes disease. The historians Ruggero Romano and Alberto Tenenti show how in the fourteenth century the recurring cycle of famines and epidemics intensified.10 The last great plague had erupted between 747 and 750; almost six hundred years later it reappeared, striking four times in the space of a decade.
The plague came from the Orient and arrived in Constantinople in the autumn of 1347. Over the next three years it infected all of Europe, all the way to Scandinavia and Poland. It was the black plague, of which Boccaccio speaks in the Decameron. Italy lost about half of its inhabitants. Agnolo di Tura, the chronicler of Siena, lamented that no one could be found to bury the dead, and that he had to bury his five sons with his own hands. Giovanni Villani, the chronicler of Florence, was struck by the plague in such a sudden way that his chronicle ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence.
The European population that had surpassed 70 million inhabitants at the beginning of the 1300s was reduced by a century of wars, epidemics, and famines to 40 million; it shrank by more than one third.
The famines, plague, and wars of the fourteenth century were interpreted by the Christian people as signs of God’s chastisement.
Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) admonished: Tria sunt flagella quibus dominus castigat.11 There are three scourges with which God chastises: war, plague, and famine. Saint Bernardine belongs to a number of saints like Catherine of Siena, Bridget of Sweden, Vincent Ferrer, Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, who warned how throughout history natural disasters have always accompanied the infidelities and apostasy of nations. It happened at the end of the Christian Middle Ages, and it seems to be happening today. Saints like Bernardine of Siena did not attribute these events to the work of evil agents but to the sins of men, which are even more grave if they are collective sins and still more grave if tolerated or promoted by the rulers of the peoples and by those who govern the Church.
As a philosopher of history
These considerations introduce us to the third point in which I will consider the events not as a sociologist or historian but as a philosopher of history.
Theology and the philosophy of history are fields of intellectual speculation that apply the principles of theology and philosophy to historical events. The theologian of history is like an eagle that judges human affairs from the heights. Some of great theologians of history were Saint Augustine (354-430), Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704), who was called the eagle of Meaux, from the name of the diocese where he was bishop, Count Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), the marquis Juan Donoso Cortés (1809-1853), the abbot of Solesmes Dom Guéranger (1805-1875), professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira (1908-1995), and may others.
There is a Biblical expression that says: Judicia Dei abyssus multa (Ps 35:7): the judgments of God are a great abyss. The theologian of history submits himself to these judgments and seeks to understand the reason for them.
Saint Gregory the Great, inviting us to investigate the reasons for divine action, affirms: “Whoever does not discover the reason for which God does things in the very works themselves, will find in his own meanness and baseness sufficient cause to explain why his investigations are in vain.”12
Philosophy and modern theology under the influence above all of Hegel, have replaced the judgments of God with the judgments of history. The principle according to which the Church judges history is reversed. It is not the Church that judges history but history that judges the Church, because the Church, according to the Nouvelle théologie, does not transcend history but is immanent, internal to itself.
When Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said in his final interview that “The Church is 200 years behind” with respect to history, he assumed history as the criterion of judgment for the Church. When Pope Francis, in his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia on December 21, 2019, made these words of Cardinal Martini his own, he is judging the Church in the name of history, overturning what should be the criterion of Catholic judgment.
History in reality is a creature of God, like nature, like all that exists, because nothing of what exists can exist apart from God. All that happens in history is foreseen, regulated and ordered by God for all eternity.
Thus for the philosopher of history every discussion can only begin with God and finish with God. God does not only exist; God is concerned for his creatures, and he rewards or chastises rational creatures according each one’s merits or faults. The Catechism of Saint Pius X teaches: “God rewards the good and chastises the wicked because he is infinite justice….”
Justice, theologians explain, is one of the infinite perfections of God.13 The infinite mercy of God presupposed his infinite justice.
Among Catholics the concept of justice, like the concept of divine justice, is often removed. And yet the doctrine of the Church teaches the existence of a particular judgment that follows the death of every person, with the immediate reward or punishment of the soul, and of a universal judgment in which all angels and all human beings will be judged for their thoughts, words, actions, and omissions.
The theology of history tells us that God rewards and punishes not only men but also collectivities and social groups: families, nations, civilizations. But while men have their reward or chastisement, sometimes on earth but always in heaven, nations, which do not have an eternal life, are punished or rewarded only on earth.
God is righteous and rewarding and gives to each what is his due: he not only chastises individual persons but he also sends tribulations to families, cities, and nations for the sins which they commit. Earthquakes, famines, epidemics, wars, and revolutions have always been considered as divine chastisements. As Father Pedro de Ribadaneira (1527-1611) writes: “wars and plagues, droughts and famines, fires and all other disastrous calamities are chastisement for the sins of entire populations.”14
On March 5 the bishop of an important diocese, whom I will not name, declared: “One thing is certain: this virus was not sent by God to punish sinful humanity. It is an effect of nature, treating us as a stepmother. But God faces this phenomenon with us and probably will make us understand, in the end, that humanity is one single village.”
The Italian bishop does not renounce the myth of the “single village” nor the religion of nature of the Pachamama and Greta Thurnberg, even if for him the “Great Mother” can become “stepmother.” But the bishop above all forcefully rejects the idea that the Coronavirus epidemic or any other collective disaster can be a punishment for humanity. The virus, the bishop believes, is only the effect of nature. But who is it that has created, ordered, and guided nature? God is the author of nature with its forces and its laws, and he has the power to arrange the mechanism of the forces and laws of nature in such a way as to produce a phenomenon according to the needs of his justice or his mercy. God, who is the first cause above all of all that exists, always makes use of secondary causes in order to effect his plans. Whoever has a supernatural spirit does not stop at the superficial level of things but seeks to understand the hidden design of God that is at work beneath the apparently blind force of nature.
The great sin of our time is the loss of faith by the men of the Church: not of this or that man of the Church but of the men of the Church in their collective whole, with few exceptions, thanks to whom the Church does not lose her visibility. This sin produces blindness of the mind and hardening of the heart: indifference to the violation of the divine order of the universe.
It is an indifference that hides hatred toward God. How is it manifested? Not directly. These men of the Church are too cowardly to directly challenge God; they prefer to express their hatred towards those who dare to speak of God. Whoever dares to speak of the chastisement of God gets stoned: a river of hatred flows against him.
These men of the Church, while verbally professing to believe in God, actually live immersed in practical atheism. They despoil God of all his attributes, reducing him to pure “being” – that is, to nothing. Everything that happens is for them the fruit of nature, emancipated from its author, and only science, not the Church, is capable of deciphering nature’s laws.
Yet not only sound theology but the sensus fidei itself teaches that all physical and material evils that do not come from the will of man depend on the will of God. Saint Alphonsus Liguori writes: “Everything that happens here against our will, know that it does not occur except by the will of God, as Saint Augustine says.”15
On July 19 the Church’s liturgy recalls Saint Lupus (or Saint Loup), bishop of Troyes (383-478). He was the brother of Saint Vincent of Lerins and the brother-in-law of Saint Hilary of Arles, belonging to a family of ancient senatorial nobility but above all of great sanctity.
During his lengthy episcopate (52 years), Gaul was invaded by the Huns. Attila, at the head of an army of 400.000 men, crossed the Rhine, devastating everything he found in his path. When he arrived before the city of Troyes, the bishop Lupus, vested in pontificals and following his clergy in procession, came to meet Attila and asked him, “Who are you that you threaten this city?” And the response came: “Don’t you know who I am? I am Attila, king of the Huns, called the scourge of God.” To which Lupus replied: “Well then, be the welcome scourge of God, because we merit divine scourges because of our sins. But if it is possible, let your blows fall only on my person and not on the entire city.”
The Huns entered the city of Troyes, but by divine will they were blinded and crossed it without being aware of it and without doing evil to anyone.
The bishops today not only are not speaking about divine scourges, but they are not even inviting the faithful to pray that God will liberate them from the epidemic. There is a coherence in this. Whoever prays, in fact, asks God to intervene in his life, and thus in the things of the world, in order to be protected from evil and to obtain spiritual and material goods. But why should God listen to our prayers if he is disinterested in the universe created by Him?
If, on the contrary, God can, by means of miracles, change the laws of nature, avoiding the sufferings and death of an individual man, or great loss of life throughout an entire city, he can also decree the punishment of a city or a people, because their collective sins call down collective chastisements. Saint Charles Borromeo said, “Because of our sins, God permitted the fire of the plague to attack every part of Milan.”16 And Saint Thomas Aquinas explains: “When it is all the people who sin, vengeance must be made on all the people, just as the Egyptians who persecuted the children of Israel were submerged in the Red Sea, and as the inhabitants of Sodom were struck down en masse, or a significant number of people must be struck, such as happened in the chastisement inflicted for the adoration of the golden calf.”17
On the eve of the second session of the First Vatican Council, on January 6, 1870, Saint John Bosco had a vision in which it was revealed to him that “war, plague, and famine are the scourges with which the pride and malice of men will be struck down.” This is how the Lord expressed himself: “You, O priests, why do you not run to weep between the vestibule and the altar, begging for the end of the scourges? Why do you not take up the shield of faith and go over the roofs, in the houses, in the streets, in the piazzas, in every inaccessible place, to carry the seed of my word. Do you not know that this is the terrible two-edged sword that strikes down my enemies and that breaks the wrath of God and men?”18
The priests are silent, the bishops are silent, the Pope is silent.
We are approaching Holy Week and Easter. And yet for the first time in many centuries in Italy, the churches are closed, Masses are suspended, and even Saint Peter’s Basilica is closed. The Holy Week and Easter liturgies urbe et orbi will not be drawing pilgrims from all over the world. God, also punishes by “subtraction” as Saint Bernardine of Siena says, and today it seems like he has removed the churches, the Mother of all churches from the supreme Pastor, while the Catholic people are groping confused in the dark, deprived of the light of truth that should illuminate the world from Saint Peter’s Basilica. How can we not see in what the Coronavirus is producing a symbolic consequence of the self-destruction of the Church?
Judicia Dei abyssus multa. We ought to be certain that what is happening does not prefigure the success of the sons of darkness, but rather their defeat, because, as Father Carlo Ambrogio Cattaneo, S.J., (1645-1705) explains, the number of sins, whether of a man or of a people, is numbered.19 Venit dies iniquitate praefinita says the prophet Ezekiel (21:2) – God is merciful but there is a final sin that God does not tolerate and that provokes his chastisement.
Furthermore, according to a principle of the theology of Christian history, the center of history is not the enemies of the Church but the saints. Omnia sustineo propter electos (2 Tim 2:10) says Saint Paul. History revolves around the elect of God. And history depends on the impenetrable designs of Divine Providence.
Throughout history there are those who oppose the law of God, whether men, groups, or organized societies, both public and secret, who work to destroy all that has been ordained by God. They are able to obtain apparent successes, but they will always ultimately be defeated.
The scenario we have before us is apocalyptic, but Pius XII recalls that in the Book of Revelation (6:2) Saint John says, “did not behold only the ruins caused by sin, war, famine, and death; he also saw in the first place the victory of Christ. And indeed the path of the Church throughout the centuries is a via crucis, but it is also always a march of triumph. The Church of Christ, the man of faith and Christian love, are always those who bring light, redemption and peace to a humanity without hope. Iesus Christus heri et hodie, ipse et in saecula (Hebr. 13:8). Christ is your guide, from victory to victory. Follow him.”20
At Fatima the Blessed Mother has revealed to us the scenario of our time, and she assured us of her triumph. With the humility of those who are aware that they can do nothing by their own strength, but also with the confidence of those who know that everything is possible with the help of God, we do not retreat, and we entrust oursselves to Mary at the tragic hour of the events foretold by the message of Fatima.
Translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino @pellegrino2020
Share
Your support makes stories like this possible! LifeSiteNews is completely donor supported, allowing us to report on what truly is happening in the world, free of charge and uncensored. A donation to LifeSite will ensure millions around the world can continue to come to our site to find the truth people are so desperately searching for on life, faith, family and freedom. $ Donate Now
Related Articles