Aging Catholic priesthood risk health to comfort the faithful during pandemic
Priests, pictured here celebrating Mass, are older and in the at-risk group to be infected by COVID-19. Wikipedia Commons photo.
NEW YORK — Catholic priests are often called into action through tough times. Whether they work in a local parish or as a missionary, the main duties of a priest is to administer the church’s seven sacraments — which include baptism, confession and holy communion — while also visiting the sick, overseeing religious education programs and providing pastoral care to parishioners.
How does all that work during the COVID-19 pandemic? In Italy, where the coronavirus has led to the infection of some 35,000 residents and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, priests have been among the group hardest hit during this epidemic. Ten priests have already died after contracting COVID-19, more than half of time in the city of Bergamo, just outside Milan. In Bergamo alone, more than 20 priests have been hospitalized, with six of them dead as a result of falling ill. They ranged in age from 59 to 70.
That members of the clergy are suffering in such high numbers isn’t a surprise given the advanced age of so many priests. In the United States, where fears about the deadly bug’s spread has grown over the past week, the average age of a priest is 63. The number puts priests in the high-risk bracket for people who can die from contracting COVID-19.
Priestly vocations has been trending downward for years, especially in Europe and the United States. These two places, where the need for clergy to comfort the sick is at its highest while officials call for social distancing, find themselves with no pastoral care. Instead, priests are relegated to streaming services via the Internet as part of social distancing in an effort to stem the outbreak’s growth.
How can priests around the world give pastoral care and comfort to the sick and panic-stricken without putting themselves at risk? Clergy in China, where the virus began last year, and France, where it has grown in recent weeks, have been hospitalized. It’s especially tough when priests are themselves forced into quarantine and dealing with the grief of losing family members.
Dwight Longenecker, an Anglican-turned-Catholic priest, wrote on his blog Tuesday that he’s “working from home” like millions of Americans.
“As a Catholic priest I celebrate the sacraments and ‘do my job.’ I am often frustrated and sometimes angry with what seems to me incompetence and indifference around me. I’m even more frustrated with my own failures and sins,” he said. “At times this feeling infects my enthusiasm for my vocation and I feel that I am just going through the motions or even putting on an act which has little depth or substance. I celebrate Mass as faithfully as I can, but often I don’t feel anything — don’t feel close to Jesus and Mary and don’t have what I have learned Catholics call consolations.’ But one continues on. Faith is stronger than all that.”
Longenecker, who is based in Greenville, South Carolina, added, “But [Monday], at the prospect of not being able to say Mass for my parish I became quite emotional. Tears welled up more than once that afternoon, and I guess I was learning that it did matter to me after all. It mattered quite a lot. So I resolved to do the best I can in the midst of the lockdown so many of us are experiencing and use the extra time to encourage the flock. This Lockdown Diary will reach not only my own folks in the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary in Greenville, South Carolina, but the thousands who read this blog worldwide.”
In Italy, priests have been unable to do their jobs for a myriad of reasons.
“A priest who lost his dad called me. He’s in quarantine, his mother is in quarantine alone in another house. His brothers are in quarantine,” said Francesco Beschi, who serves as the bishop of Bergamo. “There is no funeral. He will be taken to the cemetery and buried, without anyone being able to participate in this moment of human and Christian piety, which is now so important because it is missing.”
The death toll is so high in Bergamo’s diocese alone that bodies are being stored in churches, which are closed to the public as part of a national lockdown on everything with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies. As a result, gatherings that include weddings, baptisms and funerals are also banned.
In nearby Cremona, the town’s bishop, Antonio Napolioni, 62, was hospitalized for the 10 days with respiratory problems after contracting COVID-19. He is now recovering at home and under quarantine.
This past Sunday, Pope Francis blessed an empty St. Peter’s Square, while praising priests who had found creative ways to reach out to people. The 83-year-old pope fell ill with a cold at the start of Lent as the outbreak in Italy began. He later tested negative for COVID-19.
“I want to pray for all of the priests, the creativity of priests who think of a thousand ways to be with the people so that the people don’t feel alone,” he said.
The pontiff, who left the Vatican and walked the empty streets of Rome this past Sunday to pray at two local churches, had previously called on priests to summon the courage to visit people sickened by the coronavirus.
In Texas, Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth said while Masses are to be celebrated without a congregation, he urged priests starting on Thursday to distribute communion “outside of church in designated spaces after Mass for those who are present in their cars or separated by a safe distance.”
“After consultation with my priests and civic officials at local and state levels, and in cooperating with them for the good of society, I am informing you that Mass will continue to be celebrated at the scheduled times throughout the territory of the Diocese of Fort Worth, but without a congregation physically present in the church,” he said.
In New York, the archdiocese, the second-largest in the country that includes 2.8 million Catholics behind only Los Angeles, has closed schools and public Masses suspended. Nonetheless, Priests and deacons remain on duty for anyone who wants to visit churches for private prayer during Lent. Hospital chaplains across the country are at the ready should the numbers increase dramatically like in Europe. New York, and its neighboring suburbs, have become an epicenter of the deadly pathogen in recent days.
While many older priests remain sidelined, Catholic volunteer groups have filled the void in some cases when it comes to delivering food and offers the elderly other comforts. The spiritual needs of these people is something lay people aren’t prepared to do. Nonetheless, Beschi said the virus will forever alter how we behave and feel when it comes to community.
Beschi told Vatican News that the world has forever been changed as a result of the contagion.
“In recent years, we have condemned ourselves to a kind of self-isolation,” Beschi said. “Everyone thought for himself. In this moment that we live the imposed isolation, we realize how much sharing is necessary. I hope this is something that stays with us.”
Clemente Lisi is a senior editor and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged. He is the former deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.