I don't get it.... God's retribution for what happened in the Vatican is to send a virus to attack not only Catholics in Italy, but also Taoists in China? And Evangelicals in the United States? And Muslims in Iran?

Prior to this pandemic, when people were infected with the flu, they were routinely advised by bishops and priests that they were dispensed from the obligation to attend Mass until they were no longer infectious; in fact, they had an obligation in charity not to attend Mass because by attending Mass they would risk infecting others in the pews. No bishop said anything like, "Your presence at Mass and your reception of the Eucharist is the most important consideration, and you must attend Mass regardless of how your presence might have a detrimental effect on the lives of others, and don't let anyone interfere with your right to receive Communion."

During this pandemic, when it is apparent that someone infected with this novel virus can be a carrier and transmitter while being asymptomatic, and with severe and even deadly consequences for people who contract the virus, the logic and duty of charity in the particular example above applies on a society-wide scale. If I might be carrying a virus that could severely harm or kill someone who is in proximity to me or who later sits where I sat, don't I have a duty in charity not to expose anyone else to my presence? If we all might be carriers, don't we all have a duty in charity not to risk exposing anyone else? Don't we have a duty in charity to self-isolate in a society-wide effort to suppress the spread of the virus for the sake of everyone else? Wouldn't disregard of stay-at-home orders based on the professional recommendations of epidemiologists be selfish and irresponsible? There are numerous examples in our country and around the globe of how a social gathering with just one infected person resulted in an outbreak that couldn't be contained, and spread enormous suffering in the community and pushed health care providers to the brink.

The vehemence and indignation with which some Catholics are insisting on their rights to the sacraments seems to me to border on spiritual selfishness and pride. Selfishness because their personal access to Communion is more important than charity towards their neighbors in consideration for the health and well-being of general society. Pride because they think their faith that God will protect them, or their willingness to accept infection and death if God wills it, evinces greater holiness than that of cowardly bishops and others who have suspended public worship and parish events as a prudent precaution in coordination with all major social institutions to help suppress the spread of the virus.

The Church listens to physicians about natural means to prevent and treat disease. Why shouldn't the Church also listen to epidemiologists during this pandemic about natural means to combat its spread? This is an opportunity for Catholics to show love for their neighbor by tolerating a temporary deprivation of sacraments. Imagine the wrath from society if Catholics refused to abide by stay-at-home orders, held Mass, and were responsible for worsening the pandemic?

Sacraments are not magical antidotes to imprudence. Grace builds on nature; it does not supplant nature.

From an article of an interview with Fr. José Antonio Fortea Cucurull:
"In the Book of Samuel, God offered three options for King David to select for having incited the divine wrath: hunger, war and pestilence, which are prefigurements of the Apocalypse.

These historical chastisements, Fr. Fortea said, were permitted by God and have a connection to sin. "The greater part of evil," he said, "is human, not natural," adding, "Sin has its repercussions in nature, not because sin provokes an earthquake or tidal wave, but because God allowed something to happen that He would not have permitted otherwise."

What God is saying, the exorcist noted, is that bad things happen because He permits them.

"To say otherwise would be to suppose that things happen naturally and that God has nothing to do with them," Fr. Fortea continued, "and it would be as if God has nothing to do or that God is limiting himself to merely keeping some things from happening."

"For he who does not believe in a loving God who protects us, the evil that happens to him has no meaning. But for us, it does have meaning: It is a punishment or a trial. Sometimes, the just man is put to the test."

(More available online, and I highly suggest reading it.)

In the case of getting a child baptized, if I were the child's father and no priest would baptize him, at the first manifestation of any danger or illness I would baptize my child myself.

You're right about skewed priorities in that case.

Christ is the Lord of history and the King of the universe; yet for us, given His words as presented in Luke 13:1-5, it seems hard to make a connection between a particular calamity and particular human sins and failings.

1 Now there were some present at that very season which told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

2 And he answered and said unto them, Think ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they have suffered these things?

3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all in like manner perish.

4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them, think ye that they were offenders above all the men that dwell in Jerusalem?

5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

When people treat disasters as reproaches for other people's sins, He seems to turn that notion away, and He urges us to repent of our own sins.

maybe the virus is divine retribution for Peter Kwasniewski's incessant and increasingly vociferous attacks on the Novus Ordo Mass.

Hilarious. I have often though Peter K. needs a good smack. He's quite full of himself.

The vehemence and indignation with which some Catholics are insisting on their rights to the sacraments seems to me to border on spiritual selfishness and pride.

Extremes and extremists are our greatest enemy. I hear too many rant and rave but realize they have no special pipeline to God. He doesn't check in with them every morning and reveal His divine plans for the day. In reality, they don't know any more than the rest of us.

(I don't encourage the mocking of Our Lady of Fatima).

The problem with Fatima and most other private revelations is that they may have been good and accurate in the early stages. What steered those revelations off course is that people got into them and misdirected them according to their own speculations and wishes.

There are numerous examples in our country and around the globe of how a social gathering with just one infected person resulted in an outbreak that couldn't be contained, and spread enormous suffering in the community and pushed health care providers to the brink.

A good example of our emphasis on individual liberty, a good thing, carried to excess, a bad thing.

As for the claim that it's "not far-fetched" that the Wuhan virus is divine punishment for Pachamama, I can engage in irresponsible, wild speculation too

I think it is divine punishment for singing "Gather Us In" at mass.

Gather us in the old and the creaky
Gather us in on the floor of the sea.
Slosh us around in Davy Jones locker
Plenty good fishes for you and for me.

Gather us in the senile and kinky
Gather us in the hippies of yore.
Gather us in the old and the flaky
We were the young in 1964.

The argument that people who are feeling healthy must stay away from Mass because they may be contagious doesn't hold water. If we were to do that, then we would have to use the same argument for the flu, because that has an incubation time as well. In other words, every year public Mass will have to be cancelled to prevent seemingly healthy but flu-stricken people from infecting other people.

At what point can you go out if you can never be sure you're healthy?

I have no problems or issues with staying home for a few weeks. Thinking this virus can only affect older people is a myth. Younger people die from it, too. No age group has zero risk and most of the hospitalizations are those aged 20 to 50. Figures vary by region.

@jpnz71

Your experts are out of date, here is the latest scroll down for the updates,
swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR30wrasXEEOfWEPgnr3iw8bpz-uxtS3RFyF3EbjkuT4Rh5hnb3rz8TL-PE

Also we have no evidence of your claim, see the latest research from Italy!

is at least 10 times more deadly than flu

The 10 times more deadly than Flu has come from a soon to be discredited expert at Imperial University, he is always wrong. His latest is that his claim of 500,000 deaths in the U.K. will now be 5,700!

Also in more good news today we have reached 30,000 people that have died with Chinese Flu (NOT OF Chinese Flu). To put that number into perspective that is 4.6% of the number of people that die of Flu globally in a bad year.

[The arguments on the "Swiss Doctor" site are sophistry. When people who were limping along with their health problems get finished off by the coronavirus, it is specious to argue that the virus wasn't the immediate cause of their deaths and that their existing conditions were the main issue. The point of the efforts against the CV is that we don't want to just let the virus finish off weak people. Downplaying these deaths as insignificant doesn't make sense.--admin]

We gave had the deaths of some younger people, all perfectly healthy before contracting the virus. Granted, the numbers are low for which I am grateful. But my state is in the lower range of number of cases.

Even in this strange abandonment (a friend pointed out how the Mystical Body will pass through the Passion, too, and perhaps now Christ is in the Tomb, spiritually speaking, and thus we are in a startlingly concrete way abandoned...)

This is a very real spiritual reality that has been a long time arriving and is finally here. "In the end all you will have is the rosary..." I think that was a prophetic message from years ago. No one knows how dire our situation is truly, and if we are even approaching that Mystical Passion as of yet, but let us chant out together, nonetheless! Silly songs (if you must) in between the serious calls to heaven for help!

I am both grateful to be released from the obligation to assist at painfully bad liturgies that left me miserable; while also feeling distraught not to be able to go. Today assisting online was only more heartbreaking, and I found solace in the rosary.

assist at LiveMass.net! There is a beautiful Mass happening and just started NOW (Guadalajara, Mexico). Two deacons, priest and four servers and schola singing the GC of old.

710,290 confirmed covid-19 cases. 33,550 confirmed deaths. 4.7 percent fatality rate.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

"Your experts are out of date..." - no they are not. Please see above latest data.
"The REAL danger is the global economy... not the virus, which is a ruse to destroy the economy." - Please stop peddling conspiracy theories.

...the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was the ultimate petri dish of recycled air circulating an infection, with an elderly population, experienced a 1.25% fatality rate. New York, which seems to be, by far, the worst hot spot now, has a mortality rate hovering between 0.75% and 0.80%, and it is going down as they test more cases. That compares to 1.2% nationwide,...

"World-wide" is not similar to the USA, jpnz71.

No one except the priest and an assisting deacon is permitted to be outside of a car.

This is March. I daresay that if you make your proposal here in Wisconsin, several priests will hunt you down and tape your mouth shut with duct-tape. As I type, it's 40 degrees, showers, and wind at 20-40 MPH from the west

TCJ: I think I had heard about that. Mukwonago area, right? Whatever--the priest had to have at least THREE layers of wooly clothing beneath the alb/chasuble.

Current 2020:03:29

Diamond Princess cases=712 deaths=10 recovered=597 in hospital=105 serious/critical=15

On the other hand a fellow choir member went on a month long cruise around northern Europe over Christmas, ∼1500 passengers, 8 deaths none related to the novel virus.

Once we are into our eighties (as I am), we are dying at the rate of about 10% per annum. If we are inconsiderate enough to do that all in the first 4 months of the year the system will have difficulty coping. The problem Diamond Princess is causing health authorities is the 105 still in hospital, and the 15 in critical care, that means there is no capacity for routine procedures. It's bad for political leaders when the media are showing chaotic scenes in hospitals.

@dad29,

Yes, it was Mukwonago. There was a county police officer in attendance among the crowd of cars. No dust-up occurred.

Actually, to know the true death rate, we would have to know how many actual cases there are. As we know by know, there are many unknown cases - because a number of people show little or no symptoms, and therefore don't know that they have it, and therefore - as I assume is the case in most of these instances - are not tested and are not included in the numbers. I also assume (perhaps I could be wrong) that there are also those who do get more than very minor symptoms, but not needing hospitalization, that do not get tested and therefore not included in the numbers.

So yes, we need to take into account the "latency effect" which you speak of, which would indeed raise the death rate - but the unknown, unidentified cases would lower the death rate back down. Certainly we can't know exactly how much it would be lowered, but it is certain that it would be significantly lowered.

To be fair, there are probably a good number of these types of cases with the flu as well, but still, it is a good point to take into consideration.

Then, there is evidence that certain cases of death are being attributed to COVID-19, when in fact it is not certain that COVID-19 is the actual cause of death. This applies both to those who had the virus in them at the time of death but had at least one (if not more) co morbidities which are actually the cause of death, as well as to those whose death is being used in the new coronavirus death count despite the fact that some reports of death are as death from a coronavirus in general and not necessarily from the new one.

My whole point is, we can't give too much weight to the numbers being given. Not saying the new coronavirus is not a major problem - just saying we have to realize the numbers we are being given are only correct insofar as the numbers we are being given are correct, and there are many concerns indeed (I listed just two) about these numbers.

I stated results of fatalities out from confirmed COVID-19 infections. The results cited for fatalities from influenza are similarly based on known infections. Except to point out the latency effect whereby there are people with confirmed infection today that will die from the disease in the next few to several days, and that an approximately exponential growth rate of infection (at present) means the true proportion of fatalities out of confirmed infections is surely higher - for now.

Yes, there are (and will continue to be) cases of people who contract the disease but who have such mild symptoms (or are unable to obtain testing) that they are not tested & reported. That's the same with influenza. In the case of fatalities among the elderly - or among people who have other medical conditions (many if not most people have other medical conditions) - it is perhaps disingenuous to suggest that COVID-19 might not be the real cause of death in a large number of such cases. Again, it is the same for influenza. This is precisely why I only cited data of deaths from confirmed cases. I won't engage in what seems to be a popular "hunch" mentality to blunt the actual impetus of the statistics.

After all, there is the famous saying, "There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there is statistics." Don't fall into the trap of misreading or misinterpreting what the data says.

I did NOT say anything about the rate of increase of infections - I only discussed the rate of mortality among the confirmed infections. I leave it to others to speculate, often wildly.

Here... wear this. This new fashion is probably the best way to go. I hope she doesn't go to the hospital for breathing too much CD.

That's interesting.
They could also make a study of how many people who have died who "have" coronavirus also have any sort of dental implants. Since the number of people with any sort of dental implants is decently high, they could probably say that having dental implants increases your chances of dying of coronavirus.
This is just me being facetious, but the point is that if someone has a cold when they die, you don't normally say that they died of the cold, if something else was the main factor, do you?

Interesting re: the "deadly choir rehearsal" is that they mentioned diarrhea.
They've said for a while that such was not a symptom of covid-19 ("you don't need extra TP!"), but now that some people who have it also have had diarrhea at some point in the recent past, it "may" be a symptom. Maybe some of them shared a stomach bug ("they carpooled..," did they also eat together, prior to rehearsal?), and then happened to get it. The article also states that a good number weren't tested while they were/are sick, but they're being counted as having it, anyway.

The whole thing is just... weird.
And boy, there really couldn't have been a more opportune time to exploit something, anything, what with the DNC circus that's been playing out in these US.

I'm not saying the virus doesn't exist.
I'm not saying that catching a cold or other virus isn't deadly for people who already have dispositions that being pushed over the edge could kill them.
The point is that it seems like many places are not taking the time to distinguish between someone dying with covid-19 and dying of it.

Well, there are folks who imagine a brutta figura is prophetic in the manner of St John the Baptist, but a brutta figura does not a prophet make.