Chonak,

In my original response, I quoted correctly. My editing of his quote was inadvertent. I am sorry that I didn't proofread my own comments more carefully.

Dear fellow Charles :)

I don't think anyone here has claimed that we ought not conform ourselves to the reality in which we find ourselves. That reality being, no matter the circumstances, we are all called to become holy and be cleansed of our sins and imperfections, and that even without Sacraments we have 2000 years of tradition regarding prayer, spirituality, devotions, etc by which we can sanctify our day, as we all are bound to do (especially at this time of the year).

Only the most extreme comments aside (though admittedly, these are extreme circumstances in that they differ markedly from most people's whole life's experience), I see good discussion being had on the consequences of what is happening and it can and should be fruitful for any future, similar experience.

I think the comparisons with the flu are rather missing the point. First of all Coronavirus has a death rate an order of magnitude higher than the flu. Secondly, it sends a high proportion of people to the ICU. Somewhere around 5% if memory serves, and 15% require hospitalization. As we saw in Italy, the health system can be rapidly overwhelmed. If all ICUs are full, where do you send heart attack and car crash victims? The whole point of all this physical distancing is to slow the spread so that health systems can cope.

Really we don't have the data to prove any of the above. We will not know the death rate until next year, (mainly because the virus effects those that die in their 1,000's naturally every day in the U.K.).
There have been several interesting comments about ICU use, some are empty, while the hospital next door is full, why? we have not got a clue.
Health services can get overwhelmed regularly, whether it is caused by the virus or plain panic (and doctors decisions) is another matter.
There is no evidence that the various measures that have been introduced work to slow the spread.

Too many, I think, speculate on the horrid things that could happen to us if we don't conform to their idea of a perfect church, perfect liturgy, perfect music, and on and on. All of it is nonsense in this situation.

Too many speculate on the supposedly horrible things that will happen to us because of Chinese Flu... Our biggest secular enemy at the moment is not the Virus, it is misguided actions taken without adequate data, causing far greater damage.

Our biggest secular enemy at the moment is not the Virus, it is misguided actions taken without adequate data, causing far greater damage.

The virus is a threat, to be sure. I don't think anyone, health authorities included, can make guarantees as to when this will end. Pandemics, plagues, etc. have happened before. Read "The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire," by Kyle Harper. It has always been a bit mystifying that a world power like Rome could have become so weakened that it fell to its enemies. Harper documents plagues that severely weakened them including as an example a plague that wiped out an entire legion.

Collections of data are sometimes enlightening, and sometimes false gods that lead astray. Information can be relatively worthless unless it is in the hands of someone who can accurately interpret and apply it.

Nobody here has argued that he/she wouldn't dare to go to Mass because of the personal risc of getting infected - even if it were "virtually 100% fatal".

No, the argument (by some) has simply been that the needs of "science" dictate that we must abandon public Liturgy.

Conversely, no one here is saying don't take REASONABLE precautions. Liturgy can be celebrated in such a way as to practice distancing and mitigate risk without giving in to fear or hysteria.

No, the argument (by some) has simply been ...

Incardination: I do not concur; or did I misquote you in my previous comment? It seemed to be an allusion to danger in times of prosecution, which I think is misplaced in the context of te present discussion: We are talking about the risk to infect others with a deadly disease; not about the danger to one's own life.

Yes... there MUST be balance... too many are quickly willing to abandoned their freedoms carelessly without weighing the serious consequence of shedding our spiritual responsibility as individuals and as the corporate Body of Christ. What we relinquish all too easily we may never have returned to us.

Yes, this was about those attending Mass themselves.

Caught by the authorities for taking part in the Mass - that is, the comparison in accepting risk in order to take part in the Liturgy.

Randolph Nichols - Fr. Kerper's letter is wonderful. Thank you for posting it. I hope everyone who has commented on this thread reads it as well.

There is a real need for weigh-in from those well-versed in moral theology and ethics here. For example, we have the concept of unintended consequences. There is a moral difference between meaning to cause an effect, and doing some unrelated act that has an unintended consequence. Famously, for example, a diseased and life-threatening womb may in some cases be removed even if the woman is pregnant, with the unintended consequence of killing the baby.
That is with an unintended consequence that is both known and inevitable. Then we have a further category of unintended consequences that are neither known nor inevitable. In the case of this virus, we do not know that transmission will take place at a public Mass (especially if all possible precautions are taken to prevent spread). Neither do we know that IF that transmission took place, death would inevitably result from our particular action. Neither could we know for sure whether, IF transmission took place at Mass (as opposed to, say, work or the grocery store) that the transmission from Mass in particular set off the chain of events that lead to a death three or four degrees of separation down the road. Whatever our opinion on the virus and liturgical shut-down, we would do well to keep some of this nuance in mind before making moral judgments of others. We might also do well to consider the logical conclusion of an approach to life and action that must always take all possible unintended consequences into consideration in order for each decision to be judged on a moral level.
Have any of you lost sleep at night because you know that your decision not to call off choir may result in the death/serious injury of choir members and other innocent people on the road? I certainly have - we go through the harsh Great Plains winters here in South Dakota every year. I've had choir members in serious wrecks. But at some point I have to accept a certain risk of injury and death in order to keep up our Cathedral music standards. How can I weigh death vs musical standards, morally?
No, I'm not saying this is a direct counterpart to the current situation. But it is an example of the "terrible calculus" even ordinary people have to face every day, if we stop to think about it. Regardless of whether coronavirus is stopped, or comes back, the flu will be here next year and will kill tens of thousands. Inevitably, our decision to continue public Masses in flu season next year will result in some death. Or should we cancel liturgies every flu season? Where is the appropriate line? What disturbs me more than the virus or the response, is the ease with which so many people assume that our response to these realities is black-and-white and morally unambiguous. Real life is a complicated thing.

And I will repeat what I've said earlier - in an attempt to be "on topic" :)
Bishop Schneider's original letter and response seems, to me, to display the kind of nuance I'm talking about here. BOTH spiritual and scientific realities must be considered. BOTH risk removal (total stoppage of liturgy) and risk mitigation (careful continuance of liturgy) must be considered.

@tomjaw:

Really we don't have the data to prove any of the above. We will not know the death rate until next year, (mainly because the virus effects those that die in their 1,000's naturally every day in the U.K.).

Actually I think we rather do. Italy and Spain are prime examples of what happens when the health care system is overwhelmed.

Here are some recent numbers:

Italy: death rate of 12%; health system completely overwhelmed. Collateral death rate from other causes due to no ICU capacity? No idea, as I couldn't find a number, but surely there are some.

Canada: death rate 1.8%; ICUs are still not at full capacity, heavy physical distancing in place (Québec seems to have the severest restrictions).

Québec (subset of Canada): death rate at 1.18%; 15% of ICUs occupied by coronavirus patients and the ICUs are at about 70% capacity all causes included (alas one of those cases is a security guard run down deliberately by an irate motorist because the security guard tried to enforce distancing rules). Total hospitalizations for the virus are about 7.5% of total beds in Québec (today's statistics).

Italy also has an ageing population which doesn't help: 23% over the age of 65. In Québec, it is 18.5%, not hugely different.

So we are seeing the difference between a health system that can still cope, and one that couldn't. And with our ICUs running at 70% capacity all causes included, it wouldn't take much of a explosion of cases to overwhelm the system.

We need to stop making excuses. Our public health authorities are the experts. We wouldn't let them make decisions about liturgy, we shouldn't second-guess their decisions about physical distancing in a pandemic. These are MDs and PhDs who have spent their lives studying these things.

All the numbers above can be found thanks to Google. I think they express rather eloquently *why* we must keep hospitalization and critical care cases below the capacity of the health systems to cope.

Ora

Ora - I don't want to keep going down the scientific/medical rabbit-hole because this is a liturgical forum. But even from the perspective of liturgy and morality/ethics (which I think fall under this forum's purview), it is important to keep in mind that there is not one single monolithic bloc of "experts" in this matter. Certainly, my opinion as a musician is not really that important. But there are medical and scientific experts with a range of opinions about this topic. If you have not heard from them, you might consider broadening your media consumption/sources. If our mainstream media (by which I simply mean the biggest channels/publications) decides on a certain narrative, and then only interviews those experts who agree with the narrative, then of course it will be true that "the experts agree". We should also keep in mind the fear for self and career that must inevitably accompany any public statements that do not support the official narrative.

The truth is more complicated. And even the mainstream news sources are constantly reminding us of how little we know about this virus, especially in the absence of widespread testing, and the absence of regular poll-type testing (that is, testing a representative swathe of the population rather than those who come to the hospital). And the absence of widespread antibody testing.

In the absence of clear knowledge, preparing for the worst-case scenario may indeed be the wisest and most prudent thing. But we should be careful about overstating our knowledge and the homogeneity of "expert opinion". If you're not seeing dissenting expert opinions, then you are not looking.

Elmar, you may be assessing from your likelihood of infecting others. I'm not sure you can speak for all others commenting on this topic about the risk they are willing to accept for themselves.

As for the risk to others, as I've mentioned before, it seems unlikely that we are unable to find a median between extremes of canceling all public Liturgy on the one hand and expecting all - regardless of their health issues of the moment - to attend on the other.

@tomjaw

i hear you about the vaccine... i take a little scotch every day :-)... and even if it does nothing for my health, i find im a little less stressed as a result. (i am trying to solicit another bottle from the "dudes of the forum" thread)

What many of you are missing is that all your efforts to improve liturgy and music in the Catholic Church are undermined by implicit racism (Chinese virus, etc.), trafficking in conspiracy theories (Swiss doctor - take a look at the Swiss Propaganda Research site and see if you think anything they publish is credible - a favorite topic of theirs seems to be Jews controlling the media), and an aversion to science and facts (see innumerable posts on this thread which continue to compare covid to the flu), among other things. Over the last 15 years as a music director in Roman Catholic Churches, I have seen first hand how ineffectual are the efforts of those who promote better liturgy and music, and now I understand why. No pastor will listen to people whose positions on liturgy and music dwell side by side with conspiracy theories, a dismissive attitude towards modern life as a whole (including science), and sadly, racism (implicit at best, explicit at worst.) So go ahead, keep on posting these kind of posts. I of all people can't stop you. But I can tell you none of your most fervent efforts to improve Roman Catholic liturgy or sacred music will ever come to fruition so long as you continue to be so stubbornly opposed to living in and dealing with 21st Century life, science, facts and reality.

Swiss Propaganda Research

You seem to worry what else they write about, who cares... But what have they written about the Chinese Virus, if you read they are giving access to information sources ignored by the main stream media.

I presume that you think that all the doctors and experts quoted on that site are all racists!

[The SPR site has a list of over a dozen articles about "The Jewish lobby", so that's not a site acceptable for posting here.--admin]

Aside from the (frankly ridiculous) assertion that referring to COVID-19 as the Wuhan Flu is somehow "racist", I have to agree with jpnz71. We are indeed part of an extremely insular religion that historically tends to shun most things not considered nominally Catholic. In the past, this grew out of the heresy and lawlessness of much of the non-Catholic world. However, when our own church is infested by those who wish to see it destroyed, who view proper high liturgy as something anti-Catholic, and when even some of our own clergy have become misguided - this strategy will not work. Gregorian chant "not being appropriate for the modern Catholic Church" is what we are facing.

Sadly, I see this sectarian attitude far too often.

For those who object to the racist implications of calling this the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus. There are those who have done this as a way to assign the origins of this virus to unclean outsiders, from which the virus has then invaded the U.S. Thanks to them, it is too late to claim that calling this the Wuhan or Chinese virus is not racist, just as it is too late to claim that certain historic symbols (swastikas or confederate flags come to mind) are not symbols of racism. Unfortunately, when the worst people use a term or symbol, the term or symbol they used becomes tainted, and if we use those tainted terms and symbols, we are either explicitly, implicitly, or ignorantly amplifying their racism. I would think Catholics would go out of their way to avoid doing any such thing, keeping the life and teachings of Jesus in mind. But, apparently not.

@JaredOstermann

My main reason for pointing this out is to refute the narrative that somehow on one side we have "SCIENCE" and on another side a Medieval stereotype of superstitious rejection of science and modern knowledge in general.

Indeed it is not either/or. When I came back to the Church after a long absence, the fact that the Church respected science was one of many factors that drew me back. I have long since reconciled my scientific background with my faith. From time to time there are frictions, but by and large, faith and science can and do mutually enhance each other. That there have been many scientists in the Church, even among religious, helped.

Science without faith-driven moral ethics would be a tyranny, and a religion that refused to recognize the role of science is just snake oil and I could never belong to such a Church. A good example of the two co-existing is Jérôme Lejeune, Servant of God, whose cause is being led by the abbot of St-Wandrille in France.

Ora

So isn't it about time to recommend the good bishop to God and let this thread languish dramatically into eternity? Some of it reminds me of that 300-pound soprano I saw when a child, wasting away from tuberculosis. It took her several acts to finally croak.

Woo-hoo, wu-what, Wuhan, woo who cares?

We are talking about the risk to infect others with a deadly disease;

Yes, well....have you attended Mass, or a ball-game, or the theatre while having a cold? Did you sit near someone with COPD and pass on your cold which then turned to pneumonia and killed the COPD sufferer? Same questions apply if you had Flu-A or -B and were--at the time--asymptomatic, which is usually the case early on.

Almost anyone, at almost any time, can unknowingly spread a disease or infection which kills someone else through a combination of circumstances which IS rather common.

K? Get the hint?

Social distancing appears to work.

And yet, just today I watched a video of a German epidemiologist who was a Rockefeller U. prof. In his opinion, "distancing" merely prolongs the scourge--flattening the curve results in a longer time-line. He scoffs at the idea of forcing people to remain inside their homes when fresh air is a FAR better environment (and has been known as such since at least my childhood.) He thinks that 'herd immunity' is required to mitigate the disease now AND over the next few years.

He, too, is an "expert" as are the Stanford and Yale (and Oxford) profs who disagree with the interpretations and projections from U of Washington, among others.

[I believe the guy you saw is the same guy tomjaw has been plugging. He's in New York and has been mentioned in the Post. Sweden has been following the same approach he advocates, so we will find out what happens. --admin]

We don't even know whether herd immunity will work yet, and the UK seems to be backing off from that strategy now.

When I had dengue fever my eyeball muscles were so painful I read Moby Dick by waving the book back and forth, and when I started to recover I rejoiced at having immunity, that is until I learned it would last 14 to 20 days and wouldn't protect me from the 3 other predominant strains in the meantime.

The Confederate flag, racism, and even colds and flu have nothing much to do with liturgical music. An exception would be if a significant number of singers are out with illness. I think some need to retire to their safe spaces and color.

JPNZ71...

You may have missed this alert box. You may have to reel in your comment about the association representing one thing or another.