If we cannot attend Mass due to this pandemic, are we actually practicing Catholicism correctly?

[dochawk]

So it matters how many die? Of course you can’t speak for your priest but I wonder what the threshold is.

I don’t think that there is an identifiable “threshold.”

The risk, I suppose, would need to be significantly higher than that of having a fatal car accident, but certainly somewhat less than the risk of large groups congregating.

It’s also important to note that the risk of the gatherings isn’t simply of individuals getting the infection there, but of the secondary and tertiary spreading that comes from that. That is, I wouldn’t be risking just myself by going, but everyone with whom I come into contact later (and for this disease, people are contagious for days before they have any reason to suspect that they’re sick . . .

For a pandemic type disease, it’s all about getting the R value below 1 (and the farther the better). There are various risks that we take that must be taken (we can’t go this one without buying food or having it delivered, for example). Each and every one of these adds a bit to R–and the more people are in the same place where infection can spread, the larger the increase. Mathematically, the increased risk is likely in the range of geometric, and also near geometric in the number of other potential transmission vectors following any posible transmission.

 

[Berumen]

I don’t know about your church, but at ours the Eucharist is locked up in a Tabernacle or on the alter with the Priest so to clarify, the Priest is administering the Eucharist at the entrance of our Church after mass so that he is in compliance with the Bishop’s request and the state’s mandate on social distancing. I was excited because previously we have just been watching mass live streamed from home because no one (other than the priest and two to three others) was allowed to attend mass or receive the Eucharist over the last several weeks.

 

[JanR]

One can watch the Mass on EWTN, if one has it included in one’s programming. It’s as close as we can come, right now.

 

[PetraG]

So it matters how many die? Of course you can’t speak for your priest but I wonder what the threshold is. How many deaths are acceptable and at what point is it unacceptable? Just curious questions we all will have to ask as we open up in society.

Well, looking at a 2+ year weekly average, this is a picture of what is not acceptable:
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Source: Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19
(Jurisdiction: New York City, but state jurisdictions can be selected as well, if you go to the web site. This is obviously in the region of the worst-case scenarios that everyone wants to avoid.)

This is what the situation has been in the US as a whole, where the per capita mortality has been held significantly lower than the worst European countries:
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Mind you, this is deaths due to all causes, so it removes the question of whether other deaths that would have occurred anyway are being counted as COVID-19 deaths. We’re seeing deaths that are significantly beyond what we would have expected to occur based on past seasonal trends, but especially in places like New York City that saw a high community prevalence of infection.

I think the bishops were satisfied by seeing the situation in northern Italy (which repeated itself to some degree in New York City) that this epidemic is indeed serious enough to warrant such drastic restrictions as they are imposing now. This is especially true in light of the mortal threat posed by the conditions typical at family funerals.

How a small Georgia city far from New York became one of the worst coronavirus hotspots in the country

Two funerals, an overrun hospital, and a lacking federal response left Albany, Georgia, reeling from one of the highest nationwide rates of COVID-19.

www.businessinsider.com