Pope's comments in light of recent SCOTUS ruling

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AngelaMarie

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Yet some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions — as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom! Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals. It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate.

 
Given that the Pope’s opinion is behind a paid firewall, I’m going to just have to get through my day without knowing what it is, as I’m not handing the NY Times a dime even for the Pope.
 
I can’t read it either, but at least from what is quoted, it doesn’t seem relevant to the SCOTUS ruling. The diocese wasn’t eschewing or protesting safety precautions, social distancing, masks or travel restrictions, etc., and it wasn’t acting out of a spirit of Liberal individualism. It was merely asking not to be treated disparately or as less essential than institutions of secular convenience.
 
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If we are to come out of this crisis less selfish than when we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others’ pain. There’s a line in Friedrich Hölderlin’s “Hyperion” that speaks to me, about how the danger that threatens in a crisis is never total; there’s always a way out: “Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” That’s the genius in the human story: There’s always a way to escape destruction. Where humankind has to act is precisely there, in the threat itself; that’s where the door opens.

If all Catholics and other Christians can take these words on faith and allow miracles to happen, it will be a great witness to the Good News. The insularity that happens when we put the individual self first is ironically self destructive but selfishness is so blind.
 
Just to add, St. Cyprian on a pandemic in his time describing the Christian approach:
And further, beloved brethren, what is it, what a great thing is it, how pertinent, how necessary, that pestilence and plague which seems horrible and deadly, searches out the righteousness of each one, and examines the minds of the human race, to see whether they who are in health tend the sick; whether relations affectionately love their kindred; whether masters pity their languishing servants; whether physicians do not forsake the beseeching patients; whether the fierce suppress their violence; whether the rapacious can quench the ever insatiable ardour of their raging avarice even by the fear of death; whether the haughty bend their neck; whether the wicked soften their boldness; whether, when their dear ones perish, the rich, even then bestow anything, and give, when they are to die without heirs. Even although this mortality conferred nothing else, it has done this benefit to Christians and to God’s servants that we begin gladly to desire martyrdom as we learn not to fear death. These are trainings for us, not deaths: they give the mind the glory of fortitude; by contempt of death they prepare for the crown.
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NY Times gives you a few free articles, and evidently I haven’t reached my quota. I read the letter. A fine essay it is, but it had nothing to say about any SCOTUS case or ruling, or any particular government policy. Pope Francis is aiming much higher than that. I think some folks are reading between the lines whatever is on their minds.
 
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