Was the Church prepared for Covid-19? Looks like no. Why?

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FiveLinden

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The RCC responses to Covid-19 around the world seem to have been generally sensible and compassionate, helping and supporting communities and nations. Not questioning that for a moment.

But the Church’s strength, indeed its core role, is as a universal Church. It should be, more than any other organisation, prepared for and able to take up leadership in a truly international emergency.

I don’t mean it should lead the response. I mean it should be in a position to be relevant, and clearly so, from the first to the last day of an international crisis.

But I don’t see it. If the Church has a plan for a world-wide pandemic it seems to be lost somewhere. Yet a world-wide pandemic was 100% predictable.

Are there such contingency plans for major events? Or does the Church simply wait and respond as best it can? It seems to be the second. As there is no shortage of IQ points in the Vatican I wonder if there is actually a reason for this - perhaps a sort of fatalism around ‘if God wills it’.
 
As a member of the Church, I think it’s doing a good job with a crisis that appeared very suddenly out of the blue. I’m finding its activities incredibly relevant and uplifting.

The Church’s core mission is people’s spiritual well-being. The prayer activities of the Pope and bishop, the public health initiatives to shut down Masses and dispense the faithful from obligations, the priests’ sometimes creative ways to address the spiritual needs of their parishes during this unusual time, the public appearances of the Pope recently have all been spot-on in that regard.

In past eras, the Church would likely have been very involved in the day-to-day care of the sick, and to some extent where the Church is still able to run hospitals and have its personnel serve as nurses, caregivers etc it still does that, but more of that function in the European countries and USA is handled by the public welfare system now, and the religious orders and such have often had to bow out for legal reasons. If and when this epidemic hits the third world countries that have a Catholic presence, I am sure you will see members of the Church stepping up in a practical way.

If you’re not a believer then you’re probabaly not going to see the stuff the Church is doing as “relevant”. That’s your own failure to see, not the fault of the Church.
 
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Ah, it is always hard to be understood. It is exactly the stuff the Church is doing that I’m talking about. It seems to be doing it without a plan for an event which did not come ‘out of the blue’ but which secular organisations have prepared for years. Pandemic planning is a part of modern life. The Church doesn’t even seem to have a clear plan about whether bishops can stop public Masses, or what the proper role of priests is during a lockdown. To repeat: I am exclaiming at the Church’s apparent unpreparedness when, as a ‘universal’ Church, it should have been more prepared than any organisation. Not to ‘fix’ the pandemic, but to carry out its role as it sees it.
 
My Archdiocese, my Archbishop, and my entire Bishops’s conference have done their VERY best.

My Archbishop, Cardinal Dew, has handled the situation very well and all the other bishops have done the same.

The Catholic Church does not run countries, therefore expecting it to act like it does is quite extreme.
 
With all due respect, this thread seems like the OP was just looking for some excuse to complain about the Church not meeting his personal expectations of what he personally thinks a church should be like.

Not buying it, sorry.
And with the bishops and Pope doing their best in an awful situation, it’s rather insensitive, if not disrespectful, of you, OP, to be bashing the Church on a Catholic forum in a time of crisis.
The Church and our faith are bringing great comfort to a lot of us, and it seems like you just want to dump on that for no good reason.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
With all due respect, this thread seems like the OP was just looking for some excuse to complain about the Church not meeting his personal expectations of what he personally thinks a church should be like.

Not buying it, sorry.
And with the bishops and Pope doing their best in an awful situation, it’s rather insensitive, if not disrespectful, of you, OP, to be bashing the Church on a Catholic forum in a time of crisis.
The Church and our faith are bringing great comfort to a lot of us, and it seems like you just want to dump on that for no good reason.
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I agree. They are not Catholic, and so I feel it is not their right to tell me, you, and others, who are Catholics that the Church is handling the situation badly.

I do reiterate to the OP: the Church is not a country. It is not run like one.
 
Yes! Thank you! Exactly! That seems a really well-throughout out plan and references one other, parish plan. I’ll read it in detail. What I am asking is if such planning has been done on the world-wide Church level with advice to Church communities and if not, how to we explain the absence of such advice?

On the issue of the Church not being a nation - well, yes and no. The Holy See is a nation and is represented diplomatically throughout the world and at the UN and the World Health Organisation. So it is well connected to the sources of best practice around these things.
 
Following the principle of subsidiarity, I guess. It’s a fair question; but I appreciate that everyone was caught by surprise by this new virus. The WHO’s main job is dealing with disease on a global scale and it was very limited in its capacity to do anything.
 
To the extent the Holy See is a “nation”, it has only four cases connected to its own territory as of March 25: one prospective job seeker and three employees of the museum and merchandise office. It further seems likely that these people do not live within the borders of Vatican City but actually live in Italy and just cross the border to work (presumably when the country isn’t on lockdown). The Holy See from a “national” standpoint seems to be doing well at managing the infection within its territorial borders as the infection isn’t running rampant through the ranks of everybody working there and the few people who live there.

Those of us who live in parishes all over the world are certainly of concern to the Holy See because the Church cares about its members, but we are not members of the Holy See “nation”. We are members of our own countries and subject to/ affected by what our civil authorities do. The only thing the Church can control is how individual dioceses and parishes might comply with the laws in place while also doing the best things possible for the Catholics living there.

I guess it’s nice that the Church has a “disaster plan” if that makes you feel better (I’m somehow not surprised that they have one but wasn’t aware it was available to the public, as the average business does not publish its “disaster plans” on the web) but are you also making the same demands of the other large churches such as Anglican, Presbyterian, Islamic etc or is this just something the Catholics should have because the Pope happens to preside over the smallest country on earth, the Holy See?
 
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No I was not asking my question because the Holy See is a nation. I was asking my question because 1) It has been prudent, at least since 1918, for organisations to have plans for pandemics. 2) In recent years pandemic planning has become very common and effective, based on unfortunate experience and improved science 3) The Church as a world-wide institution is exactly the sort of organisation that can respond to ensure ‘business continuity’ in an effective way 4) As a ‘nation’ the Holy See is part of and has access to international organisations like the UN and WHO. 5) Issues being discussed on Catholic sites, such as whether Bishops have the power to stop public Masses, indicate a lack of planning or at least a lack of effective readiness communication.

Tis_Bearself, I have made no demands of anyone. No, none of this ‘makes me feel better’. No, I am not interested only in the response of Catholics. Every time I post you raise questions that imply there is something wrong about my motivations for raising issues. If I ask a question it is because I am interested in answers.
 
FiveLinden said:
I mean it should be in a position to be relevant, and clearly so, from the first to the last day of an international crisis.
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I am a little confused here.
What precisely do you think the Church should be doing?
I am looking for specific examples here, I don’t think it does anyone any good to speculate on vague ideas.
 
Well, I was probably a little harsh on you and I apologize. You are generally polite when you ask questions, which I very much appreciate as some other people are not.

I may have overreacted a bit to your query because like I said this is a very difficult time for us Catholics and it seems to me like our leaders - Popes and Bishops - are doing a very good job. Yesterday we had the Urbi et Orbi blessing which was just incredibly moving, uplifting, emotional, etc. And I am not a very emotional person normally, so for me to be moved, it’s a big deal. I have also been very impressed with the priests trying to find a way to offer confessions, the Pope authorizing all kinds of easier indulgences during this time for praying against the pandemic (and most of the prayers can be done alone in our homes so we don’t need to go to a church or be around other people), and even the bishops proactively suspending the Mass and where necessary, closing the churches.

There are some large Protestant churches that are continuing to stay open and are inviting crowds of people to come, and some Protestants online (including in my own circle) insisting that you can go ahead and touch others for prayer or whatever and “Jesus will protect you”, and even the President of Mexico asserting to his nation that Coronavirus won’t touch him because he’s a good man and not corrupt and then he waved a scapular to prove his point. I really hope Jesus does indeed protect these people but I think they are being foolhardy and I am very glad our Church officials didn’t act like that. I thought it was a bit extreme when Cardinal Dolan closed all the churches in NYC weeks ago (as many other places have Mass suspended but churches open) but in view of what has since happened in NYC he was absolutely correct.

So given that the Church actually seems to be doing something right in this case, it is a bit difficult when someone outside the faith STILL takes potshots at them. It’s like, some people you just can’t please no matter what you do.
 
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vz71 said:
I am a little confused here.
What precisely do you think the Church should be doing?
I am looking for specific examples here, I don’t think it does anyone any good to speculate on vague ideas.
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I don’t know if ‘expecting’ is the word. I am surprised that the Church appears not to have had contingency plans in place at an international level to respond to a pandemic.

The purpose of these plans would be, as for any organisation, to continue operations and far as possible, to minimise long-term harm to the organisation and its services, to reassure members and stakeholders that they should remain loyal and confident in their local, national, and international leadership and to contribute what the organisation can reasonably contribute to the overall campaign against the pandemic.

Now I am the last person the Church should ask for details on this, since I am not Catholic, or even Christian. What I am interested in is not specifics, but why there seems to have been no international plan to provide for the specifics the Church itself wants and needs.

Neither has provided an excellent example focussed on local needs of exactly what I am talking about. So my interest is - why, apparently, no international planning by an international organisation with links across the globe and membership of world organisations directly involved in the response.

There may be such a plan. If there is there have clearly been problems in implementation.

This is not, Tis_Bearself, a ‘potshot’. It’s a question based on observed facts. Even if it were it would be a ‘potshot’ at the administration of the Church, not its spiritual side or nature. I appreciate your response to the concern I raised though.
 
The Church is in the business of salvation.

Preaching is still happening, prayer is still happening, Mass is still happening, last rites is still happening.
Charity efforts are still happening.

What else do you want?
 
FiveLinden said:
I don’t know if ‘expecting’ is the word. I am surprised that the Church appears not to have had contingency plans in place at an international level to respond to a pandemic.
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Why should they?
It is not their business saving people from illnesses…it is their job saving people from hell.
 
vz71 said:
Why should they?
It is not their business saving people from illnesses…it is their job saving people from hell
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That’s exactly what I want to know. Where is the pandemic planning to maximise effectiveness in saving people from hell during a crisis like this?
 
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