I must confess my disappointment at the Church in Ghana’s failure to witness practical faith during this coronavirus pandemic. It saddened me to read that succumbing to the Ghana government’s draconian measures that forbid public worship, among other things, decreed as precautions against the coronavirus that the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference took stronger measures.
On March 16, it suspended all public Masses, retreats and pilgrimages for four weeks and closed schools indefinitely. It suspended weddings and funerals and said burials could have no more than 25 people in attendance.
I am vehemently baffled that no one of our bishops stood up to protest the government’s directive that considers the public worship of our GOD and the administration of the holy sacraments as occasions of viral contagion, treating the Church of GOD no different from secular venues of entertainment and sports, in the disguise of “precautions” against the coronavirus.
Do we really need any “precautions” against a virus in the very presence of our Creator and Most High LORD, who comes to us in His Eternal Word and in His Divine Body and Blood? Do we truly believe in what we proclaim at Mass? Or are we saying that what believe in the Mass as the True Body and Blood of God the Son is powerless in the face of a viral crisis?
I had hoped that our bishops would follow the courageous and faithful example of the bishops of Poland to tell the government that Ghanaian Catholics are a people of faith who believe in the real presence of God with us, and cannot abandon the worship of God. The Polish bishops, (with 22 virus-infected persons in Poland), responded in faith to their government’s directives, by rather calling for more public Masses and prayers, so smaller groups of people can worship at each Mass. Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, president of the Polish bishops’ conference declared that “in the current situation it was unimaginable for Polish Catholics not to pray and worship in their churches . . . [For] just as hospitals treat diseases of the body, so the Church serves to, among other things, treat illness of the soul” (http://www.lifesitenews.com; 10-03-2020).
The canticle of last Tuesday’s morning prayer from the Prophet Isaiah (Is 26:1bff), following our bishop’s directives, vividly affirms our faith in the LORD and His protection for us in situations like this, and calls us to open the gates of faith and trust in the Lord.
A strong city have we; God sets up walls and ramparts to protect us. Open up the gates to let in a nation that is just, one that keeps faith.
We should not let go of our faith in the face of a government decree that castigates the worship of our GOD as an occasion for viral contagion. Rather, we should “open up the [doors]” with faith and trust in our God whom we worship, and “let in the [faithful]” so we can continue to publicly and faithfully worship our God and pray while at the same time taking other more sensible measures of health and hygiene precautions.
Similarly, in the 2nd Psalm of today’s morning prayer (Ps. 67), the Holy Spirit, in a very poignant fashion, addresses our fears and hesitation of faith regarding the current issue, and along with the Communion of the Saints in heaven, prays on our behalf and invites us to pray along, keeping deep faith:
O God be gracious and bless, and let your face shed its light upon us, so will your ways be known upon earth and all nations learn your saving help.
How can we witness to the ways of our God to be known upon earth and all nations learn His saving help, while we shut the doors to our churches in fear, with no communal worship, in the face of a viral crisis that is nothing before our God who protects and delivers us from evil?
The first psalm of Tuesday’s Vespers (Ps. 125) calls us forth to demonstrate our faith:
Those who put their trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
that cannot be shaken, that stands forever.
Then, I humbly ask: Is our faith shaken to the point that we have to close our churches, with no communal Mass on Sundays? If we truly trust in the Lord, as the psalm points out, then coronavirus or not, we should never, under any circumstances, take such desperate and drastic measures of closing our churches and suspending Sunday worship Masses.
I wish our Bishops had the courage of our first Pope, St. Peter, and his fellow Apostles: when the Jewish Sanhedrin forbade them to preach the Name of our Lord because it was causing havoc and dissension in the community, they openly declared: “we must obey God rather than human beings” (Acts 5:25-29). Our God’s command to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy had no exception for a viral pandemic.
A similar decree by the Italian government, led the Vicar of Rome, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, to close churches in the diocese of Rome, but then reversed that decision after a meeting with the Pope, allowing churches to remain open, and the celebration of the liturgy left to the discretion of local pastors. In a letter dated March 13, to all priests of the diocese of Rome, the Pope said: “in the epidemic of fear that we are all living due to the coronavirus pandemic, we risk behaving more like wage-earners than as pastors [of faith]” (https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2020/03/).
I remember when Pope St. John Paul, in the last days of his papacy; frail and feeble, was advised to cancel the usual Wednesday noon “Angelus” prayer at St. Peter’s Square due to the spread of the sars epidemic in the early 2000s), but he insisted he would still hold the prayer for those who were gathered at the square, and he did.
St. Paul asserts that believing Christians walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). So where is the walk by faith in all of this? I thought, as believing Christians, we were called to action that witnesses to our faith. But the actions of our bishops in kowtowing to the perilous decrees by secular leaders and health officials in regarding the coronavirus phenomenon has really blunted my perception on an ecclesial leadership that puts civil decrees that ban public worship of God over and above divine instructions that require faith, as a means of preventing contagion.
St. James, the Apostle, also tells us that faith without works is dead (cf. James 2:14-25):
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead… You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder. Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when [in faith] he offered his son Isaac on the altar … and his faith was made complete by what he did? So then, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
As a people of faith, our deeds of faith in response to the pandemic is to publicly demonstrate that our God is intimately involved in our lives; that our God is more powerful and gracious to protect us from such a pandemic as the coronavirus, (Isaiah 26). This calls for us to uphold our Christian duty to worship GOD publicly, while observing practically expedient precautionary options against the pandemic, rather than closing churches and suspending public liturgical worship. Is the coronavirus too powerful that the God we worship cannot save us from it?
Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore (USA) addressing the Bishops’ response to the pandemic, in a video broadcast, and calling for a Novena prayer for the end of the pandemic, stated that:
“Our response to the pandemic draws on our respect as Catholics for both faith and reason. Reason dictates that we should take the health precautions recommended by medical professionals and by science… At the same time, our faith makes clear that God is our all-powerful creator and that God is more powerful than any natural force, illness or economic setback” (www.kofc.org).
Yet, it seems our leaders chose to act in favour of the ‘dictates’ of reason alone, and not by faith. For, now days, there is a viral temptation for our “Christian leaders” to assent to “intellectual appeal” rather than “mandates of faith.” Lately, I have heard some priests say things like “reason [or common sense] dictates that we take measures to protect ourselves,” which in ordinary circumstances, is valid. Yet, it’s clearly one thing to protect oneself, and quite another to act in a way that renders irrelevant the supernatural gift of God that must be upheld by faith, which supersedes “common sense.” No wonder our Lord refers to us as a “faithless generation” (Mark 9:19-21), and questions whether HE would find any faith on earth when HE returns (Luke 18:8).
It is not surprising then that the world has gone so rotten crazy and become so anti-Christian, that many people are abandoning the Christian faith for other religious traditions like Islam, Buddhism, Bahai, and Yoga; because we don’t practice what we preach as Christian faith.
I must say that our response to the coronavirus crisis by closing Churches, suspending Masses, and enacting ridiculous “precautions” with hideous options for “worship” and “Spiritual Communion,” while fast food restaurants and bars are open, is shamefully faithless. It does not in any way reflect the belief in what makes us the Church of Martyrs and the true Bride of Christ Jesus our Divine Lord. For it seems, in this crisis, that the truth of the Sacred Mysteries of our God in HIS Church have now been consigned to ‘a thing of the past,’ a reliquary, just to recount.
May the Lord have mercy on us for our faithlessness, help our unbelief, heal the world frozen by the spread and fear of a viral epidemic, and grant merciful repose to those who have died due to weakened immune system attack by the virus, and comfort to the bereaved families. Amen.
Source: Emmanuel T. Sogah, Ed.D (Theo)
Johannine Missions, USA
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