After just over a year of lockdown, a new study has found the coronavirus pandemic has raised a host of questions – particularly around belief in God, religious practice and death.
To mark the launch of Season 3 of The Big Conversation – a series of video debates featuring some of the biggest intellectual thinkers across the religious and atheistic spectrum – Savanta Com Res has released a new survey, commissioned by Premier Christian Radio, that shines a light on the impact the pandemic has had on people’s spiritual beliefs and behaviours.
It found 67% of those who call themselves religious have questioned their belief during the pandemic. Meanwhile, 24% are more fearful towards dying because of the pandemic, with the figure rising slightly among the religious at 27%.
The survey of 2,092 UK adults also showed that a third of people say that the pandemic has had an effect on their prayer life. However, there is no consensus on whether it’s made us more or less likely to pray. Sixteen percent have increased their prayer and 15% have decreased.
Unbelievable? presenter, Justin Brierley, who hosts The Big Conversation said the pandemic has raised major issues for those with spiritual leanings and none:
“A year of living in the pandemic has caused many of us to re-evaluate life. The survey shows that whether we are religious or non-religious, we are all more aware of our own mortality. However, it was interesting to see just how many people of faith have been led to doubt the existence of a loving God. I believe that our opening Big Conversation on God, suffering and the pandemic will help people to find answers to their questions.”
In the first of the six-episode Big Conversation series Brierley welcomes Los Angeles-based Bishop Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire, along with Alex O’Connor who is a Philosophy & Theology student at Oxford University.
Category Archives: International
Italy sees worst gap between births, deaths since 1918 Spanish Flu
With Italy already facing a diminishing population, low birth rates and fewer religious and civil marriages, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted those numbers for 2020, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics.
In fact, it said, Italy set new records in 2020 with the lowest number of births since its unification in 1871, the highest number of deaths since the end of World War II and the largest gap between the number of deaths and births since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.
The statistics were released March 26 in a report on Italian demographics during the COVID-19 pandemic for 2020.
The first COVID-19 cases in Europe were registered in late January in Italy, and the country’s northern regions, especially Lombardy, were hit the hardest by the contagion until nationwide lockdowns and restrictions slowed the surge.
According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, commonly referred to as ISTAT, more than 746,000 deaths were registered in 2020, almost 112,000 more than 2019 — an increase of 17.6% — and the highest number recorded since the end of World War II.
There were 7,600 fewer deaths recorded in January and February 2020 — the pre-pandemic phase — than the average for those two months in each of the preceding five years, it said.
But starting in March, when the epidemic exploded in Italy, until the end of 2020, the number of deaths nationwide went up 21 percent compared to the same period in the previous five years, the report said. The number of deaths registered as being due to COVID-19 were 10% of all deaths in 2020 with nearly 76,000 lives lost; ISTAT estimated that those deaths accounted for 70 percent of the increase over a normal year.
However, the highest numbers were during the worst phase of the crisis, from March to May 2020 when the number of deaths was 31.7 percent higher than the national average with almost 51,000 additional deaths than those recorded in the same period over the preceding five years, ISTAT said.
Northern Italy saw the highest concentration of deaths with the number of deaths being 61% higher than its norm from March to May; the number of deaths were 95% higher than the norm in March and 75% higher in April, it said.
The northern region of Lombardy — the epicentre of the pandemic — saw a 111.8 percent increase in the number of dead in that first phase, it said.
Priest, six others killed by armed gunmen at Nigerian parish
Father Ferdinand Fanen Ngugban and six others died of gunshot wounds after armed gunmen invaded the grounds of St. Paul Parish in Ayetwar March 30, said the Diocese of Katsina-Ala.
“After celebrating Mass and while he prepared to leave for the chrism Mass at St Gerald Majella Catholic Cathedral, Katsina-Ala, to renew his priestly vows alongside his brother priests, there was pandemonium among the internally displaced persons who took refuge in the parish premises,” said a state-ment from the diocese.
“Father Ferdinand went out to find out the cause of the confusion. He was shot in the head as he tried to take cover after sighting some armed gun-men,” the diocese said. It said burial arrangements for all the deceased would be announced.
Ngugban, who served as assistant pastor at St. Paul Parish, was ordained a priest in 2015.
The attack took place in Benue state. The gunmen reportedly raided the village and set houses on fire before attack-ing the parish.
Lebanese cardinal criticizes Hezbollah in leaked video
At the risk of compromising the appeasement efforts aimed at facilitating the formation of a new government, Lebanese media on Thursday broadcast a leaked video in which the top Christian leader openly criticizes the Shia Hezbollah movement, accusing it of harming the country by dragging it into regional conflicts.
“Why are you standing against neutrality? Do you want to force me to go to war? Do you want to keep Lebanon in a state of war?” Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai asks Hezbollah in the video. “Would you ask for my opinion when you do go to war? Did you ask for my approval to go to Syria, Iraq and Yemen? Would you ask for the government’s opinion when declaring war and peace with Israel? The constitution says that declaring war and peace is upon the decision of two-thirds of the government’s votes.”
“Why do you decide to drag the Lebanese into a war you have decided to wage without asking their opinion?” Rai said. “You’re not looking out for (our) interests, nor the interests of your people,” he said, apparently addressing Hezbollah, a heavily-armed movement allied to Iran.
Papal Preacher says divisions have ‘wounded’ Catholic Church
After reflecting on the biblical meaning of fraternity during the Vatican’s Passion of the Lord, the papal preacher on Good Friday lamented the disunity existing among Catholics. “Fraternity among Catholics is wounded,” said Cardinal Raniero Cantala-messa. “Divisions between Churches have torn Christ’s tunic to shreds, and worse still, each shredded strip has been cut up into even smaller snippets. I speak of course of the human element of it, because no one will ever be able to tear the true tunic of Christ, his mystical body animated by the Holy Spirit.” “In God’s eyes, the Church is ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic’, and will remain so until the end of the world,” he said. “This, however, does not excuse our divisions, but makes them more guilty and must push us more forcefully to heal them.”
The “Passion of the Lord” service is the only liturgy presided over by the pope in which he’s not the homilist. Instead, the task falls on Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa – elevated to the Church’s most exclusive club last year, after four decades serving as the preacher of the papal household.
As has been the case since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the liturgy was almost devoid of the presence of faithful, with less than 200 participants, including cardinals, acolytes and Vatican’s gendarmes and Swiss Guards, present in St. Peter’s Basilica guarding the pope.
After processing to the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica in eerie silence, the 84-year-old Pope Francis prostrated himself before the altar. During the service, the Gospel recounted the last hours in Jesus’ life, from his arrest to his burial.
Leading by example, in a country currently in full lockdown due to the pandemic, the veneration of the cross, when each faithful goes in procession kiss a statue of Christ crucified, was omitted.
Irish bishops announce ‘synodal pathway’ during ‘pivotal time’
Ireland’s Catholic bishops have announced they will embark on a “synodal pathway” for the Church and hold a National Synodal Assembly within the next five years.
The bishops made the announcement at the end of their annual Spring Meeting, which took place virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The prelates called it a “pivotal time” for the Church in Ireland, and acknowledged they were “acutely aware of the huge challenges to the faith over the past fifty years from the rapid transformation and secularization of society” on the island.
Once one of the most Catholic nations in Europe, revelations about clerical sexual abuse has left public confidence in the Church at its lowest level in the history of Ireland.
Not only has Mass attendance dropped significantly over the past quarter century, the Irish people have increasingly rejected laws seen as rooted in Catholic teaching.
Palm Sunday bombing at cathedral in Indonesia injures Catholics leaving Mass
A suspected suicide bomb attack targeted Catholics leaving a cathedral after Palm Sunday Mass on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
The explosion occurred March 28 out-side Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi pro-vince, as church-goers were exiting the cathedral at the start of Holy Week.
Initial reports said that at least 10 worshipers were injured by the blast at the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Makassar.
Fr. Wilhelmus Tulak, who celebrated the Mass, said that the explosion occurred at around 10:30 a.m. local time.
The priest explained that a suspected bomber, who arrived on a motorbike, tried to enter the cathedral but was turned away by security guards. Other reports suggested that there were two perpetrators.
The Associated Press reported that it had obtained a cellular video showing body parts near a burning motorbike at the cathedral gates.
The BBC said that the bombing happened at the cathedral’s side entrance.
It quoted Makassar Mayor Danny Pomanto as saying that there would have been many more casualties if the attacker had struck at the main entrance.
Makassar is the fifth-largest urban center in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
A family of suicide bombers attacked three churches, including the Church of St. Mary Immaculate, in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, in May 2018.
Vatican statistics show continued growth in number of Catholics worldwide
The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world has shown steady growth, while the number of religious men and women continued to decrease, according to Vatican statistics.
At the end of 2019, the worldwide Catholic population exceeded 1.34 billion, which continued to be about 17.7% of the world’s population, said an article published March 26 in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
It marked an increase of 16 million Catholics — a 1.12% increase compared to 2018 while the world’s population grew by 1.08%.
The article contained a handful of the statistics in the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, which reported worldwide church figures as of Dec. 31, 2019. It also announced the publication of the 2021 Annuario Pontificio, a volume containing information about every Vatican office, as well as every diocese and religious order in the world.
According to the statistical yearbook, the number of Catholics increased in every continent except Europe.
At the end of 2019, 48.1% of the world’s Catholics were living in the Americas, followed by Europe with 21.2%, Africa with 18.7%, about 11 percent in Asia (all figures for Asia exclude China) and 0.8% in Oceania.
The yearbook showed the number of bishops in the world — 5,364 — dipped slightly with 13 fewer bishops than in 2018.
The total number of priests — diocesan and religious order — around the world slightly increased from 414,065 in 2018 to 414,336 in 2019.
The largest increases were seen in Africa and Asia, with a growth of 3.45% and 2.91 percent, respectively, followed by Europe with a 1.5% increase and the Americas with about 0.5% more.
At the end of 2019, 40.6% of the world’s priests were serving in Europe, while 28 percent of priests were in Africa and Asia.
Vatican bars gay union blessing, says God ‘can’t bless sin’
The Vatican decreed March 15 that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since God cannot bless sin.
The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response March 15 to a question about whether Catholic clergy have the authority to bless gay unions. The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was negative”.
The note distinguished between the church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions. It argued that such unions are not part of God’s plan and that any such sacramental recognition could be confused with marriage.
The note immediately disheartened advocates for LGBT Catholics and threw a wrench in the debate within the German church, which has been at the forefront of opening discussion on hot-button issues such the church’s teaching on homosexuality.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater acceptance of gays in the church, predicted the Vatican position will be ignored, including by some Catholic clergy.
Catholic people recognise the holiness of the love between committed same-sex couples and recognize this love as divinely inspired and divinely supported and thus meets the standard to be blessed, he said in a statement.
The Vatican holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is intrinsically disordered. Catholic teaching holds that marriage, a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God’s plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life. Since gay unions aren’t intended to be part of that plan, they can’t be blessed by the church, the document said.
The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan, the response said.
God does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him, it said.
Vatican Now in Crisis Management Mode with German Bishops
In January, two Vatican cardinals wanted to summon the president of the German bishops’ conference to Rome and correct him about a media interview in which he expressed his dissent from Church teaching in a number of areas. Such a meeting, which some believe should have been used to give the Vatican’s formal opposition to the Synodal Path, never happened and now the German bishops are blazing ahead unfettered, drawing grave concerns of possible schism.
Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Swiss president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, were concerned about comments Bishop Georg Bätzing made in a lengthy interview with the German publication Herder Korrespondenz published at the end of December.
In the largely overlooked interview, headlined “I Want Change” and published over the New Year, Bishop Bätzing of Limburg began by describing himself as a “good conservative because I love this Church and gladly give my life and energy to it. But I want it to change.” He then went on to directly challenge the Church’s teaching and tradition regarding women’s ordination to the priesthood, the blessing of same-sex unions, priestly celibacy and Holy Communion for Protestants. Limiting ordination to men seemed to him “less and less convincing,” he said, adding that “there are well-developed theological arguments in favor of opening the sacramental ministry to women as well.”