President Donald Trump identified himself as the “best [president] in the history of the Catholic Church” in a conference call for Catholic leaders and educators April 25, where he warned that issues at stake in the upcoming presidential election, particularly on abortion and religious liberty, “have never been more important for the Church.”

Trump also pledged support for Catholic schools in light of the global coronavirus pandemic.

In an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The Tablet, the president repeatedly emphasized his support for the pro-life movement and school choice, attempting to paint a stark contrast between his administration and what a Democratic presidency could mean for Catholics.

The Tablet was told by two participants that over 600 people were on the call, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Michael C. Barber of Oakland, chair of the USCCB committee of Catholic Education, as well as the superintendents of Catholic schools for Los Angeles and Denver, among others.

In his opening remarks, the president noted that he was joined on the call by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Secretary of Housing and Education Ben Carson.

Saturday’s call comes just one week after the president held a call with faith leaders on April 17, which also included the participation of Cardinal Dolan and Archbishop Gomez, meant to discuss the re-opening of houses of worship, but where the president also sought reelection support.

In his opening remarks, the president thanked Catholic educators for their efforts in distance learning during the pandemic, as well as the spiritual support they are providing to families. Citing his own childhood of growing up next to a Catholic parish and school in Queens, New York, the president characterized Catholic schools as “a source of strength, hope, opportunity for communities across the country.”

Cardinal Dolan was the first to speak, whom the president hailed as a “great gentleman” and a “great friend of mine,” adding that he respects what the cardinal “asks for.”

In a provocative reflection on the coronavirus and Europe, Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said aloud what many at this moment are likely thinking: With the European Union in disarray over the migration crisis and weakened by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, could the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic be the tipping point signalling the end is near?

Speaking of the global impact the coronavirus is having and the need for solidarity with those who will and are suffering in the economic fallout, Hollerich, who was given a red hat by Pope Francis in 2019, said “The largest solidarity network we can imagine is the European Union. Yet the EU seems paralyzed.”

President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), Hollerich spoke in an article to be published in Saturday’s print edition of the Jesuit-run journal La CiviltaCattolica, but which is already available on their Italian-language website.

In Europe, “the return to national interests seems obvious to most member countries,” he said; then, turning to the current back and forth over aid packages for EU member states most heavily impacted by COVID-19, he said that so far, “The crisis seems to favour the individualism of nations.”

Noting how past epidemics have left lasting impressions on European life and culture, Hollerich mused aloud as to what will be “the traces of the coronavirus pandemic in the collective memory of the European peoples.”

“Europe cannot be built without an idea of Europe, without ideals,” he said, and pointed to increasingly strict migration policies in many European nations, as well as prominent images of overcrowded refugee camps and capsized boats in the Mediterranean. These incidents, he said, “have inflicted deep wounds on the European ideal.” When it comes to the coronavirus, he said a lack of solidarity with heavily hit countries “can become the fatal wound,” he said. “We see in evidence the difficulty of European solidarity … I fear that for many this will be the disenchantment with the European project.”

Hollerich’s concerns, and those of the pope, were echoed by Italian economist Stefano Zamagni, who in an April 14 roundtable with journalists challenged the current EU model in moments of crisis.

In the early morning, even before ovens were turned on, people started to form the line. By the time the Franciscans brothers from Santo Antonio do Pari Parish were ready to distribute the food containers, there were thousands waiting for a meal.

“Hunger came before the fever (a main COVID-19 symptom),” Franciscan Brother Jose Francisco de Cassia dos Santos told Catholic News Service.

Santos, who heads the Franciscan Solidarity Service, has been distributing meals to the homeless in the centre of Sao Paulo for more than 13 years. The traditional solidarity service, dubbed the Priest’s Tea, usually drew a few hundred homeless people, who congregated the St Francis rectory. Now, said Santos, the majority of people in line waiting for the Priest’s Tea are those who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Santos said since March 24, when the city installed stay-at-home measures to combat the new coronavirus, the number of people seeking food more than quadrupled, forcing his team to set up another distribution center to feed the population: The Franciscan Tent.

“We used to distribute about 350-400 meals per day at the Priest’s Tea, now the line has maybe 3,500 to 4,000 people on a daily basis, and it continues to grow,” he said.

Elderly people are being left to die in Britain’s nursing homes instead of being offered care in hospitals, said a priest and former surgeon.Fr Patrick Pullicino volunteered to return to the U.K. National Health Service to work as a consultant at Nightingale Hospital in London. The hospital was one of seven to be built in just 10 days, providing 4,000 of 11,000 new beds for patients requiring emergency treatment for COVID-19.

But just 51 patients have been treated there in three weeks, with thousands of surplus beds in many other NHS hospitals even as the coronavirus passes its peak.

Pullicino, who served as chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neurosciences at the New Jersey Medical School in 2001 before returning to the U.K. in 2005, told Catholic News Service April 25 that the excess beds can be explained by a policy of returning elderly patients from hospitals to care homes even if they have COVID-19.

“If somebody in a nursing home gets COVID, you don’t leave them there. You have to monitor them, and if they get to a certain point you bring them into hospital. You don’t leave them to die with hypoxia and pneumonia and put them on palliative care in a nursing home,” he said. “That’s not the way to deal with it, but that is what they are doing.”

The percentage of sermons about abortion is in the single digits, according to a Pew Research Centre study, the results of which were released April 29.

Even a mention of abortion in a sermon is rare, according to the study.

Pew analysed nearly 50,000 sermons shared online or live-streamed by more than 6,000 U.S. churches and delivered between April 7 and June 1, 2019, a time frame that included Easter.

Five percent of Catholic homilies analysed during the study period mentioned abortion, which topped the national average of 4%. Other Christians were grouped into “mainline Protestant,” “evangelical Protestant” and “historically black Protestant.”

Nineteen percent of Catholic congregations heard abortion mentioned in at least one sermon during the study period, which matched the national average. Evangelicals led the way with 22%, with mainline Protestants trailing at 10%.

The percentage of Catholics hearing about abortion may be surprising, according to Dennis Quinn, the lead researcher for the study. The media length of Catholic homilies was 14 minutes — but 37 minutes for all sermons, with black Protestants topping out at 54 minutes.

Moreover, the study found, abortion is more likely to be mentioned in sermons to smaller congregations. Catholic Masses tend to draw sizable congregations. Pew found 23% of smaller Catholic congregations — 200 or less — hearing an abortion reference in a sermon, compared to 18% of a larger assembly.

Catholic clergy used “abortion,” which was also used by their evangelical and black counterparts — but, incredibly, did not make the mainline Protestant list of words.

Seminaries must hire, involve more women, Cardinal Ouellet says
For some priests and seminarians, “women represent danger, but in reality, the true danger are those men who do not have a balanced relationship with women,” said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. The cardinal was interviewed about the role of women in seminaries and seminary formation for the May issue of the women’s supplement to the Vatican newspaper; the interview was published April 24 by Vatican News. Asked if a lack of women involved in priestly formation programs is to blame for the discomfort women and priests can experience in each other’s company, the cardinal said, “the problem is probably deeper” than that and begins with how women are treated in one’s family.