"CHURCH OPEN» (X episode) - IRRESISTIBLE BRAMA THAT TODAY'S SACRIFICE OF PRIESTS TO DEATH FOR THEIR PERSONAL WHIMS OF OPINION. WHAT IF THAT HAPPENED, THEN WHO WILL RETURN TO CELEBRATE THE MASS FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD AFTER THE EPIDEMIC OF CORONAVIRUS?

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We offer our readers this valuable new video of our esteemed brother John Zanchi, priest of the Diocese of Arezzo, so that it can also serve as an effective and wise antidote to all those who unfortunately, at this time of extraordinary crisis and emergency, They have nothing better to do than argue, often in harsh and aggressive tone, against decisions taken by our bishops for safety reasons to protect public health: suspend the sacred celebrations and in many cases close the churches. Recall that the Church, during crises and emergencies, It has never been saved by the controversy of those who stand for all time the most faithful among the faithful or to the purest of the pure, but the unit. Someone has written these days that "the bishops are committing suicide the Italian Church". Unfortunately he did not understand anything of the essence of the Catholic faith: the church “if suicidal” attacking the bishops, instead follow them and support them in a moment of so severe test.

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VIDEO SHOOTING AND ASSEMBLY BY THE ISSUER TELESANDOMENICO (AREZZO)

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TEXT OF THE VIDEO

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The texts of Father John Zanchi, director of the Pastoral Center Divine Worship of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro, They are not meant as articles but as audio-narrative texts. We proceeded to transcribe audio text for our Readers.

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John Zanchi

Welcome to X episode Open Church.

The churches, understood as buildings, remain open during the pandemic, well if you do not perform public celebrations and the faithful can not easily attend. In the present situation, Priests are giving proof of great inventiveness to help the faithful also in going to church, as well as possible.

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Many faithful appreciate the sacrifice made by so many priests to fulfill their ministry, even with severe limitations. Others manifest their discontent, especially for the temporary suspension of the Mass with the people and call for the immediate resumption of public celebrations. In here, we want to say a word that helps to understand the terms of the issue and to avoid counterproductive controversy.

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In the tragic situation of recent days are at stake two fundamental aspects: one part, the Church must continue his divine mission to serve the salvation of souls, with all the necessary self-denial, without jeopardizing public health and then operating the necessary sacrifices and taking painful limitations in behavior, But without flattening the logic of the world; on the other side, the Church does not even give the most distant impression of abandoning true to yourself, neglecting their spiritual needs and risking to be considered fugitive or, worse, insignificant, as if he had decided not to affirm the primacy of the supernatural. Let's take a step forward …

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... the authentic moral theology It teaches us that it is not enough to state the broad principles, but must then implement them in a particular situation, by means of a prudent discernment, and then, more it descends from the general principle to a concrete situation, especially perilous, most operating decisions can become all the more difficult to detect. The high moral principle is: "Do good and avoid evil"; but in a tragic emergency situation like this, It is not immediately easy to determine how to implement the good and avoid evil.

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To those who, bitter about the suspension of Masses with the people, calling for greater courage on the part of bishops and priests, respectfully remember three facts, to keep absolutely present to formulate a practical judgment consistent with the reality of the present situation.

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First fact: Emergencies are not programmed, suddenly they arrive and are sometimes even exceptional and ever faced by this generation, as it is currently. Even our bishops were surprised by the spread of the epidemic and quickly had to take difficult decisions for the protection of all. To help secure the celebration of Holy Mass with the people it would be necessary to organize a regular service order to ensure at least the entry and exit of the participants (each duly principals of defense against infection), their spacing within the church, the sanitization of the same. All things not easy to achieve and practice management. Considering that often only one priest has to cater to more parishes and churches, even the allegation of rarefare attendance of the faithful increasing the number of Masses to be practicable in Italy.

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second fact: The toll of victims that the Italian clergy is already paying for a pandemic: while there are plenty of infected bishops and finished in isolation, al 22 March were well 50 priests decimated, most of them fall in the line of ministry. Even the clergy aside for old age is not spared: a Parma, in the house of the Xaverian Missionaries, immediately subjected to strict isolation, They died in solitude 13 priests in 15 days, giungesse without anyone from the outside to assist. If Holy Mass with the people they were regularly celebrated everywhere, the number of deceased priests would certainly be even bigger, then taking into account that the Italian Clergy, due to the high average age of almost 68 year old, It is fully included in the category of older and older, then the people to be protected from further danger of contagion. A similar argument about old age needs to be done about the same faithful who regularly frequent our churches.

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Third fact: as there are concerns that the medical staff is not decimated by the pandemic and the sick remain without assistance, so you need to worry that the Italian Church is not reduced drastically without more priests for the pastoral care of the faithful. From this point of view, the data are merciless: in Italy the clergy is not only very elderly, but even now numerically small. Let's just one example: Archdiocese of Turin in 1950 there was 1 priest (middle age 43 year old) per 561 baptized; In the 2017 again in Turin there was 1 priest (middle age 68 years and 6 months) per 2065 baptized! After the plague in the sixteenth century it killed most of the Milanese, St. Charles Borromeo had no trouble in parts of the fallen priests to assist lepers; today, Behind our few priests and elders, unfortunately there are not crowds of seminarians ready to replace them. After termination of the emergency, how many of the churches that now they are supposed to keep working unwisely should then be closed, perhaps forever, to a serious lack of priests?

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Reasoning as well, someone will accuse me of lacking faith in God's power. Ma, apart from that we should not groped the Lord (cf. Lk 4, 12), in the current tragedy the teaching of St. John Paul II should be aware of: that we must combine faith and reason; why should not exclude faith and faith has to accept the service of reason (then it is often common sense).

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Only in this way it is possible to avoid two opposite extremes: The proponents of the celebration to the bitter end of the Mass with the people likely to commit the sin of fideism; the advocates of indiscriminate closure of churches in danger of committing the sin of rationalism. Faith attests that during the Mass God works already the great miracle of transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; but God is not obliged simultaneously to preserve the viral contagion individual participants.

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We conclude by recalling two great principles of theology: against rationalism say: "Who makes what can, God does not deny the grace »; against fideism say: "God does not bind the grace of the Sacraments," and can also donate to out of them, under certain circumstances. The suspension of the Mass with the people is a painful loss for the souls of the faithful; beseech God to grant as soon as possible to his Church the grace and joy to gather again to celebrate the Eucharist and also implore God for the grace to keep our few priests and elders, giving the eternal reward to those fallen victims of duty during the pandemic.

A resent tomorrow for a new installment of Open Church.

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Sansepolcro (Arezzo), 27 March 2020

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