{"id":15619,"date":"2020-05-04T09:05:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T14:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=15619"},"modified":"2020-05-04T09:07:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T14:07:05","slug":"from-the-trenches-pt-7-an-italian-perspective-on-the-fight-to-contain-covid-19-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/from-the-trenches-pt-7-an-italian-perspective-on-the-fight-to-contain-covid-19-continued","title":{"rendered":"From the Trenches, Pt. 7: An Italian Perspective on the Fight to Contain COVID-19, Continued"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear American friends:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have almost run out of\npatience. In Italy, 90% of the population is Catholic. Althought many of them\ncould be called \u201cpragmatic\u201d \u2014 meaning they remember their religion only when\nthey want to receive a sacrament \u2014 on the other hand, thousands of Christians\nhere live faithfully every day and take part in Mass regularly on Sunday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initially the Bishops\u2019\nConference <a href=\"https:\/\/americamagazine.org\/faith\/2020\/03\/14\/italy-church-and-state-join-together-fight-coronavirus\">was very collaborative<\/a> with the government but\nour left-wing leaders have misled Catholics and Church leadership for two\nmonths, and a few days ago said that <a href=\"https:\/\/theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/apr\/27\/italy-unveils-plans-for-easing-of-coronavirus-lockdown-restrictions-conte\">religious celebrations will not be allowed<\/a>\nduring \u201cphase 2\u201d of the easing of coronavirus restrictions, which begins on May\n4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is an unfair discrimination\nand a violation of our freedom of religion, and Catholics <a href=\"https:\/\/telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2020\/04\/27\/catholic-church-angry-italian-government-refuses-lift-ban-religious\/\">rightly protest<\/a>. From May 4<sup>th<\/sup> only\nfunerals will be allowed in Churches, and attendees will be limited to 15\npeople \u2014 close family only. But on the same date, some industrial sectors will\nbe allowed to resume their activities, wearing facemasks and following social\ndistancing (two of the main compulsory health conditions). So, big families\nwith more than 15 relatives cannot take part in a funeral even if it were t o\ntake place in Milan Cathedral, where even with \u201csocial distancing\u201d 300 people\ncould gather \u2014 but hundreds of workers will be allowed to be together in a\nfactory! Is a factory more important or safer than a Church? Why are workers presumed\nto be more prudent than faithful gathered for worship? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is not all; the Italian Premier\u2019s\nstatements in these last days are proof of a gradual shift to an ethical state\nthat is the enemy of religious freedom. In the coming weeks, take-away\nservices, restaurants and bars will be allowed to reopen; even sports and\nexercises can be held as long as people maintain a safe distance from others at\nall times (1-2 meters). But what leniency will be\ngranted for <a href=\"https:\/\/vaticannews.va\/en\/church\/news\/2020-04\/italian-bishops-protest-government-plans-for-phase-2.html\">the Church<\/a>? None. We can run in\nthe fields alone or even with some friends, if we keep distances, but we cannot\ngo to the Church and meet Jesus. The disparity shows that these are not\nhealthcare decisions: they are discriminatory choices more and more clear in\ntheir intent, to limit religious freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Italian Church has decided\nto protest for this right, a human and constitutional right that is being\ndenied by the left-wing government; but it may be too late. We can live with\nthe virus \u2014 every minute they remind us of the health risks \u2014 but they do not\nrespect our fundamental rights. This situation is shameful. Italy has never\ngone so downhill before, and I have never been so ashamed of my country. The\nobject is to eliminate the sacraments, including the most important (for Catholics),\nHoly Communion, who believe literally the <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/john\/6-53.htm\">words\nof the Gospel<\/a>: \u201cTruly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh\nand drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My\nflesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last\nday.\u201d &nbsp;For Catholics, the Eucharist is\ncrucial, not a mere convenience. We will fight this new problem, what Pope Francis\n<a href=\"https:\/\/zenit.org\/articles\/pope-pushes-for-access-to-sacraments-churches-with-faithful-full-text-of-morning-homily\/\">has\ncalled a new Gnosticism<\/a>, together with all the faithful people of all\nreligions. We will wait patiently for resumption of our our freedom of movement\nand assembly; we can accept the temporary suspension of trials and the rule of\nlaw (many defendants have been left in a limbo for months owing to delayed\nindictment hearings); but we cannot accept these limites to our faith and\nconscience! This virus cannot leveraged to dispace Christianity in Italy, least\nof all by a Premier who was never elected and chosen by any citizen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why are workers presumed to be more prudent than faithful gathered for worship? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":15620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"Why are workers presumed to be more prudent than faithful gathered for worship? ","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,805],"tags":[2688,1587,1608],"class_list":["post-15619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-foreground","tag-from-the-trenches","tag-covid-19","tag-italy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - 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Publicly engaged for decades in the promotion of life, family and religious and educational freedom, Luca\u00a0 has served as a board member for various international organizations promoting Christian values and human rights, including his current role as a board member of the International Organization for the Family. He has authored books and essays for the Novae Terrae series by the publisher Rubbettino; he has been a correspondent for several Italian newspapers, and currently collaborates with La nuova Bussola Quotidiana, an online newspaper. He is a also a great bicycle enthusiast.","sameAs":["https:\/\/facebook.com\/lvolonte1","https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/l_volonte"],"url":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/author\/lvolonte"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15627,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15619\/revisions\/15627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}