As restrictions gradually ease, it appears that Catholic priests seem to have coped relatively well with the pressures of the pandemic

In the middle of Lent, Pope Francis said that we would emerge from the pandemic finding something special in the ordinary and the trivial. He gave the example of a cup of coffee with a friend. Priests are mostly unmarried; they have many of the same problems as everyone else and, like millions of others, live on their own. But although this has been a time of grief and loss and the impact on diocesan finances has meant that some lay people have been made redundant, many of the priests I have spoken to over the past few months have told me that they have also seen a flowering of imagination and resilience, and a recovery of the fellowship of the priesthood.

One area dean told me that before the restrictions were eased, Zoom had replaced all face-to-face deanery and other meetings. Though he knew of at least two cases of fellow priests who were experiencing serious difficulties, perhaps exacerbated by underlying problems like depression, priests were, in his experience, mostly “spiritually fine”. Church closures and reduced numbers since reopening have reduced income, but priests were generally “well looked after” by the diocese.