Catholics in the Philippines have been asked not to kiss or touch the cross when they venerate it on Good Friday because of concerns about the coronavirus.
Instead, they should "genuflect or make a profound bow" before the cross during the veneration of the cross, according to updated liturgical guidelines issued Feb. 20 by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines and posted on Twitter.
Already in January, the bishops' conference advised priests to distribute the Eucharist in communicants' hands rather than their mouths, to place protective cloths over the screens of confessionals and to change the holy water in church fonts regularly. The conference also asked the faithful not to hold hands during the "Our Father" and not to shake hands during the sign of peace.
In the new guidelines, which the bishops' conference said it "strongly recommends" following, priests were asked to distribute ashes on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 26, by "dropping or sprinkling a small portion of blessed ash on the crown of the head of the faithful," rather than rubbing them on the person's forehead.
The World Health Organisation reported that as of Feb. 19, there were more than 75,000 cases of coronavirus, but fewer than 1,000 of the cases involved people outside of China. Three cases of the coronavirus have been documented in the Philippines, with one resulting in death, according to WHO.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the oldest person in the world to recover from the coronavirus is a 98-year-old Catholic Bishop emeritus, Joseph Zhu Baoyu. Consecrated co-adjudicator Bishop of Nanyang in 1995, he served as the Bishop of the diocese from 2002 to 2010, when he retired. Previously sentenced to hard labour by the Chinese state during his years as a priest, he was recognised as a Bishop in 2019 and has been promoted by Chinese media as a example of how a positive mindset can help overcome the virus.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ have expressed their solidarity with the victims of the virus and requesting the US government do more to fight the spread of the disease. In a statement published February 18, the USCCB asked the US government to “support these efforts by protecting access to domestic health care safety net programs and by providing additional emergency international assistance to areas impacted by the virus.” Although just 15 cases of COVID-19, colloquially known as Coronavirus, have been reported in the US, authorities have been preparing for a potential major outbreak in the near future.
With around 75,000 confirmed cases across the globe, 27 countries are now affected by the virus, although the great majority of cases remain in China. South Korea today reported its first death, and a total of 53 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total number of people infected in South Korea to 104. Three quarters of the more than 2,000 deaths attributed to the virus have been in a single region of China, Hubei province.
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