Cardinal Vincent Nichols today compared the suffering of those people infected by Covid-19, who are facing the most extreme effects of the disease in which they cannot breathe unaided, to the suffering of Christ on the Cross.
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Sky News, Cardinal Nichols reminded the viewers that on Good Friday we think of Christ’s death on the Cross.
“Crucifixion brings about death by asphyxiation," he said in a remarkable interview. In this sense those suffering from the coronavirus can unite their suffering to the suffering of Christ, he said. He then reminded the viewers of Christ’s last words on the Cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.”
This is how we too can approach our final moments, he said.
As well as paying tribute to the selflessness and devotion of all the NHS workers, the cardinal thanked the NHS for allowing priests and chaplains to approach those patients who were breathing their last. With the necessary protective clothing they were able to accompany patients in their last moments. He offered praise and admiration to those many priests, including many young priests, who had come forward and offered themselves for this purpose.
Cardinal Nichols also reinforced a point he had made forcefully earlier in the morning on Radio 4: “There is a myth going around that we closed our churches before we were required to do so. That’s absolutely untrue. We only closed our churches when we were required to do so by the government,” he told the Today programme.
He later told Sky: “We only closed our churches on the explicit orders of the prime minister. We didn’t voluntarily do this. It’s a heartache frankly.
"But our churches are used: every single day in every Catholic church Mass is offered by the priest. And the Mass is the commemoration of the Lord’s death, and of his prayer to the Father. So that prayer continues day by day. And many of our churches live-stream that Mass each day.”
Asked by Boulton how God could allow the suffering associated with the pandemic, Nichols pointed out that God also gave us freedom, and – without saying that the pandemic was in any sense God’s will – said there was nevertheless reason to hope that once we emerged from its shadow, central values which had often been forgotten would be embraced. Central among these was the importance of good neighbourliness, and the paramount value of putting service before self.
The Tablet has a list of liturgical, spiritual and other resources for Catholics at this time, Isolated but not Alone.