The Spring of 2020 witnessed something entirely unprecedented in the 2,000 year history of the Church. Under pressure from government officials the bishops of the world shut down the entire public sacramental life of God’s Church without a whimper of protest, and did so during the holiest season of the year, Lent and Eastertide. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. Under the most virulent Roman persecutions the Church was forced underground, but its sacramental life continued to flow and flourish in the chambers of the catacombs. The faithful continued to be fed in spite of the tremendous risk to life and property. The same can be said during the devastating plagues of the Middle Ages when priests and bishops continued ministering to the souls entrusted to their pastoral care.

    In times of great crisis or mortal threat pastors well understood that the sacraments became even more so a necessary and efficacious means of strengthening their flocks against physical and spiritual perils. So what happened in 2020 represents an inexplicable and entirely novel reaction on the part of prelates to a supposed threat, callously barring church doors against their own people ─ on Easter Sunday no less! Rather than working to dispel fear, the fecklessness of many pastors only heightened the tension and enabled manipulative fear mongering by secular public authorities. Something had certainly changed in the general attitude of our cowering prelates. Had they never read the response posed by Peter and John? “Whether it is right to obey men rather than God…” (Acts 4:19)