Vatican City
Reuters
Pope Francis called on Sunday for global solidarity in fighting the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, urging the relaxation of international sanctions, debt relief for poor nations and ceasefires in all conflicts.
He also warned the European Union that it risked collapse if it did not agree on how to help the region recover.
Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, holds a masks as he enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre before the start of the Easter Sunday service amid the coronavirus outbreak in Jerusalem’s Old City, on 12th April. PICTURE: Reuters/Ammar Awad
“LIFE WILL PREVAIL” SAYS HOLY LAND ARCHBISHOP
Jerusalem
With Jerusalem under lockdown over coronavirus, Easter Sunday was marked at the traditional site of Jesus’ death and resurrection by just a handful of Christian clerics.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, normally packed with pilgrims, was closed to the public last month due to COVID-19, amid similar restrictions affecting sites sacred to Jews and Muslims.
After walking through a deserted Old City bathed in early morning sunlight, a purple-robed Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Vatican’s apostolic administrator in the Holy Land, spoke briefly outside the church.
“Easter is a time for life. Despite the sign of death we are seeing everywhere, life will prevail, as long as someone is giving life out of love for the others. Happy Easter,” he said, before entering the ancient sandstone building.
Carrying a face mask and flanked by aides, Pizzaballa then conducted a service with a small number of Roman Catholic clergymen.
COVID-19 has killed more than 100,000 worldwide. It has infected nearly 11,000 in Israel, with 103 fatalities, and there have been 268 cases and two deaths in the Palestinian territories.
Passover and Ramadan also fall this month, but this year Jerusalem is all but empty.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the site where Christians believe that Jesus spent his last few hours, is the focus of celebrations of Easter, the most important festival in the Christian calendar.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims usually walk the Via Dolorosa passing the 14 Stations of the Cross marking events leading up to Jesus’ burial.
The church has reopened for Holy Week services attended only by senior clerics of the denominations who share custody of the site, the Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholics.
Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter a week later, including the ceremony of the Holy Fire, which symbolises the resurrection of Jesus after His death on the cross.
– STEPHEN FARRELL, Reuters
The Pope’s Easter “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message, delivered from an empty St Peter’s Basilica instead of to the usual crowd of tens of thousands in the square outside, was by far his most pressing and political since his election in 2013.
Saying the message of this year’s “Easter of solitude” should be a “contagion of hope,” he heaped praise on doctors, nurses and others risking their lives to save others and hailed those working to keep essential services running.
“This is not a time for indifference, because the whole world is suffering and needs to be united in facing the pandemic,” he said in the message, almost entirely dedicated to the pandemic’s effects on personal and international relations.
“Indifference, self-centredness, division and forgetfulness are not words we want to hear at this time. We want to ban these words forever!” he said.
Francis expressed sympathy for those not able to bid farewell to their loved ones because of restrictions, for Catholics who have not been able to receive the sacraments and for all those worried about an uncertain future.
“In these weeks, the lives of millions of people have suddenly changed,” he said.
The Pope said now was the time for politicians and governments to avoid “self-centredness” and take decisive, concerted action to help each others’ populations live through the crisis and eventually resume normal life.
“May international sanctions be relaxed, since these make it difficult for countries on which they have been imposed to provide adequate support to their citizens,” Francis said.
He also called for debt reductions or forgiveness for the poorest nations, without naming any countries.
Europe’s divisions
Francis expressed particular concern for the future of Europe, saying it was vital that rivalries that existed before World War II “do not regain force” as a result of the pandemic.
European Union nations are divided over how to help the continent’s economy recover – with Italy and other eurozone members seeking the issuance of euro bonds backed by all, but Germany, the Netherlands and other countries opposed to this.
That echoed a position by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose country has suffered one of the highest death tolls from COVID-19.
“The European Union is presently facing an epochal challenge, on which will depend not only its future but that of the whole world,” Francis said.
“This is not a time for division,” Francis said.
Pope Francis reads his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and the World”) message in St Peter’s Basilica with no public participation due to an outbreak of the coronavirus disease on Easter Sunday at the Vatican, on 12th April. PICTURE: Vatican Media/Handout via Reuters
The Pope repeated a call for a ceasefire “in all corners of the world”, condemned arms manufacturing and said the pandemic should spur leaders to finally end long-running wars such as that in Syria.
He also appealed for help for migrants and others suffering from existing humanitarian conflicts.
