CAPG's Blog 

It was, (...), when Charleston was scourged by disease that the charity and heroism of the bishop were put to the test. "When that frightful scourge," writes W.G.Read, "the yellow fever, desolated Charleston, he was ever at his post." This is nothing new or strange to those who know the Catholic Priesthood. But when the Protestants of Charleston saw this apostolic man hurrying under the fiery noons of August and September, or the deadly midnight dew, to assist and console the victim of the plague, usually of the humblest and the poorest, they could not but exclaim, in the sincerity of their wonder and admiration: "This is Christian charity!"

"A near relative of mine, speaking of him to me, said: "I met him one forenoon, while the fever was at its highest, brushing along through, perhaps, the hottest street in the city. When I tell you he was blazing, I do not exaggerate - he was literally blazing! The fire sparkled from his cheeks, and flashed from his eyes! I shook hands with him, and as we parted, I thought to myself, my dear fellow, you will soon have enough of this!"

"But his work was not yet done. No! Season after season, amid vice, squalidity, and wretchedness, where intemperance, perhaps, kept maudlin watch by the dying and the dead; while the sob of sorrow was broken by the shriek of destitution and despair - there still stood Bishop England, the priest, the father, and the friend - to assure the penitent - to alarm the sinner - to pity and to succor - baptized again and again - unto his holy function, in that frightful black vomit - the direct symptom of the malady!"

Source: Trials and Triumphs of the Catholic Church in America by P.J. Mahon, James M. Hayes

Fr. Chabloz had received a sunstroke that left him weak and feverish. This was followed by the influenza, then epidemic, and while ill he was carried several miles to administer the Sacraments to a dying man. Pneumonia then seized our friend and he succumbed.

Fr. Chabloz was young - thirty-five years of age. Although born in France, his people had moved to Italy, where later he joined the Society of Jesus and offered himself for the missions. One of his hardest trials on leaving Italy was the reluctance of his own father - who chided him because he preferred the pagan Chinese - to have him go; but the father received grace to bow to God's will, and we now learn that he died shortly before his priestly son. May both be now united in God!

From Fr. Novella, S.J.

Source: The Field Afar, Volume 14. June 1920

The King feared that "all our misdeeds should lead the same "plaga" and mortality to our subjects." He had, therefore, taken responsibility for the well-being of the people. He had summoned their bishops, a number of Councillors of the realm and canons of the cathedrals whose bishops could not, at so short notice, attend the meetings where measures should be discussed that "could please God and induce Him by his grace to bestow his mercy on us". They had agreed on the following measures:

"all people throughout all the Realm of Sweden, rich, ecclesiastics, laymen, old and young, females and males, should come barefooted to their parish churches on Friday in every week and confess their belief in God, His righteousness and power, with appropriate humility. They should walk (in procession) around the church with their sacred treasures (relics, images of saints, and so on), attend Mass with invocation of God on that day, make their offerings on the altar of the pennies that they could afford, so that others could receive alms. The Church wardens should distribute this offer among poor people and it should under no circumstances come in the hands of the priest. We order and advise you that on each Friday every Christian shall fast on water and bread: those who do not want to do that shall at least abstain from all fish and fast on ale and bread.

Mass shall be said in honor of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, that She would deign to ask her blessed Son on her behalf to turn His wrath away from these countries for the sake of our humility. Every bishop has granted 40 days of indulgence to all those in his diocese who have prepared themselves for their deaths and made proper confessions, which all human beings are advised to do these days. ... For this reason, We convey to all human beings the curative advice for their souls that every human being, while God still has given him some time, to cleanse his conscience, make his confession and with full contrition do penance for his sins, so that when God will visit him, He will find him so ready that his souls would be taken in God's hand.

Source: The Black Death and Later Plague Epidemics in the Scandinavian Countries ...By Ole Jørgen Benedictow page 171

What we are witnessing in these hours is dramatic — certainly throughout Italy, but in a tragically exemplary way, in Rome, the heart of Catholicism. 

The scenario is all the more disconcerting as what is at stake is not only public health but the salvation of souls — and for some time now we, as Pastors, have stopped inflaming the hearts of our faithful with the desire for eternal salvation. We have thus deprived them of those supernatural gifts which make us capable of facing trials here below, even the assaults of death, with the power of faith and that spark of inexhaustible and unshakable hope which comes to us from our yearning for the destiny of glory for which we were created.

The statements of the Italian Episcopal Conference, those of the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, as well as the surreal and spectral images that have come to us from the Vatican, are many expressions of the darkening of the faith that has struck the heights of the Church. The Ministers of the Sun, as St Catherine of Siena was fond of calling them, have caused the eclipse, and delivered the flock to clouds of thick darkness (cf. Ezekiel 34:12). 

Regarding the measures of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI): when those issued by the State were still limited only to at risk areas, to certain activities and at precise times of day, the CEI had already cancelled the totality of public liturgical celebrations in all the churches of the territory, helping to fuel fear and panic and depriving the faithful of the indispensable comfort of the sacraments. It is difficult not to think that such a measure was suggested to the president of the CEI by the one who, protected by the Leonine Walls, has been dreaming for seven years now of an outgoing, rugged, field hospital Church, which does not hesitate to embrace everyone and to get dirty.

Cardinal Bassetti, so eager that he seems more zealous than the king, appears to have forgotten a very important lesson: that the Church, in order to serve the common good and the State, must never give up being herself, nor fail in her mission to proclaim Christ, our only Lord and Savior. She must beware of obscuring her divine prerogatives of Wisdom and Truth and in no way abdicate the Authority that comes to her from the Sovereign of the kings of the earth, Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The ecclesial events of these hours have manifested clearly — if there was still any need — the tragic subjection of the Church to a State that is striving and doing all it can to destroy the Christian identity of our Italy, by enslaving it to an ideological, immoral, globalist, Malthusian, abortionist, migrant agenda that is the enemy of man and of the family. The goal of this agenda is the destruction of the Church, and certainly not the good of our country.

The courage and wisdom of ardent priests and lay faithful has partly remedied the absence of an authoritative voice and heartening gestures from the Vicar of Christ and from pastors. 

Open, throw open wide the doors to Christ! Open, throw open wide the doors of our churches so that the faithful may enter in, repent of their sins, participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and draw upon the treasury of graces that flow from the pierced Heart of Christ, our only Redeemer who can save us from sin and death.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò

Translation by Diane Montagna

Source: Lifesitenews