We need not sit sipping Lysol lemonade and Clorox cocktails in the left field bleachers with Donald Trump to insist that recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is too important to be left exclusively to politicians and health care technocrats.

ROME -- While the Italian bishops and government officials continue negotiating a way to resume the public celebration of Masses, the government provided guidelines that permit the celebration of funerals beginning May 4.

Who knows how long this will last? Certainly not I. Although there are times I think I know as much about this never-before-seen virus as those white-coated “experts” who hold forth incessantly before the camera’s ravening eye. 

I can’t find time for that.

COVID-19 has laid bare many of the popular excuses we use to appease ourselves for skipping the things we know we ought to be doing.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis, the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses and local organizers have agreed to postpone by one year the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress, the Vatican announced April 23.

Gabriella Swan is coping well with her online classes. She finds online math classes harder, but the classes are shorter — 45 minutes as opposed to 75 in school.

ROME -- As the Italian government makes plans for a gradual return to normality after the COVID-19 pandemic, representatives of the country's bishops' conference are meeting with the Ministry of Internal Affairs to discuss a resumption of public Masses and, especially, of funerals.

Across Canada, COVID-cloistered Canadians plugged in throughout Holy Week in big numbers to view Mass at home on TV and over the Internet.

Millions are now home, sheltered in place, self-quarantined, working remotely, home-schooling, keeping panic at bay but feeling anxiety rise.