Coronavirus - The Church's Response to a Disaster

Many schools and parishes have been working tirelessly and successfully on their digital outreach since the COVID-19 restrictions, leading us to question: How do we respond to the COVID-19 disaster? Can the Church, the people of God, be renewed in a new and mysterious way by the Holy Spirit, at work in each of us, during this time of our spiritual life? Yes, we believe so.

Pope St John Paul II's words remind us that our times “stir in the Church a new sense of mission, which cannot be left to a group of ‘specialists’ but must involve the responsibility of all the members of the people of God”(JPII 2001).

Pope Benedict reinforced this message extolling that we, the laity, should be made welcome, and must act and step up “as people who are really ‘co-responsible’ for the Church’s being” (Benedict XVI, 2012). We are seeing our staff respond to this call and challenge throughout our schools.

As Catholic school staff we might also remember our parish priests, who may be feeling a similar sense of isolation in the difficult task of preaching the Gospel in today’s ‘new normal’. A ‘new normal’ sense of rebuilding can take life if all of us are engaged in respectful dialogue, as people of hope. Never has a greater opportunity presented itself for the Catholic Church in Australia than through the coming Plenary Council, held during this pandemic. We pray that the dialogue will be honest, renewing, fruitful and life-giving for our Church.