– Fr Leonard Dollentas
Our Seminary cook was devastated one morning, and declared that in their group chat one member posed a question for Catholics: When catastrophes or epidemics cause havoc on people, where is the Catholic Church? What has the Church been doing to provide help?
The question is plain but its undertone is rude and direct: The Church is unconcerned. Caught up in this time of COVID-19 tension, many non-Catholics would seize the worsening situation as an opportunity to affront Catholic believers. Indeed, what has the Church been doing during this misery of our time?
The Church has been extending her pastoral and spiritual ministry to people infected with coronavirus, even to the extent that a number of priests died on the process. However, this is not the answer that they seek. What they want to know is what material and monetary aid the Church is extending to the people, given her – they allege – enormous wealth. Hence, our cook was dismayed with the question.
The Church spends money primarily on works of evangelization, utilities, maintenance, salaries like any other institution. But it is also the church in the world with the largest network of charities. The Catholic Church has a well-documented tradition of care for the needy “… love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to [the Church] as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 22).
Many are not aware that at the outset of the coronavirus outbreak in China, the Catholic Church immediately sought to provide aid and pastoral care to those threatened by its spread. When the death toll in the epicenter reached an alarming stage and more people were infected on a daily basis, Jinde Charities (a government-recognized Catholic group in China) provided $132 million worth of aid by providing additional protective clothing, emergency masks, goggles, and disinfectants. This Catholic charity organization is headed by Father John Baptist Zhang.
As there was much work to be done in the midst of the devastation of the virus in China, Fr John urged the whole Church to provide more aid. “We need brothers and sisters from the universal Church to join us in the fight against the plague of the human race by making use of the universal strength of the Catholic Church and by donating funds or medical supplies,” he said. Instantaneously, the Vatican donated 700,000 disposable respirator masks for the organization to distribute to those in need.
Jinde Charities reported on February 12, 2020 that the total donations the organization has received from the nation-wide Catholic clergy and faithful, as well as from people from all walks of life “amounts to 9,359,910.19 RMB (1,225,439.93 Euro), with 8,781,637.78 RMB (1,149,730.01 Euro) spent. Fr John explained that “[a]lmost all the donations were used to buy emergency masks, protective clothing, goggles, and disinfectants to support medical treatment.
One of the images of the Catholic Church’s works of charity was Mother Teresa. This saint never sought the limelight. She simply went about her business helping the poor and comforting the sick and dying and this has always been the image of the charity the Church has been doing and will be doing as the world suffers from COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
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