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The emergency measures came into effect Tuesday morning and followed a March 7 quarantine of the northern part of the country that has been hardest hit by the virus. VATICAN CITY — The city of Rome and the Vatican had an ominous quiet about them today as Italy experienced its first full day of a nationwide, government-decreed lockdown because of the coronavirus. Italian police, who patrol St. Peter’s Square on behalf of the Vatican, closed it off to tourists from early morning, leaving St. Peter’s Basilica empty except for Vatican staff including religious, security personnel, cleaners and musicians. In Rome and around the Vatican, just a few hardened tourists remained, often wearing masks but looking somewhat aimless and forlorn as the museums, galleries and attractions were all clos...

Gavin Ashenden chats about his faith journey with U.K. correspondent K.V. Turley in Walsingham, England. (Peter Jones EWTN GB) Gavin Ashenden explains his decision to enter the Church: ‘It became more and more important to me to belong to the same Church as the saints to whom I had become close in prayer.’ K.V. Turley WALSINGHAM, England — Just before Christmas 2019, news swept across the internet and the airwaves that Queen Elizabeth’s former Anglican chaplain, Gavin Ashenden, had converted to Catholicism. For nine years, from 2008 to 2017, Ashenden was one of the Anglican chaplains assigned to the queen. On Dec. 22, 2019, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, at Shrewsbury Cathedral, Bishop Mark Davies received Ashenden into the Catholic Church. The Register met Ashenden in February 2020 at Walsi...

The world is gripped with fear. An incurable virus is sweeping across the human population and people are panicking. The news reports vary from day to day and even the experts are enmeshed in uncertainty as so much remains unknown. Politicians are worried about the impact on the economy–and if on the economy then on their own hold on power. The worst thing is the uncertainty. What we do know, however, is that this is not the Black Death. People are not collapsing with horrible boils, bleeding from every orifice before gasping their last. Some vulnerable people will become seriously ill. A small percentage will die from complications. Most who get the infection will suffer mild symptoms or inconvenient, short term illness. Of course every precaution should be taken to protect the vulnerable...

You know we are “picking up steam” in the season of Lent when the Lectionary starts turning to the long readings from the Gospel of John (John 4, 9, 11).  The Church turns to these texts from John at this point in the liturgical calendar, because John is, in so many ways, a mystagogical document, a gospel intended to takes us deeper into the mysteries, that is, the sacraments. If one is not initiated into the sacraments, John remains—in many respects—a closed book.  I can attest to this from personal experience.  Although I have always loved my name-sake Gospel more than any other part of Scripture, I virtually never preached from it in while I was a Protestant pastor.  I was enthralled with the words and fascinated with the realities behind them, but wasn’t sure what t...

From a reader… QUAERITUR: I just read that Italy is taking the measure of locking down the entire country, 60 million people, until 3 April.  I don’t know if this is irrational panic or not.  Let’s say that it is.  Let’s say this coronavirus or another disease gets really bad. If the country is on lockdown I suppose we won’t have the obligation to go to Mass on Sundays. However, how would we get Last Rites or make a confession?  If priests have the right or permission to move around for pastoral emergencies, how would they hear our confessions if we can’t let them in or go out? If things get really really really bad, there is the option of General Absolution.  A priest, even from a bit of a distance, could absolve a group of people of their sins.  That said, w...