Is Being Willing to Die for a Disease an Heroic Act or Just Plain Stupidity and Selfishness?

As I write this, the world is in the midst of the worst pandemic of the 21st century, and the worst in many, many decades before that.  We have never seen a virus travel so quickly throughout the world or one as deadly as COVID-19.  

At the moment, there have been 1,182,830 confirmed cases and 63,925 deaths worldwide.  In the US, there have been 301,147 confirmed cases and 8,173 deaths.  And this all began only a little more than 3 months ago, on December 31, 2019 when the first COVID-19 infection was diagnosed. [SOURCE]  If you click on the link, you will see the updated numbers, which will be much higher than those I have stated here.  

COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the United States.  From The Hill.com. April 1, 2020:

The coronavirus has become the third-highest cause of death in the U.S., according to a doctor's analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. 

Maria Danilychev of San Diego charted coronavirus growth throughout the country and found that COVID-19 fatalities had surpassed Alzheimer's, stroke and chronic lung disease with 748 deaths per day and rising, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday. 

The analysis is based on reports from a single day, assuming the rate of deaths remains the same or increases from now until the virus hits the projected apex towards the end of April.

Yet, there are still many people who are insisting on their right to meet together during this storm. Sadly, that includes many Catholics who have condemned their bishops for closing churches everywhere in an attempt to save as many lives as possible.  

In a video from just a couple of days ago, Taylor Marshall, ultra right wing radical traditionalist, said this:

From the very beginning and I still do, when this whole thing started breaking out, when the bishops called off Masses, before the State even recommended it or asked for it, I said this is a problem, this is a hype, we need go to careful, maybe there are increments we can do here, but just turning off the spigot of public worship is not the right idea.

Marshall also admitted he went to a public Mass in a barn a few days prior to the video, in direct disobedience to his bishop.  He said everyone was medically checked before going in, they sat 6 feet apart, received communion 6 feet apart, and the priest was "super careful" in putting the host on each person's tongue.

Nonetheless, Marshall blatantly and without remorse disobeyed his bishop as did everyone else who attended that Mass.  

Is Marshall a hero, or a fool who is putting not only his own life in danger but everyone around him, including his wife and eight children?  

We need to understand that we are not fighting an enemy whose goal is to destroy the Church.  This is not the French Revolution when they were cutting off the heads of priests and nuns.  This is not England when priests were being drawn and quartered.  This is not Mexico when Catholics were lined up and shot.

We are talking about a disease which kills indiscriminately.  ALL public gatherings, from sports to concerts to movie theaters to restaurants are shut down.  No one is being discriminated against.  This is not directed only against the Catholic Church or any church.  

We are at war against a deadly and highly infectious disease, and right now our only weapon against this disease is the most famous phrase in the world:  social distancing.  

It is now believed that COVID-19 is not spread only by touching, coughing or sneezing.  This disease is spread even through talking or just breathing.    

From CNN.com, dated April 4, 2020:

A prestigious scientific panel told the White House Wednesday night that research shows coronavirus can be spread not just by sneezes or coughs, but also just by talking, or possibly even just breathing. 

"While the current [coronavirus] specific research is limited, the results of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing," according to the letter, written by Dr. Harvey Fineberg, chairman of a committee with the National Academy of Sciences.
. . . 

Fineberg, chair of the NAS' Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, said his letter was sent Wednesday evening in response to a query from Kelvin Droegemeier with the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. 

"This letter responds to your question concerning the possibility that [coronavirus] could be spread by conversation, in addition to sneeze/cough-induced droplets," the letter states. "Currently available research supports the possibility that [coronavirus] could be spread via bioaerosols generated directly by patients' exhalation," it continues.
. . . 

Research by the University of Nebraska shows that genetic material from the virus was found in patients' rooms more than 6 feet away from the patients, according to the letter. 

Fineberg said it's possible that aerosolized coronavirus droplets can hang in the air and potentially infect someone who walks by later. 

He added, however, that coronavirus is not as infectious as measles or tuberculosis. 

How long coronavirus lingers in the air depends on several factors, including how much virus an infected individual puts out when breathing or talking, and also on the amount of circulation in the air, he said. 

"If you generate an aerosol of the virus with no circulation in a room, it's conceivable that if you walk through later, you could inhale the virus," Fineberg said. "But if you're outside, the breeze will likely disperse it."

So it seems that even if we do 6 feet social distancing in groups, as Marshall did when he attended his illicit Mass, but you walk through the same air that an infected person breathed, you could also be infected.  This is why the CDC is now strongly recommending that we all wear masks when out in public.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Church was guided by the Holy Spirit to cancel public Masses and suspend the reception of Sacraments when she did. 

But for many self-righteous Catholics, they feel that danger of infecting others should not be a reason to cancel public Masses or suspend the Sacraments.  If we really love God, we should be willing to sacrifice lives for the Mass.

Rorate-Caeli, the schismatic blog written by radical right wing traditionalists, posted an article entitled, "The Bishops Have Abandoned Us: These Wolves Deserve All Our Contempt and Disdain."  I will give them credit for the common sense stated in their first sentences:

The worldwide situation is serious.

The underlying illness causing the situation is also serious.

Wow, it seems they are actually not fighting reality here.

But then the usual hateful and divisive condemnation follows:

But the attitude of most bishops in most affected countries is simply despicable, repugnant, deserving all our contempt and disdain. Not content with having thrown the faithful for decades to the care of sexual abusers, now, in the moment of greatest need, they simply abandon us.

The motto of ultra right traditionalists:  never let a crisis go to waste if you can use it to condemn Catholic hierarchy.

Their hate continues:  

The suspension of large gatherings (including public masses) is quite understandable. [Whoa, yet another rational statement.  Amazing,  But then the rational thinking stops.] But the other measures are abusive, and a sign of the complete disregard of these wolves who pretend to be shepherds for the souls of the faithful. But the act of many, apparently most, bishops to close churches to simple individual prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament? And, much worse, to "ban" confessions in the time of greatest need? To "ban" last rites, including the viaticum and extreme unction in the time of greatest peril? 

What is the point of the Church at all, of the priesthood, if these physicians of the soul abandon the sick right now? How come Francis mentioned the church as a "field hospital" from day one of his pontificate, and, when the need for actual field hospitals is here, priests and bishops simply do not show up? Do they have to despise the laity that much? THIS is clericalism of the worst kind.  

Note this, bishops who have "banned" confessions and last rites in this time: WE WILL NOT FORGET THAT YOU ABANDONED US IN THE MOMENT OF GREATEST NEED.  [emphasis in original] 

I would actually agree with this idiotic rant if we were talking about persecution such as the French, English and Mexicans faced in their respective times. 

But we are talking about disease!  If I am killed because of persecution, I lose only my own life.  That is what martyrdom is all about - being willing to die for your faith, and as has been rightly said, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

But becoming infected with this disease and dying from it does not make me or anyone else a martyr.  If I become infected with COVID-19, I could infect many others and even be responsible for their deaths.  I will also be contributing to crippling the healthcare system and making it impossible for doctors and nurses to fully care for those who need it.

If we follow the advice of these radicals, we are nothing more than selfish, uncaring people who want what we want, consequences be damned.

This past week a Brooklyn priest died from COVID-19.  He was 49 years old.  From the New York Times, in an article entitled, "He Said Mass Via Live Stream. 8 Days Later, He Fell to the Virus":

Father Jorge Ortiz-Garay did not want his parishioners to be afraid. 

The world all around us is in crisis, he said as he celebrated Mass at St. Brigid’s Church in Brooklyn on March 19, the pews empty and his flock watching at home via live stream. But perhaps the coronavirus, and the fear it has brought, can be seen as an opportunity to become closer to God. 

“There’s no better time than this time of trials, this time of challenges, to fulfill our call to holiness,” said Father Jorge, as he was known. “At these moments of trial and crisis, at these times when maybe we are asking what will happen to us, trust in the Father.” 

He assured his parishioners that he was in good health. 

But eight days later Father Jorge died at Wyckoff Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn. He was 49.

Father Jorge seemed fine at the time he said Mass, which you will see if you go to the link.  But the disease killed him eight days later.  That is how deadly COVID-19 is.

In Italy, 60 priests have died from COVID-19.

Yet, we have the idiots at Rorate Caeli and others condemning the bishops because they won't allow face-to-face reception of the Sacraments.

Mass and the Sacraments are vital to our spiritual salvation.  But will God hold it against us if, through no fault of our own, we are unable to receive these Sacraments?  You really think God is that petty?  Obviously, the right wing radicals believe that.

Many, many saints and martyrs have had to live without the Mass and the Sacraments.  Japanese Catholics lived for 200 hundreds without priests, Sacraments or the Mass.  From an article dated March 7, 2017 entitled, "Japanese Catholics celebrate anniversary of hidden communities":

Catholics in southern Japan are remembering when two of their hidden communities discovered each other 150 years ago during a time of persecution.

In March 1865, while Christianity was still banned in Japan, a French missionary discovered hidden Catholics in Nagasaki. For more than 200 years they had kept their faith in secret and lived without any priests. Two years later, another hidden Catholic community was discovered in Imamura village about 100 kilometers east of Nagasaki when a Christian from Urakami village, Nagasaki, went to a town near Imamura and heard rumors of their presence.

The Christian returned to Nagasaki and told the French missionary who sent four Japanese Christians to Imamura to confirm.*

Three days later, on Feb. 26, 1867, the four arrived in the village. A local woman invited them to her house because they had nowhere to stay. When the women began to prepare a meal for them using either chicken or eggs, the messengers declined, saying that they would eat neither chicken nor eggs at that time.

The surprised women replied, "You too?" and realized that her guests also kept the Lenten fast. After the discovery, the Imamura Catholics sent two villagers back to Nagasaki to confirm that missionaries were there. Since then, the two communities have maintained close relations with each other.

In the same year as the Imamura discovery, a massive crackdown started in Urakami. Some 3,400 Urakami Catholics were exiled and about 670 villagers died, most of them by torture, until the ban on Christianity was removed in 1873.

These Japanese Catholics were under severe persecution, and lived for generations without any access to a priest or the Sacraments.  Not only did they not lose their faith, they were so strong that they were willing to die rather than renounce their Catholic beliefs.

Yet we hear crybaby 21st Century Western Catholics whining and carrying on because they have to stay in their nice comfortable homes where they are asked to ride out a global pandemic in order to keep others safe.

Listen to the always disgusting Michael Matt:

Panic kills. So let's kill panic before panic kills us. 

Ready for some good news? Tom Hanks has not only recovered but is back in the States and doing just fine. Given how much media attention was given to his testing positive for COVID-19, we wonder why more media attention isn't being paid to his recovery. 

Is it going to be "the sky is falling" and "it's the end of the world" for the rest of the summer? What's going on here?

By the way, did you know that 80,000 Americans died of the flu in 2018? Neither did we. What's going on here? 

Plus, John Stewart, The Simpsons, stand-up comics -- they were all mocking the H1N1 pandemic back in 2009. Why? Because of the same dangerous, media-generated panic that we see going on now. In 2009, the comics helped to pop the panic baloon [sic].

Finally, as Dr. Oz and other prominent doctors warn against another kind of pandemic -- one involving serious nation-wide mental health consequences associated with COVID-19 panic -- Michael Matt joins the growing chorus of serious voices demanding that the media tone down the fear mongering and begin to get real about what's going on here.

Michael Matt endangers both the spiritual and physical lives of everyone who listens to him.

The reason COVID-19 cannot be compared to other viruses, including H1N1 as referenced by Michael Matt is because of the rapidity with which it spreads. No other virus has spread anywhere near as quickly as COVID-19.  As the video at the top of this post tells us, "COVID-19 has become the second deadliest epidemic of the 2000s."  And COVID-19 is well on its way to becoming the deadliest epidemic in the 21st Century, dwarfing the 2010-2013 Cholera outbreak.

Our hospitals here in New York are completely overwhelmed and filled almost entirely with COVID patients.  I hear sirens constantly throughout the day and night.  I feel like I am in the middle of a war and that is because I am.  If it is still quiet where you are, just wait.  You will be experiencing the same thing.

As of this writing, 310,849 hospitalized cases of COVID-19 have had an outcome throughout the world.  246,174, or 79%, have recovered and been discharged from the hospital  But 64,675, or 21% have resulted in death.  The youngest victim that we know of was a 6 week old baby in Connecticut.

COVID-19 is a tsunami washing over the entire earth.  Right now our only weapon is to shelter in place.  If you refuse to do that, then you have become a tool for the enemy, COVID-19, spreading the disease, infecting and killing others.

There may very well come a time when we will have to face death for our beliefs.  But this is not the time.

The martyrs in the war against COVID-19 are those on the front line:  the nurses and doctors and other healthcare workers, the fireman, the policeman and EMTs.

But those who insist on gathering in public, whether it be for a day at the beach or Mass, are only stupid, selfish and uncaring about anyone but themselves.