Angelle De Leon
Amid the threat posed by the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), the Catholic Church has issued new guidelines for the Holy Mass.
In a circular released by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to all the dioceses on Wednesday, the CBCP has recommended receiving communion by hand as a way to help prevent the spread of the new deadly virus.
“The communion in the hand (must) be practiced ordinarily to help prevent further fear from people who are reasonably cautious about this matter,” CBCP secretary-general, Fr. Marvin Mejia said in the circular.
Mejia said the CBCP also discouraged Catholics from holding hands when they pray or sing “Our Father” and shaking hands during the “sign of peace” while in the Mass.
The organization also advised churches to change regularly the Holy Water from containers and install “protective cloth” on the grills of confessionals.
The CBCP has released the circular with an “oratio imperata” — an obligatory prayer for the people who are sick because of the virus and for the prevention of a global outbreak to be said during Mass.
LOOK: CBCP issues "Oratio Imperata" against the spread of coronavirus pic.twitter.com/al9LVrD4Og
— CBCPNews (@cbcpnews) January 29, 2020
The oratio imperata will be said in all Masses after communion beginning February 2.
Part of the prayer reads: “We pray for your grace for the people tasked with studying the nature and cause of this virus and its disease and of stemming the tide of its transmission.
“Guide the hands and minds of medical experts that they may minister to the sick with competence and compassion, and of those governments and private agencies that must find [a] cure and solution to this epidemic,” it added.
The CBCP also strongly urged the parishes, chapels, and churches dedicated to St. Raphael the Archangel and St. Roch – whom the Catholic Church considers as patron saints in times of pestilence and incurable illnesses — to make special prayers and penitential processions.
“In praying we invite ourselves with all our brothers and sisters suffering [from] the disease brought by this virus, bring up to God our longing for them to be restored to full health and humbly pray that we may be spared from infection of this virus,” Mejia noted.
On January 30, the Department of Health (DOH) has confirmed its first case of novel coronavirus in the Philippines.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the country’s first 2019-nCoV patient is a 38-year-old woman, who traveled to the Philippines from Wuhan, China on January 21.
He said the Chinese national is currently in a government hospital in Manila, where she was admitted on January 25, but was no longer showing symptoms.
Duque said authorities would check the establishments that she went to and trace the people she had been in contact with.
He said the woman is among the 29 people being monitored by the DOH.
These patients under investigation are in the following areas:
Metro Manila – 18
Central Visayas – 4
Western Visayas – 3
Eastern Visayas – 1
MIMAROPA -1
Northern Mindanao – 1
Davao – 1
Of these patients, 23 were admitted in hospitals and five were discharged but remained under strict monitoring.
Duque said one died of pneumonia at the San Lazaro Hospital on January 29, but he was still being tested for the 2019-nCoV.
The DOH reminded the public to avoid physical contact, practice proper hygiene, and perform constant washing of hands, as well as proper coughing and sneezing etiquette, to avoid being infected and to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus and other related illnesses.
