The Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) has set up a new digital platform to help the faithful meet the challenge of the coronavirus epidemic.
Practical advice and a variety of articles, reflections, news and pastoral material can be found at https://chiciseparera.chiesacattolica.it. The initiative, says a CEI press release, wants to offer signs of hope for rebuilding the future to those who are experiencing difficulties because of the Covid-19 virus. The purpose of the new web site, continues the statement, is to witness to the commitment of the Church to weaving threads of solidarity in communities, guided by the conviction that this critical situation, bringing with it bewilderment and fear, cannot be permitted to break the thread of faith, but should instead bind it even more firmly to hope and charity. The celebration of Mass in churches open to the public has been suspended by government decree to avoid contagion. Because of this, the new CEI web site aims to be a point of reference in helping the faithful rediscover a deeper sense of what it means to belong to the Church.
In fact, the name of the platform, taken from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans (Rm. 8:35), underscores the certainty that even when we are surrounded by threats and danger, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, which unites us to each other as siblings and makes us a community.