World & Vatican

ACCRA, Ghana -- Caritas Ghana has put in place a nine-month emergency response plan with the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference to ensure that the poor and vulnerable receive critical and basic services in the two archdioceses most affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

MEXICO CITY -- The soup kitchen at Father Nicolas Angelotti's parish in the rough outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was feeding 1,500 residents daily in recent months, with demand driven by a weak economy and unemployment.

​​​​​​​The pandemic might be a chance to come as together as "one human family" and forgive individual and national debts," Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle wondered out loud during a Mass livestreamed from the Pontifical Philippine College in Rome.

LIMA, Peru - Priests and volunteers have distributed more than 15,000 food baskets to Peruvians unable to work during the nation’s coronavirus pandemic lockdown. They say they aim to distribute 15,000 more.

Parish priests in Jerusalem are invited to provide the faithful with blessed olive branches and holy water. Families are urged to make time to pray together at home and to participate in the liturgies with leaflets prepared by the diocese that contain the Mass readings.

In an expression of solidarity with Italy and the world, the Vatican is joining an initiative promoted by Italian mayors to fly flags at half-mast in memory of victims of COVID-19.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has praised the commitment shown by health workers and reassured Filipinos of his government’s determination to help them and defeat COVID-19.

ROME -- Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the papal vicar for Rome, was hospitalized after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus, the Diocese of Rome announced.

Although volunteers are wearing masks and gloves and staying a meter apart from others, “a physical distance does not mean a human distance. We should continue to communicate the fact that they are our friends," a spokesperson for the Sant’Egidio community said.

The coronavirus has claimed the lives of 12 doctors in the Philippines, while at least seven are quarantined in hospitals after testing positive, according to the Philippine Medical Association.

ROME -- In addition to expanding shelters for the homeless during Italy's COVID-19 lockdown, Catholic dioceses and parishes are offering rooms to medical personnel exhausted by long hours at work or who will not go home to avoid the danger of spreading the virus to their loved ones.

NEW DELHI, India -- India's effort to contain the coronavirus pandemic is in disarray after thousands of migrant workers fearing starvation started flouting lockdown rules to head to their home states.

MADRID, Spain -- The residents of a homeless shelter in Madrid run by Diocesan Caritas have written letters of support to patients hospitalized with coronavirus at six hospitals in the region.