SW News: Bishop Patrick McKinney of Nottingham in the UK has encouraged the faithful of his diocese to offer their customary Friday penance for “the sick, the dying, the bereaved” in India and “all those who courageously care for them.”
“I am deeply saddened to read of the worsening situation in India following the alarming outbreak of Covid-19,” wrote the bishop on April 30. He recalled there are many Indians living and working in his diocese and who have relatives in their homeland. Bishop McKinney encouraged them saying, “Be assured that I hold your friends, family and the country which you love, in my prayers at this devastating time.”
In his letter, the bishop mentioned Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, the auxiliary bishop of Ranchi archdiocese in India, who personally took seven of his priests affected with COVID to hospital as no ambulances were available. For lack of hospital beds, he admitted another seven seminarians at an old age home.
Bishop McKinney stated that it was “devastating” to learn about the death of five priests in the Diocese of Dumka in India's Jharkhand state, within the span of just 10 days.
“May God grant them and all those who have lost their lives, eternal rest and may our Blessed Mother comfort the sick and the dying in this time of terrible trial and sorrow,” prayed the bishop concluding his letter.
The second wave of covid-19 pandemic has massively swept all over India, with over 400,000 cases reported last Friday. So far, 218,959 deaths have occurred since the beginning of the pandemic.