The Vatican is conducting tests for coronavirus on the dozens of priests who live in the same residence as Pope Francis and making contingency plans to move those diagnosed with the disease elsewhere, a source in the Holy See said on March 26.
After dioceses throughout the world suspended public Masses amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Congregation for Divine Worship has updated its decree on Holy Week liturgies.
The Vatican department for liturgy published guidelines Friday for bishops and priests on the celebration of Holy Week, the Triduum, and Easter liturgies during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, has said that the coronavirus pandemic may justify the use of general absolution, in extraordinary circumstances, for Catholics unable to go to individual confession.
Top officials from China and the Vatican held a bilateral meeting in Germany, in what is believed to be the highest-level official encounter between the two sides in decades.
The appointment of Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila to a top post in the Vatican has offered hope to church leaders in Asia that the challenges they face will be given more attention.
