ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. church leaders peppered their Easter homilies with references to the coronavirus on Sunday, in masses held online, on television and even in parking lots to people sheltering in cars to maintain social distancing during the pandemic.
For the world’s largest Christian population, the coronavirus pandemic has meant observing an Easter Sunday unlike any Americans have lived through before.
“Today as we hear the Easter bells as a call to solidarity among all the members of our community in the face of the pandemic, we might respond to witness to the power of the Resurrection, the power of love that is stronger than death, and faith in a provident God who can always bring good out of evil,” Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in his homily on BostonCatholic.org.
Governors and health authorities across the United States have broadly asked residents to avoid gathering in large numbers, leading to the closure of schools, businesses and churches.
The COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus has claimed more than 21,300 lives across the United States and infected more than 525,000 people.
Major U.S. religious institutions, including Roman Catholic dioceses and Protestant churches, have found alternatives to safely celebrate the holiest day on the Christian calendar.
In Easley, South Carolina, the 2,200 members of the Rock Springs Baptist Church were among the many U.S. churchgoers who turned to technology and the airwaves for help.
Reverend Jim Cawthon, 46, said he expected hundreds to spend Easter services in their cars in his megachurch’s parking lot, watching the proceedings on big outdoor screens and listening to its broadcast over local radio.
More will likely watch online, which Cawthon said should be easier as the church recently upgraded its video and internet systems.
Empty seats are seen during an Easter service at St. Patrick's Cathedral as the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., April 12, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
“Just prior to this all going crazy, we were already set up,” Cawthon said. “It’s all about the cross and celebrating Easter even in a pandemic.”
Some older adults in retirement communities celebrated Holy Week by playing music and video broadcasts of services. Some communities held contests, asking residents, for instance, to decorate golf carts for Easter and leave them parked outside for judging, instead of holding annual golf cart Easter parades.
Curtis James, a youth pastor at the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, dreamed up the idea of holding a safe Easter egg hunt for children with the online videogame Minecraft. Other churches have joined in as the plan garnered national attention.
The Home Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has held a sunrise Easter service for almost 250 years, weathering even the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as well as the two World Wars. But for the pandemic, the service was canceled. It was to be replaced by an online and locally broadcast service with just a preacher and few choir and band members providing music.
A handful of churches have bucked social distancing rules aimed at slowing the disease’s spread and planned to go ahead with in-person services on Sunday, with some pastors predicting divine protection from the disease.
Most Catholic dioceses across the United States shut down all such live services, however.
Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Los Angeles diocese wrote to priests and parishioners across the nation online to hold steadfast.
“Future generations will look back on this as the long Lent of 2020, a time when disease and death suddenly darkened the whole earth,” Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles diocese wrote to priests and parishioners across the nation online.
“This Holy Week will be different. Our churches may be closed but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains.”
Slideshow (8 Images)
In Columbus, Georgia, the St. Anne Catholic Church found a unique way to fill up its pews for Easter Sunday.
More than 650 members of the 1,500-strong congregation sent in “selfie” photos of themselves that the priests taped to the pews, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“Now we look out and see faces,” pastor Robert Schlageter told the newspaper.
Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Scott Malone, Rosalba O'Brien and Tom Brown
ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. church leaders peppered their Easter homilies with references to the coronavirus on Sunday, in masses held online, on television and even in parking lots to people sheltering in cars to maintain social distancing during the pandemic.
For the world’s largest Christian population, the coronavirus pandemic has meant observing an Easter Sunday unlike any Americans have lived through before.
“Today as we hear the Easter bells as a call to solidarity among all the members of our community in the face of the pandemic, we might respond to witness to the power of the Resurrection, the power of love that is stronger than death, and faith in a provident God who can always bring good out of evil,” Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in his homily on BostonCatholic.org.
Governors and health authorities across the United States have broadly asked residents to avoid gathering in large numbers, leading to the closure of schools, businesses and churches.
The COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus has claimed more than 21,300 lives across the United States and infected more than 525,000 people.
Major U.S. religious institutions, including Roman Catholic dioceses and Protestant churches, have found alternatives to safely celebrate the holiest day on the Christian calendar.
In Easley, South Carolina, the 2,200 members of the Rock Springs Baptist Church were among the many U.S. churchgoers who turned to technology and the airwaves for help.
Reverend Jim Cawthon, 46, said he expected hundreds to spend Easter services in their cars in his megachurch’s parking lot, watching the proceedings on big outdoor screens and listening to its broadcast over local radio.
More will likely watch online, which Cawthon said should be easier as the church recently upgraded its video and internet systems.
Empty seats are seen during an Easter service at St. Patrick's Cathedral as the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., April 12, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
“Just prior to this all going crazy, we were already set up,” Cawthon said. “It’s all about the cross and celebrating Easter even in a pandemic.”
Some older adults in retirement communities celebrated Holy Week by playing music and video broadcasts of services. Some communities held contests, asking residents, for instance, to decorate golf carts for Easter and leave them parked outside for judging, instead of holding annual golf cart Easter parades.
Curtis James, a youth pastor at the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, dreamed up the idea of holding a safe Easter egg hunt for children with the online videogame Minecraft. Other churches have joined in as the plan garnered national attention.
The Home Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has held a sunrise Easter service for almost 250 years, weathering even the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as well as the two World Wars. But for the pandemic, the service was canceled. It was to be replaced by an online and locally broadcast service with just a preacher and few choir and band members providing music.
A handful of churches have bucked social distancing rules aimed at slowing the disease’s spread and planned to go ahead with in-person services on Sunday, with some pastors predicting divine protection from the disease.
Most Catholic dioceses across the United States shut down all such live services, however.
Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Los Angeles diocese wrote to priests and parishioners across the nation online to hold steadfast.
“Future generations will look back on this as the long Lent of 2020, a time when disease and death suddenly darkened the whole earth,” Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles diocese wrote to priests and parishioners across the nation online.
“This Holy Week will be different. Our churches may be closed but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains.”
Slideshow (8 Images)
In Columbus, Georgia, the St. Anne Catholic Church found a unique way to fill up its pews for Easter Sunday.
More than 650 members of the 1,500-strong congregation sent in “selfie” photos of themselves that the priests taped to the pews, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“Now we look out and see faces,” pastor Robert Schlageter told the newspaper.
Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Scott Malone, Rosalba O'Brien and Tom Brown
In this handout photo issued by 10 Downing Street, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks from 10 Downing Street praising NHS staff in a video message, after he was discharged from the hospital a week after being admitted with persistent coronavirus symptoms.
Pippa Fowles/AP
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Pippa Fowles/AP
In this handout photo issued by 10 Downing Street, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks from 10 Downing Street praising NHS staff in a video message, after he was discharged from the hospital a week after being admitted with persistent coronavirus symptoms.
Pippa Fowles/AP
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson left the hospital on Sunday, one week after he was admitted with COVID-19, and in a video message, thanked England’s National Health Service for saving his life.
Johnson, who spent multiple nights in an intensive care unit, credited health staff for keeping him alive when, he said, “it could have gone either way.”
“I have today left hospital after a week in which the NHS has saved my life, no question,” said Johnson, who went on to list the names of some of the doctors and nurses who looked after him at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, which sits across the River Thames from Big Ben.
It is hard to find the words to express my debt to the NHS for saving my life.
The efforts of millions of people across this country to stay home are worth it. Together we will overcome this challenge, as we have overcome so many challenges in the past. #StayHomeSaveLivespic.twitter.com/HK7Ch8BMB5
— Boris Johnson #StayHomeSaveLives (@BorisJohnson) April 12, 2020
Johnson, 55, was a key campaigner in favor of Brexit in the 2016 referendum, a campaign that argued, in part, for leaving the European Union to cut and control immigration. But in his address Sunday, Johnson singled out two nurses who watched over him during a crucial 48-hour period — one from New Zealand, the other from Portugal, an EU country. The reference seemed a nod to the important role that foreign staff play in the NHS.
Johnson is recuperating at Chequers, the prime minister’s country estate.
Johnson’s release from the hospital comes as the United Kingdom’s death toll from COVID-19 has passed 10,600, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University. One of the government’s senior scientific advisers, Sir Jeremy Farrar, said the U.K. is likely to be “one of the worst, if not the worst affected country in Europe.”
While Johnson praised NHS staff on Sunday, some health care workers say the government has failed to provide enough personal protective equipment (PPE). Health Secretary Matt Hancock triggered a backlash on Friday when he said staff should only use the equipment they clinically need and treat PPE as a “precious resource.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” responded Alan Courtney, a critical care doctor in England. “I thought that the health care professionals were the precious resource.”
Courtney said some workers are still not being supplied gear appropriate to the risks they are taking as they care for COVID-19 patients.
“It’s easy to describe in very military type terms that we’re the front line, that we’re at war with this enemy,” Courtney said. “You would still not send a soldier into a war zone without a gun. You know, you’d still give him a helmet.”
At least 28 U.K. health care workers have died from COVID-19, according to the BBC.
BAKU/DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC and allies led by Russia agreed on Sunday to a record cut in output to prop up oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic and said they had an unprecedented deal with fellow oil nations, including the United States, to curb global oil supply by 20%.
Measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus have destroyed demand for fuel and driven down oil prices, straining budgets of oil producers and hammering the U.S. shale industry, which is more vulnerable to low prices due to its higher costs.
The group, known as OPEC+, said it had agreed to reduce output by 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) for May and June, after four days of talks and following pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to arrest the price decline.
The biggest oil cut ever is more than four times deeper than the previous record cut in 2008. Producers will slowly relax curbs after June, although reductions in production will stay in place until April 2022.
“The big Oil Deal with OPEC+ is done. This will save hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in the United States,” Trump wrote on Twitter, thanking Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi King Salman for pushing the deal through.
“I just spoke to them... Great deal for all,” Trump said.
OPEC+ sources said they expected total global oil cuts to amount to more than 20 million bpd, or 20 percent of global supply, effective May 1. OPEC had the same figure in its draft statement but removed it from the final version.
Oil demand has dropped by around a third because of the coronavirus pandemic. Brent oil prices opened slightly down at around $31.30 per barrel on Sunday, less than half of their levels at the start of the year.
Total global cuts will include contributions from non-members, steeper voluntary cuts by some OPEC+ members and strategic stocks purchases by the world’s largest consumers.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Reuters that real effective cuts by OPEC+ would total 12.5 million bpd because Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait would cut supplies steeper given higher output in April.
Three OPEC+ sources said non-members Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Norway and the United States would contribute 4 million to 5 million bpd.
Three OPEC+ sources said the International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy watchdog for the world’s most industrialised nations, would announce purchases into stocks by its members to the tune of 3 million bpd in the next couple of months.
The IEA said it would provide an update on Wednesday when it releases its monthly report. The United States, India, Japan and South Korea have said they could buy oil to replenish reserves.
SEVERE DISTRESS
Trump had threatened OPEC leader Saudi Arabia with oil tariffs and other measures if it did not fix the market’s oversupply problem as low prices have put the U.S. oil industry, the world’s largest, in severe distress.
Canada and Norway had signalled a willingness to cut and the United States, where legislation makes it hard to act in tandem with cartels such as OPEC, said its output would fall steeply by itself this year because of low prices.
The OPEC+ deal had been delayed since Thursday, however, after Mexico, worried about derailing its plans to revive heavily indebted state oil company Pemex, balked at the production cuts it was asked to make.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that Trump had offered to make extra U.S. cuts on his behalf, an unusual offer by the U.S. leader, who has long railed against OPEC.
Trump said Washington would help Mexico by picking up “some of the slack” and being reimbursed later. He did not say how that would work.
A previous agreement by OPEC+ to cut production this year fell apart because of a dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia, triggering a price war that brought a flood of supply just as demand for fuel was crushed by the coronavirus pandemic.
File Photo: The logo of the Organization of the Petroleoum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is seen outside of OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, Austria April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Global oil demand is estimated to have fallen by around 30 million bpd as more than 3 billion people are locked down in their homes due to the outbreak.
Banks Goldman Sachs and UBS predicted last week that Brent prices would fall back to $20 per barrel as cuts would not be enough to help offset severe demand destruction because of the restrictions to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Reporting by Reuters OPEC Team, Alex Lawler in London, Lamine Chikhi in Algiers; Nailia Bagirova in Baku, Katya Golubkova in Moscow and Tamara Vaal in Nur-Sultan; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Alex Richardson, Tom Brown and Peter Cooney
BAKU/DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC and allies led by Russia agreed on Sunday to a record cut in output to prop up oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic and said they had an unprecedented deal with fellow oil nations, including the United States, to curb global oil supply by 20%.
Measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus have destroyed demand for fuel and driven down oil prices, straining budgets of oil producers and hammering the U.S. shale industry, which is more vulnerable to low prices due to its higher costs.
The group, known as OPEC+, said it had agreed to reduce output by 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) for May and June, after four days of talks and following pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to arrest the price decline.
The biggest oil cut ever is more than four times deeper than the previous record cut in 2008. Producers will slowly relax curbs after June, although reductions in production will stay in place until April 2022.
“The big Oil Deal with OPEC+ is done. This will save hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in the United States,” Trump wrote on Twitter, thanking Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi King Salman for pushing the deal through.
“I just spoke to them... Great deal for all,” Trump said.
OPEC+ sources said they expected total global oil cuts to amount to more than 20 million bpd, or 20 percent of global supply, effective May 1. OPEC had the same figure in its draft statement but removed it from the final version.
Oil demand has dropped by around a third because of the coronavirus pandemic. Brent oil prices opened slightly down at around $31.30 per barrel on Sunday, less than half of their levels at the start of the year.
Total global cuts will include contributions from non-members, steeper voluntary cuts by some OPEC+ members and strategic stocks purchases by the world’s largest consumers.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Reuters that real effective cuts by OPEC+ would total 12.5 million bpd because Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait would cut supplies steeper given higher output in April.
Three OPEC+ sources said non-members Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Norway and the United States would contribute 4 million to 5 million bpd.
Three OPEC+ sources said the International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy watchdog for the world’s most industrialised nations, would announce purchases into stocks by its members to the tune of 3 million bpd in the next couple of months.
The IEA said it would provide an update on Wednesday when it releases its monthly report. The United States, India, Japan and South Korea have said they could buy oil to replenish reserves.
SEVERE DISTRESS
Trump had threatened OPEC leader Saudi Arabia with oil tariffs and other measures if it did not fix the market’s oversupply problem as low prices have put the U.S. oil industry, the world’s largest, in severe distress.
Canada and Norway had signalled a willingness to cut and the United States, where legislation makes it hard to act in tandem with cartels such as OPEC, said its output would fall steeply by itself this year because of low prices.
The OPEC+ deal had been delayed since Thursday, however, after Mexico, worried about derailing its plans to revive heavily indebted state oil company Pemex, balked at the production cuts it was asked to make.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that Trump had offered to make extra U.S. cuts on his behalf, an unusual offer by the U.S. leader, who has long railed against OPEC.
Trump said Washington would help Mexico by picking up “some of the slack” and being reimbursed later. He did not say how that would work.
A previous agreement by OPEC+ to cut production this year fell apart because of a dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia, triggering a price war that brought a flood of supply just as demand for fuel was crushed by the coronavirus pandemic.
File Photo: The logo of the Organization of the Petroleoum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is seen outside of OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, Austria April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Global oil demand is estimated to have fallen by around 30 million bpd as more than 3 billion people are locked down in their homes due to the outbreak.
Banks Goldman Sachs and UBS predicted last week that Brent prices would fall back to $20 per barrel as cuts would not be enough to help offset severe demand destruction because of the restrictions to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
Reporting by Reuters OPEC Team, Alex Lawler in London, Lamine Chikhi in Algiers; Nailia Bagirova in Baku, Katya Golubkova in Moscow and Tamara Vaal in Nur-Sultan; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Alex Richardson, Tom Brown and Peter Cooney
In this handout photo issued by 10 Downing Street, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks from 10 Downing Street praising NHS staff in a video message, after he was discharged from the hospital a week after being admitted with persistent coronavirus symptoms.
Pippa Fowles/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Pippa Fowles/AP
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson left the hospital on Sunday, one week after he was admitted with COVID-19, and in a video message, thanked England's National Health Service for saving his life.
Johnson, who spent multiple nights in an intensive care unit, credited health staff for keeping him alive when, he said, "it could have gone either way."
"I have today left hospital after a week in which the NHS has saved my life, no question," said Johnson, who went on to list the names of some of the doctors and nurses who looked after him at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, which sits across the River Thames from Big Ben.
It is hard to find the words to express my debt to the NHS for saving my life.
The efforts of millions of people across this country to stay home are worth it. Together we will overcome this challenge, as we have overcome so many challenges in the past. #StayHomeSaveLivespic.twitter.com/HK7Ch8BMB5
— Boris Johnson #StayHomeSaveLives (@BorisJohnson) April 12, 2020
Johnson, 55, was a key campaigner in favor of Brexit in the 2016 referendum, a campaign that argued, in part, for leaving the European Union to cut and control immigration. But in his address Sunday, Johnson singled out two nurses who watched over him during a crucial 48-hour period — one from New Zealand, the other from Portugal, an EU country. The reference seemed a nod to the important role that foreign staff play in the NHS.
Johnson is recuperating at Chequers, the prime minister's country estate.
Johnson's release from the hospital comes as the United Kingdom's death toll from COVID-19 has passed 10,600, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University. One of the government's senior scientific advisers, Sir Jeremy Farrar, said the U.K. is likely to be "one of the worst, if not the worst affected country in Europe."
While Johnson praised NHS staff on Sunday, some health care workers say the government has failed to provide enough personal protective equipment (PPE). Health Secretary Matt Hancock triggered a backlash on Friday when he said staff should only use the equipment they clinically need and treat PPE as a "precious resource."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," responded Alan Courtney, an anesthesiologist in England. "I thought that the health care professionals were the precious resource."
Courtney said some workers are still not being supplied gear appropriate to the risks they are taking as they care for COVID-19 patients.
"It's easy to describe in very military type terms that we're the front line, that we're at war with this enemy," Courtney said. "You would still not send a soldier into a war zone without a gun. You know, you'd still give him a helmet."
At least 28 U.K. health care workers have died from COVID-19, according to the BBC.
