Levity in Plague Time
As of March 17, 2020, 147 of the 177 U.S. dioceses suspended Masses to help stop new Coronavirus infections. This included the small Diocese of Tyler, Texas, population 105,000. 
A week before, on March 11, 2020, Bishop Strickland tweeted his followers: “I call on every Catholic priest to lead a simple Eucharistic Procession around your Church sometime before the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, for repentance, Christ’s healing hand on the Coronavirus & and that all men may be Godly, manly sons & disciples of His Son Jesus Christ.”
There was no report in any Catholic publications of additional Eucharistic Processions to help stop the Coronavirus and transform queens into rugged Marlboro men.
I counted eight people in a picture of Bishop Strickland’s procession – nine if you want to include the presence of the Lord Jesus. If this ritual made each of them feel better, good, but the group looked sad.
The funniest Catholic response so far to the Coronavirus is Father Andrea Vena, the parish priest of Bibione, a town near Venice, Italy. Fr. Vena loaded a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on his little truck, and drives around town to bless streets, houses and people. When he was stopped by the Carabinieri he barked, “I’m working!!” “Like Jesus,” he told a reporter, “I went out of the temple of God to go among the people.” 
The priest uses his aspergillum to spray holy water on people…. probably not a smart move since the virus is spread by contact of moist droplets infected by the virus.
One man watching a video of Fr. Vena commented: “You are a perfect example of why many non-Catholic Christians think all Catholics are loons. To all non-Catholic Christians reading here, we are not all loons. As you can see, some Catholics definitely are.”
