Dating as a young-adult Catholic in non-pandemic times was hard. Covid-19 isolation made it harder. It also gave me a new perspective.

The main body of protesters continued a diesel-rumbling siege of Parliament Hill, igniting fire pits on city streets and sounding truck horns at all hours, driving local residents to despair.

Italy’s Catholic military chaplain has pushed back strongly against calls by a former Vatican ambassador to resist Covid-19 vaccine mandates, saying the ambassador’s “conspiracy theories” were a source of confusion and disinformation.

As soon as he finished his prayer, Pope Francis told the people in the hall that the man had a problem: “I don’t know if it is physical, psychological or spiritual, but he is our brother with a problem. I would like to finish by praying for him.”

“We can hardly fail to see that these days, in addition to the pandemic, an ‘infodemic’ is spreading: a distortion of reality based on fear,” Pope Francis said Friday.

The pandemic is a terrible reality, but it is not hopeless. James Martin, S.J., offers a few tips drawn from Christian spirituality that have helped him avoid despair.