Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces, New Mexico is reversing his previous decision to ban public Masses due to the coronavirus pandemic and will allow Masses to resume, with restrictions.

With spring priestly ordinations just around the corner, many dioceses around the U.S. anticipate that state pandemic-related lockdown measures will extend into May and are pushing back their plans, while others are still weighing their options.

Bishop Giovanni Nerbini of Prato, Italy made six doctors extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist so that coronavirus patients could receive Communion on Easter, offering a new way to provide spiritual care and comfort.

Archbishop Blair also said in the memo that in regard to anointing of the sick, the duty cannot be delegated to someone else, such as a doctor or nurse.

In these difficult times, priests and their lay collaborators in Jesuit ministries across the United States are offering spiritual consolation in the form of live-streaming liturgical services.

They call on the church “not to be impressed” by “the bad advocacies, the diabolical lies, the erroneous ways by which they wished to devalue priestly celibacy” in the media reporting of that synod.