Pope Francis has welcomed doctors and nurses from the coronavirus-ravaged region of Lombardy to the Vatican to thank them for their selfless work and “heroic” sacrifice.
During the audience, Francis also took a dig at some conservative priests who chafed at lockdown measures, calling their complaints over church closures “adolescent."
Speaking off the cuff, Francis praised the “little gestures of creativity of love” they provided: a caress or the use of their cell phone “to bring together the old person who was about to die with his son or daughter to say goodbye, to see them for the last time...”In the audience were the bishops of some of the hardest-hit cities in Lombardy, as well as representatives of Italy's civil protection agency, which coordinated the emergency response and built field hospitals around the region.
At the end of the audience, Francis made sure that the doctors and nurses kept their distance, telling them he would come to them rather than have them line up to greet him and kiss his ring, as was the Vatican’s pre-pandemic practice.He also criticized as “adolescent” the complaints of some priests who bristled at lockdown measures, a reference to conservatives who blasted church closures as a violation of their religious liberty.
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