How priests were kept out of hospitals

Mary Wakefield’s piece in today’s magazine – How the Catholic Church betrayed the dying – is right and eloquent in pointing out that there were Catholics dying in hospital from Covid who weren’t given the last rites for the absolution of their sins and the viaticum, the eucharist or food for the last journey. It is the least the Church can do for the faithful: to give them absolution of their sins at the last.

However, in giving the bishops a very needful rebuke, she perhaps didn’t have space to do justice to the work of priests on the ground and in hospitals. I have one friend who’s a chaplain in Dublin who’s been working throughout the pandemic – he’s been there for patients, for comfort, prayer, and confession when their families couldn’t be. Many chaplains in British hospitals have also continued to work, within the guidelines she talked about.