Seven Priests in Italy Die Due to Coronavirus
As of yesterday morning (March 15th), seven priests have reportedly died from COVID-19 in Italy, the first to die from the global pandemic. Furthermore, twenty priests in the country were hospitalized because of the coronavirus.
Among those seven was Monsignor Vincenzo Rini (pictured above), a priest from the Diocese of Cremona near Milan which is close to the epicenter of the pandemic in Italy. Rini was buried in the diocesan cemetery, with his colleagues remembering him as representing “an open window to hope, the virtue that had always characterized his life.”
Rini, 75, devoted his 30 years of priestly ministry to journalism, calling it “a job done not as a journalist but as a priest, to proclaim the gospel through the newspapers.”
The Diocese of Cremona put a statement in remembrance of Rini which you can read here (via Google Translate) in which they paid tribute to the words he loved to repeat:
The other six perished priests were from the Diocese of Bergamo, also near Milan and one of the cities hardest hit by the pandemic. The Bishop of Bergamo Francesco Bechi said that “no one is exempt from this extremely painful trial” when reporting the deaths and hospitalizations of his priests.
Italy has 24,747 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 1,809 deaths as of March 15th.
By U Catholic
