The Catholic author Vittorio Messori is criticising the Church for the “hasty suspension” of Masses, for churches being closed and then reopened, and for the “weakness of asking for free access even while respecting security measures.”
Messori told NCRegister.com (April 3) that he sees a “Church in retreat,” lacking a “mobilisation of the clergy that defined the Church in past times of plague.”
For Messori, the sight of St Peter’s Square closed off was “terrible to see” and gave the “widespread” impression of a Church barricaded inside, saying, “Deal with it yourselves; we are just trying to save our own skin.”