Card. Bassetti hopes to return to churches full of people

(ANSA) - PERUGIA, June 06 - "I hope that we can soon return that participation of the people of God that filled our churches": this is the wish expressed by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the CEI and archbishop of Perugia-Città della Pieve, in the homily of the solemnity of Corpus Domini celebrated in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. "Woe to us if we surrender and the great patrimony of our faith that arises from the Eucharist is cooled", he added. To then underline that many people, who have become accustomed to attending Mass while staying at home, find it difficult to return to church ".

    For Bassetti" the Eucharist is not only a rite that you attend, but, above all, it is the sacrifice of Christ that sirinnova and in which you participate and in which everyone, everyone,we are active part ".

    A celebration that did not culminate, for the second consecutive year, following the pandemic, with the traditional exuggestive procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the main streets of the historic center of the Umbrian capital. Instead, everything took place in the cathedral. With the faithful - reports the Archdiocese - present in small numbers, as the prelate noted in speaking of "withered faith" due to the pandemic but not only.

    "The first place that we must prepare for this feast - underlined the president of the CEI - is not something external, but it is our heart. At the time of St. Francis, the biographers say, Umbrian society was very dry, but today, unfortunately , also because of the pandemic, I also say, because all the blame should not be given to it, we have all dried up a little and I also see it in the Italian Church. church ... Today I see our semi-empty cathedral ... ". (HANDLE).