“There will be no celebration,” one parishioner said, in an audio message sent to the community.
This was supposed to be the point when Europe had beaten back the virus, allowing a return to semi-normalcy for Catholicism’s holiest week. But Italy, like much of Europe, is still besieged by infections, and the Easter mood this year feels nowhere near celebratory. Whether through lockdowns, sickness or canceled church ceremonies, the pandemic is still finding ways to interfere.
“There is a psychological sense of tiredness,” said Bishop Domenico Pompili, who needed to scramble to reorganize Masses because of infected clerics. “We never could have imagined such a perennial state of uncertainty.”
For Catholics across the world, this is the second Easter taking place amid the pandemic. And while the endpoint is emerging in a few countries, such as the United States, that have raced ahead with vaccinations, the picture is different in Europe, where the rollout has been dismally slow, and half the continent’s nations are in some form of lockdown.
That has made this strange Easter perhaps even harder to stomach than the last one. While the collective sense of fear has diminished, people are contending instead with disillusionment, economic pain and continued isolation. Restrictions aren’t nearly as strict as those a year ago — in part because people know more about what behaviors are riskiest — but holidays still come with a laundry list of confusing rules. In Italy, two adults can visit family or friends; three cannot.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, noting the surge in infections, said Easter this year should be “quiet.” In Paris, thousands of officers were deployed to enforce new restrictions, including a ban on movement of more than six miles from home.
“People are so tired,” Beatrice Paparo, 28, said on the streets of Rome, where people this weekend were lining up for rapid tests in preparation to see relatives — provided they live in the same region. But Paparo’s parents live in another region, and domestic border-crossing is still banned.
“So we’ll be alone,” said Paparo, who was planning a meal with her boyfriend. “For a second year.”
“This year, at least we can walk around” the city, her boyfriend, Lorenzo Piscitelli, 29, said. “But we’ll still be separated.”
At the Vatican, where Pope Francis normally delivers his Easter address to a teeming crowd of pilgrims, the pontiff instead spoke inside St. Peter’s Basilica, to a much smaller, socially distanced crowd.
“The Easter message does not offer us a mirage or reveal a magic formula,” the pope said. “It does not point to an escape from the difficult situation we are experiencing. The pandemic is still spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe.”
He called vaccines “an essential tool in this fight” and urged nations “to commit to overcoming delays in the distribution of vaccines and to facilitate their distribution, especially in the poorest countries.”
Churches across Italy were open for Easter Sunday — one difference from last year — but now that a deadlier and more transmissible variant has gained dominance across the continent, risks remain high. The European Union’s death rate is now more than twice as high as that of the United States. In Italy, the number of patients in intensive care beds is higher than when the country began its vaccine rollout three months ago.
And the toll has taken many forms. In Saturday’s La Repubblica newspaper, a front-page headline mentioned that Easter-related consumption was down 40 percent, compared with 2019. Another major newspaper, La Stampa, showed video of food bank lines, winding down the blocks of Milan.
“We all have experienced frailty. This is a fact,” said Father Gabriele Cimarelli, a missionary priest in the city of Parma.
The community of Xaverian missionaries where Cimarelli lives was particularly devastated. Last year, during the initial wave, 18 members — some one-third of the religious community — died. Cimarelli got sick and survived, but only after experiencing oxygen deprivation and delirium.
This year, shortly before Easter, Cimarelli said, the surviving missionaries held a memorial Mass. Their intention had been to invite family members of the dead, but coronavirus restrictions made it impossible.
“It’s not allowed for people from other regions and towns to come here,” Cimarelli said. “So, it was a partial commemoration.”
He said Easter, with its message of renewal, made him feel a little hope. He’d been vaccinated — as had the other survivors.
“We need to look to the future,” Cimarelli said. “But we won’t be as we used to.”
