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3 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 JANUARY 2021 Mikiel Galea Letters & Clarifications Futile prayers ON March 10, 2020, a local newspaper reported that "priests were told to organ- ise special prayers for the spread of the pandemic to stop." On April 3, the same newspaper re- ported that Europe was "reeling from the pandemic" and that "the virus claimed thousands more lives in its relentless march across the globe." On May 30, Pope Francis recited the rosary from the Vatican gardens. He was joined by satellite by more than 50 Mar- ian shrines around the world. The Pope "asked Mary to intercede to save the world from the pandemic." On that day, coronavirus deaths were over 370,000. Since then, over 1,800,00 million human beings have perished in the pandemic. All the rosaries by more than 50 Marian shrines and Mary's "in- tercession" did not save those precious lives. On June 24, the media reported that "the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic was accelerating." Prayers proved just as futile during the Black Death in the 14th century. The bubonic plague spread throughout Eur- asia. In Europe, it killed over 20 million people. Penitential processions were held to try and stop the plague. Instead of stopping the pandemic through the "in- tercession" of Our Lady and the saints, the processions were sources of infec- tion, and they were eventually prohibited by Pope Clement VI. St Roch was the particular saint as- sociated with the plague. When his "intercession" did not stop the plague, the pandemic was ascribed to the "wrath of God". If this were true, God did not spare the pious clergy. At Avignon, where the papacy was located at that time, the plague killed 9 cardinals and 70 other prelates. The friars at the Franciscan convents of Car- cassonne and Marseilles all perished. Of the 140 Dominicans at Montpelier only seven survived. Similar mortality rates occurred at monasteries and con- vents throughout Europe. In destitute Rome, "goats nibbled in the weed-grown cloisters of deserted convents" (Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror). An ascetic life of constant prayer did not save the lives of the Carthusian monks of the monastery where Pe- trarch's brother Gherardo resided. He "buried the prior and 34 fellow monks, one by one, until he was left alone and fled to look for a place that would take him in" (Barbara Tuchman, ibid). The poet William Langland (1330- 1386) wrote in The Vision of Piers Plow- man: "Prayers have no power the Plague to stay." Giovanni Boccaccio made a similar observation in his book The Decameron: "Into the notable city of Florence, fairer than every other in Italy, there came [in 1348] the death-dealing pestilence [the Black Death]... Against this plague no wisdom or human foresight was any use... Equally useless were humble supplica- tions, made to God not once but many times, both in ordered processions and other ways, by devout persons." John Guillaumier St Julian's Abortion debate PROF. Isabel Stabile (Letters, 3 Jan- uary 2020) should have quoted me in full: "abortion... but by an unfailing determination to respect, protect, love and serve life-every human life at every stage and in every situation – those are philanthropic wise words by a Pope, if I am not mistaken. She would have the perfect solution." Even descending into the astonish- ing depths of absurdity, this some- times drags her along the way of de- nying the truth. I wonder how she considers the work she is doing and promoting as not pro-abortion. If that is not, what is? She should also know better, that every woman is responsible for the aftermath of a sex act in ordinary circumstances, except of course raping. John Azzopardi Zabbar